The American Spectator

Teflon93| 10.28.09 @ 10:58AM

This is why I cannot support Romney---he is simply a liar, and the worst sort of fabulist: he thinks he's too slick to get caught.

Steve| 10.28.09 @ 11:59AM

This is an example of the attack Romney at all costs mentality that exists in the mind of many Republicans. They refuse to admit that Romney is the GOP candidate with the best shot at returning America to the good old days of the Reagan era.

Taggre| 10.28.09 @ 12:45PM

It is a true statement. Romney wingdings may feel being seen for what he is an attack but... truth, is truth. Nice, thing about being an American, at this point in history, we still can say what we see in a candidate, and what the candidates may want to deny about themselves.

Dan| 10.28.09 @ 11:18AM

We need Mitt Romney as our president more than ever! He is the master at turning things around and our country needs a turnaround badly.

Jan| 10.28.09 @ 1:11PM

Is it 'turn around' or 'turn coat'?
Romney absent governor --- out to state for 200 or so days.

GREENFIELD -- Residents and local officials lashed out yesterday at Governor Mitt Romney, saying he had been slow to respond to the destruction caused by torrential rains in Greenfield and other parts of Western Massachusetts over the weekend.

he said she has been trying to get in touch with Romney, but as of late yesterday afternoon had been able to reach only Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey's chief of staff.

http://www.boston.com/news/loc....._response/

Feb. 15--BOSTON -- Bay State Republicans are torn about presidential candidate and former Gov. Mitt Romney. He's the first viable Republican presidential candidate out of Massachusetts in decades, but several still blame the absent governor for leaving the Republican state party in shambles.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com.....pport.html

iamse7en| 10.28.09 @ 4:56PM

Look, I was a big Romney supporter in the 2008 primaries. He was SO MUCH better than McCain. While everyone was focusing on his abortion past, many conservative talk-radio guys endorsed him way too late. He was clearly the best choice between McCain, Suckabee, and himself.

2012 could be a different scenario. I like Romney's pro-business stances. However, this health care debacle is a big negative for him. I wish he'd come out and say, "I should never have signed this thing, and mandates don't work." But he won't. I like his ideas and rationale on most other issues. He still could be the best viable option. We'll have to see.

Everyone is going to have issues. Huckabee's anti-market rhetoric and tax-raising past makes him awful.

I love Palin, but the media may have ruined her, unfairly, in the eyes of many independents and even Republicans. She may not even run.

TPaw? Don't know enough about him, but he could be just another big-government Republican.

It's too bad we can't have someone like Ron Paul.

Bill| 10.28.09 @ 11:44AM

I wish Am Spectator would bring more light and less heat to the facts about the MA health care law. New poll found 70% of MA doctors support it, as does 60% of the general public in that state. It is NOT breaking the bank, as has been documented by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundatoin. In fact, the state's cost amounts to 1% of the state budget. There is no public option. There were no higher taxes in the Romney plan, as there are in the Baucus bill. RomneyCare HAS lowered the cost of health care in the individual insurance market, but it's true the cost of an MRI is the same now as it was pre-reform. Lowering the cost of an MRI was not the point of the bill Romney signed into law. The point was to increase coverage to everyone. Having achieved near-universal access, MA is now moving on to phase II, which is payment reform.

Travis| 10.28.09 @ 11:50AM

Remember, RomneyCare was for Massachusetts and tons of Democrats and Liberals. Universal healthcare was going to be passed, Romney just tried to do it in a market or Republicanish way. RomneyCare was a compromise. He doesn't deserve all the credit or blame.

Bren| 10.28.09 @ 11:53AM

Romney's biggest problem is being associaed with Massachussettes. It was its legislature which created the high costs. Romney was overriden several times on those key measures.

Romney's idea was to get those who could afford health care to pay for it, instead of sponging off of the state. The Mass legislature had visions of universal coverage. Romney was practially the only Republican there.

He was there because of his skills at budgeting, and he did an excellent job for the state on that. He left the state a surplus while he entered with an existing deficit.

His economic skills are what count the most.

ps. It was the Mass Supreme Court which mandated the famous $50 abortions. It was never in the health plan.

Jan| 10.28.09 @ 1:20PM

So, Ann dated Stake President Cameron, that secret wasn’t being shared!

tj| 10.28.09 @ 12:12PM

Want to do something constructive... VOTE EM ALL OUT 2010/2012. I just donated to Marko Rubio of Florida, Doug Hoffman of NY, and David Harmer of California. "We the People" can win this if we all take up the mantle against corruption and take back our country. I will never send the GOP any money evuh again until or when they return to conservative values....they just don't get it!!! Duh! What part of you lost the last 2 elections does the GOP NOT UNDERSTAND???

Taggre| 10.28.09 @ 12:32PM

I agree, Romney is a liar, a child who is constantly caught with his hands in the cookie jar, and one who tries to come up with a good cover story mommy will buy.

Romney doesn't think about costs, because he has always been spoiled, and self focused.

No one with any sense, could ever support Romney as a candidate.

Jan| 10.28.09 @ 12:41PM

Come on Bren, stop playing the ‘blame game’, Romney played up to everyone in Mass, to get elected, Romney claimed he wasn’t a conservative and told every lie in the book to get elected as Gov. in Mass. Then Romney flipped, when Mitt wanted to run for President. Romney is nothing but a forked tongued chameleon, who thinks so little of Americans; he feels they will fall for all his lies. Romney represents everything which is wrong with America - fibs and flips, spoiled, and greedy.

Susan| 10.28.09 @ 12:45PM

I disagree with those calling Romney. How does one come to the conclusion that Romney is "spoiled" and "self focused"? How can you be so sure of this? I wonder if you could interview Romney yourself and then report back.

"I wish Am Spectator would bring more light and less heat to the facts about the MA health care law. New poll found 70% of MA doctors support it, as does 60% of the general public in that state. It is NOT breaking the bank, as has been documented by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundatoin. In fact, the state's cost amounts to 1% of the state budget. There is no public option. There were no higher taxes in the Romney plan, as there are in the Baucus bill. RomneyCare HAS lowered the cost of health care in the individual insurance market, but it's true the cost of an MRI is the same now as it was pre-reform. Lowering the cost of an MRI was not the point of the bill Romney signed into law. The point was to increase coverage to everyone. Having achieved near-universal access, MA is now moving on to phase II, which is payment reform."

I appreciate information more than opinion.

"Romney's biggest problem is being associaed with Massachussettes. It was its legislature which created the high costs. Romney was overriden several times on those key measures.

Romney's idea was to get those who could afford health care to pay for it, instead of sponging off of the state. The Mass legislature had visions of universal coverage. Romney was practially the only Republican there.

He was there because of his skills at budgeting, and he did an excellent job for the state on that. He left the state a surplus while he entered with an existing deficit.

His economic skills are what count the most.

ps. It was the Mass Supreme Court which mandated the famous $50 abortions. It was never in the health plan.:"

Thank you for sharing information we can check on.

Taggre| 10.28.09 @ 1:16PM

O.K. I agree I will interview Romney. It is a deal, lets do it!......... Let's make an appointment with Sandy Rios, and all three or, four of us, can sit down and have a chat. Bring bro. Scott along, and we can have a great on the air talk!

Let's schedule it!

Brad| 10.28.09 @ 1:48PM

The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

To paraphrase Henry Higgins of "My Fair Logic" - Why is thinking something (liberals) never do? Why is logic never even tried? Straight'ning up their hair is all they ever do. Why don't they straighten up the mess that's inside?

Jed| 10.28.09 @ 2:27PM

A few important points:

1) RomneyCare IS popular in Massachusetts, if you can call a majority favoring it popular. (Ideally it should be universally popular for a program this big.)

2) Romney's version of the program WAS deficit neutral. It was Democrat amendments that brought the cost up.

3) Saying this is financially disastrous for Massachusetts is obvious, given that they were already in trouble. Romney rescued the state from bankruptcy. It is no surprise that they and their liberal (CA-like) spending policies have gotten back in the same predicament so quickly without him.

4) We should be thanking Romney for leadership in an area that is ultimately creating a warning for the rest of the country.

5) While costs were never addressed, they would have been the next item on the agenda, and he did talk about it. Democrats simply haven't cared to cut them. Maybe cutting out abortions would save some money?

6) Theoretically health care exchanges should have done the trick on reducing costs. They didn't.

7) The best argument is still to open up national markets to all insurance companies, if you want competition.

Anyway, thank you Mitt for this important experiment that may still be refined. In theory it works. In practice, it is still incomplete.

Gina| 10.28.09 @ 9:52PM

Yeah, thanks for your leadership, Mitt; now, we know that you don't have any.

Talk about democrat-lite, you're a RINO from hell.

Lori| 10.28.09 @ 3:59PM

Philip Klein and oft critic of the former MA gov goes down the only road he knows. He picks apart words and syntax to mischaracterize Romney's record. He did this often during the past presidential primary and Klein apparently thinks it is working for him because he continues to do it absent of any election for Romney. Pathetic. Klein you missed the point entirely. The point is, the reform Romney signed was to expand health coverage. It was not health care reform but insurance reform. The costs of health care services, doctors, and medicine is a separate issue from the cost and accesss to insurance. I wish you could resist your baser instincts to distort and criticize and emphasize his point which is entirely missed by network news, the NY times and most mainstream outlets and potential rival politicians. You must have an alterior motive.

SoCon| 10.28.09 @ 4:17PM

Myth Romney--the cardboard cutout RINO politician. Thanks, but no thanks.

Palin 2012

Nick| 10.28.09 @ 4:40PM

If Mr. Romney was such a great leader on this matter and democrats blocked his plan or haven't addressed the costs or whatever, why didn't he run for re-election and finish what he started?

That is what a true leader would have done.

If he cared so much for the people of Massachusetts , shouldn't he stayed and fought for what was right? No, he was just using the governor's office as a stepping stone to the highest office in the land.

Mr. Romney had a choice in the 2002 election. He could stay in Boston by running for governor of the Peoples Republik of Mass. as a pro-abortion liberal. Or he could've come home to Michigan, and ran as a conservative against Jenni-pooh Granholm.

He made a bad choice and will never be president.

Misty| 10.28.09 @ 6:29PM

Wait til TPaw's record in MN comes under scrutiny. Governors with liberal records shouldn't throw stones.

SoCon| 10.28.09 @ 8:00PM

Yeah, I heard about TPaw's 'nuanced' position' on Crap and Trade. Hmmm.

That's a killer.

kingsmill| 10.29.09 @ 10:52AM

Mitt is not a conservative. He is in the tradition of Nelson Rockefeller or John Lindsay.

He has attempted to recreate himself as a conservative by spreading his wealth around to beltway "conservatives" and other pliable publicists.

Unlike Reagan, who constructed his persona around strongly held beliefs. Mitt has built his persona around an image of conservatism. He can toss off his "principles" as easily as he dumped and recreated companies at Bain Capital.

Robert| 10.29.09 @ 11:41PM

Another problem for Pawlenty is his energy policies.

While Pawlenty now claims to be against Cap & Trade, for many years he was a big Cap & Trade guy. He even went so far as to champion his own regional Cap & Trade, I guess he was afraid that the Democrats might not be able to ram it down our throats, or at least not as fast as Pawlenty would like.

Palenty also signed into law legislation requiring power utilities in Minnesota to buy increasing amounts of expensive "green" energy, effectively an ever increasing tax on Minnesota citizens.

Palenty as President or VP? No Thanks!