By Molly BernitzSPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
I’ll be the first to admit it: Before the Republican primaries were well underway, I had never paid much attention to right-wing politics. I’ve always agreed with the Democratic ideology, so I wasn’t following the election closely until it became a two-way race between President Obama and Gov. Romney. But reflecting on the road to the election now I know him well enough to know that I’ll never know the real Mitt Romney as far as his political leanings go.
I knew little about Romney before he became the Republican candidate, but since then I have been introduced to three different Mitt Romneys. First I met Massachusetts Mitt Romney who, as governor, passed the first healthcare law of its kind, supported sex education in public schools, signed into law a permanent state ban on assault weapons, supported greenhouse gas regulations and prior to his governorship famously said, “I’ll be better than Ted [Kennedy] for gay rights” in his unsuccessful run for US Senate in 1994. If this Mitt Romney was running for president right now, I might consider voting for him. However, I met the second Mitt in the past year.
“Severely” Conservative Mitt Romney was introduced to the world at CPAC. He supported constitutional amendments banning abortion as well as same-sex marriage. He supported the Blunt Amendment that would have outlawed a woman’s access to contraception at her employer’s will, argued for self-deportation and called Arizona’s “show me your papers” immigration policy “a model for the nation.” And once Mitt officially won the Republican primary, he shook up his Etch-a-Sketch identity once again in time for the general election.
Now the world has been introduced to Mitt Romney’s third identity: a mix between the moderate and extreme conservative Romneys. But it is not a smooth merge: Romney is constantly juggling his progressive Massachusetts views with his severely conservative views to create the version of himself with a chance at winning.
Romney is an infamous flip-flopper. He switches views according to the political climate at the time, a tactic that won’t help in the long run. For example, Romney once said, “I believe that humans contribute” to climate change. Several months later, he said, “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change.” These statements are concerning to East Coasters in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, especially when coupled with his statement that the private sector should absorb the responsibilities of FEMA not a year ago. And now that Romney is being examined for his reaction to the hurricane, his campaign recently stated the caveat, “State assistance includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”
Not long after supporting the Blunt Amendment, Romney said, “I don’t believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not” at the second presidential debate. He also famously wrote “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” in 2008, only to try taking credit away from President Obama saving the auto industry in May.
My biggest issue with Mitt Romney isn’t that he supports millionaires over the 47 percent, though he certainly does. It isn’t that he won’t stand up and proudly support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It isn’t that he hosts fundraisers with Donald Trump, who constantly seeks attention from the media to spread his crazy political theories and who just last week demanded the release of President Obama’s college transcripts. My biggest issue with Romney is that I can’t trust him. I simply don’t know who he is or what he stands for. Perhaps, it is a god-sent that we did not vote him into office considering the confusion he inspired from his political career to the end of his presidential campaign.
Romney’s campaign was based solely on changing to fit the mood of the loudest voices in the country. It’s one thing to “evolve” on an issue or two, as we have seen under President Obama as same-sex marriage has become more accepted. It is another thing to not possess any consistent beliefs over the course of an entire political career. That is why I cannot trust Mitt Romney and therefore did not vote for him.