ROMNEY NEEDS TO TRY A NEW VEIN

When I returned from vacation, I found The Ranter's Row had languished a bit while I was away. Apparently, Statler is feeling some ennui about the lack of movement in the world of politics right now. I'm not as much, so here are my thoughts:

Yes, it's true. Not much has happened in politics over the past week or so, despite the former fever pitch around the GOP nomination in the race up to the next presidential election. There's been some name-calling and hair-pulling, but not much else that's new or exciting, as far as I can see.

An area that has remained status quo that I would like to comment on, however, has been Mitt Romney's quest to tell every conservative group exactly what they want to hear on the off chance it may garner him more support or campaign funds.

This New York Times piece from the Sunday edition talked about how Romney is now claiming that if given the job of President of the United States, he will eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and appoint judges that will reverse Roe v. Wade. Fortunately for women everywhere in the U.S., even if he somehow did manage to become president, it's not that simple to change the things he claims to want to change.

Just as it isn't just a matter of signing an executive order to end the Affordable Healthcare Act, which Michele Bachmann so helpfully (for once) pointed out during one of the past debates, there's a lot more to enacting conservative federal policies than what Romney suggests. But, the only thing Mitt Romney really cares about is how these stances sound when he's addressing the Values Voter Summit, as he was this past Saturday.

As far as he's concerned, the best way to prove that a politician of the Mormon faith can be likable to conservative Christian voters is to throw out the same bricks that supposedly-conservative politicians always throw on the fire: revoking women's rights to low-cost health services and revoking women's rights to autonomy.

Romney's campaign crisis is really that he's not conservative, but rather than grow a spine and stand by what he truly believes in, he would rather punt at every fourth down.

• Romney formerly supported gay marriage; now that that position hurts him with conservatives, he says he's opposed to equal recognition.
• Romney created the Massachusetts state-wide health plan (with an individual mandate) that ensured just about every citizen in the state has the health coverage they need; now that the Tea Party thinks it's horrible to make sure people have healthcare, he says it won't work for the nation.
• Romney was pro-choice; in front of conservative voters, he says it's better to return to a time when women died from abortions they performed on their own or were performed by unlicensed "doctors".

I have little desire to see a GOP presidential candidate gain the White House in 2012, and for the record, I think the chances of that happening are pretty slim, regardless of Obama's approval rating. However, what separates candidates like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann apart from candidates like Mitt Romney is the fact that they have positions that are theirs alone, and they stick to them. Conservatives and Tea Baggers tried to get Perry to back down from his stance that illegal immigrants deserve the same rights to higher education as full-fledged citizens, but he won't.

Whatever else you may say about Perry, you cannot say that he backs down from what he really believes in. The same cannot be said about Mitt Romney.

Penn
(go to the Toasted Filberts blog to read my other blog posts)