Romey's Opportunism

I've been aware of the buzz around Mitt Romney's very late in life conversion to cultural conservatism, but it seemed to me that either nobody noticed how recently this had happened or else that I'd completely lost my mind. I'll tell you that, for example, I lived in Massachusetts in 2002 and very clearly remember his campaign strongly emphasizing his pro-choice views. Then I left the state in the spring of 2003, and a bit more than a year later there was suddenly talk of him running for president. At any rate, you won't frequently see me recommending Weekly Standard articles, but Jennifer Rubin has a nice piece running through all of this. Look, for example, at the Planned Parenthood question sheet he filled out in 2002:

Do you support the substance of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade? YES

Do you support state funding of abortion services through Medicaid for low-income women? YES

In 1998 the FDA approved the first packaging of emergency contraception, also known as the "morning after pill." Emergency contraception is a high dose combination of oral contraceptives that if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, can safely prevent a pregnancy from occurring. Do you support efforts to increase access to emergency contraception? YES

As you can see in the Medicaid answer, he wasn't even a moderate on the issue -- Romney was taking a strong, strong pro-choice stance. Maybe pro-lifers just enjoy being lied to, but I think it's got to be obvious at this point that you can't trust anything Romney says on the subject of what he thinks about political issues. It doesn't seem like a quality you'd want in a presidential nominee.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/01/romeys-opportunism/41307/