Most media coverage of last Thursday’s GOP debate has focused on
the war of words fought by the two front runners, but the crucial
exchange of the evening didn’t occur between Gingrich and Romney.
The most telling moment of the debate was the latter’s response to
Rick Santorum’s eloquent explanation of Obamacare’s importance to
the GOP’s strategy in the general election and why giving Romney
the nomination would be tantamount to surrendering the high ground
on health reform: “Folks, we can’t give this issue away in this
election. It is about fundamental freedom.” The former
Massachusetts governor responded with the usual rote talking
points, which Santorum vehemently rejected. Romney then uttered the
most revealing words of the debate: “First of all, it’s not worth
getting angry about.”
Most Republican voters, and more than a few independents,
would disagree. Romney apparently didn’t notice that the hundreds
of thousands of people who showed up at the nation’s capitol to
protest the impending passage of Obamacare were pretty angry. In
fact, after the law was passed over their vehement objections, a
significant portion of the voters were so outraged by the back-room
skullduggery used to pass “reform” that many Democrats were
actually afraid to hold town hall meetings and face their own
constituents during the run-up to the 2010 midterms. Moreover,
despite the many whoppers told by the President’s accomplices in
the media about the “anti-incumbent mood” of the electorate, the
drubbing the Democrats received in that election was obviously
driven by voter indignation about being force-fed
Obamacare.
And the anger remains. That is why Obama’s recent State of
the Union address contained only three references to his “signature
domestic achievement.” This is, as Michael Barone
puts it, “the strongest evidence possible” that the President
sees Obamacare as “a millstone around the neck of his campaign.”
Thus, he and his minions will not have missed the significance of
Romney’s prissy rebuke of Santorum’s passionate plea not to “give
this issue away.” They no doubt recognized it as a Freudian slip
betraying Romney as a man without real convictions, and realize
that this is the source of his countless flip-flops. In the art of
politics, as in the art of war, the key to victory is knowledge of
one’s enemy. Having cut their political teeth in Chicago, the
President’s men know a trimmer when they see one and what it takes
to defeat him.
The only real difference between Romney and Obama’s
long-ago-vanquished opponents is that the Chi-town pols were less
amateurish. Romney’s reversals of position have been so frequent
and transparently self-serving that a moderately intelligent
preschooler could see through them. Health reform is Exhibit A.
When running against Ted Kennedy for the Senate in 1994, Romney
represented himself as the champion of a free market health
system: “I do not believe in a government takeover of the
healthcare system.” After becoming Governor of Massachusetts,
however, his position changed so radically that he signed a health
reform law that later became the model for Obamacare. Now, he
claims to oppose Obama’s version of the plan, though the two laws
are identical in all important respects.
Romney would also have us believe that he will repeal
Obamacare in its entirety. He has made this claim in virtually
every Republican debate. During his exchange with Santorum on
Thursday, for example, he phrased it thus: “It’s bad medicine, it’s
bad for the economy, and I will repeal it.” Predictably, this
differs from what he
said immediately after the law was passed: “I hope we’re
ultimately able to… repeal the bad and keep the good.” It also
conflicts with what his people are saying even now. During a recent
interview one of Romney’s most important advisors
said, “We’re not going to do repeal… but you will see major
changes… You can’t whole-cloth throw it out. But you can
substantially change what’s been done.” This is no more than the
President and the Democrats themselves have promised.
Romney’s affinity with Democrat positions has not been
limited to health reform, of course. He has, for example, often
agreed with them on Second Amendment rights. While running for
Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he repeatedly stated that he
supported that state’s tough gun laws. And, in 2004, he famously
signed into law a ban on so-called assault weapons and even certain
types of shotguns. By the time he had begun his first presidential
campaign, however, his views had “evolved.” In a 2007 speech to the
NRA, he
declared, “I support the Second Amendment as one of the most
basic and fundamental rights of every American.” During his current
bid for the presidency, Romney has dodged gun control questions in
the debates and his campaign website offers no hint as to his
position du jour.
Perhaps the most egregious of Romney’s one-eighties have
involved abortion. He has changed his position on that issue at
least three times. During the 1994 Senate race against Kennedy he
said, “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this
country.” In 2001, however, he published a letter in The Salt
Lake Tribune in which he wrote, “I do not wish to be labeled
prochoice.” If the “evolution” had stopped there, many would accept
what could well have been a genuine change of heart. But when he
ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he declared, “I will
protect the right of a woman to choose under the law of the country
and the laws of the Commonwealth.” Now, for purposes of his current
presidential campaign, he’s again “pro-life.” How he avoids vertigo
while executing so many pirouettes is anyone’s guess.
Presumably, Romney would admonish us that his about-faces
are “not worth getting angry about.” That may be the one thing he
really believes. What he and his supporters in the GOP
establishment don’t get, however, is that real voters take these
things very seriously. Those who vote based on abortion and gun
rights are justifiably angered by politicians who make promises
about which they forget the day after being elected. When Rick
Santorum’s tone during last Thursday’s debate betrayed annoyance at
Romney’s health care contortions, it was because he actually cares
about the threat to basic liberty presented by Obamacare. It’s not
an easy thing for a man of genuine principle to tolerate an
opportunist like Romney, who obviously sees the issue as just
another lever that he can use to hoist himself into public
office.
It will, however, be very easy for Obama and his
creatures to exploit Romney’s flip-flops in the general election.
They will make sure the voters understand that these reversals
reveal Romney as just another unprincipled politician willing to
say anything to win the election. That the President himself is cut
of the same cloth won’t matter. The reporters and bloggers whose
job it is to point that out will be dutifully reciting White House
talking points. One wonders if, after his resultant loss in
November, Romney will find this “worth getting angry
about.”
