Romney For President

I think that was my longest absence from the blog. Sorry folks.

National Review just gave their endorsement for Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate. That's a pretty big deal. Here is the script of their endorsement. Then this is a portion of an interview with one of the people at NR that explains a little bit more about what went into the decision to settle on Romney.

A comment was made on my last post about Romney's speech on religion, that his two biggest stumblingblocks were his religion and his stance on abortion. This was a commentary that she had overheard. I can see why people might jump to that conclusion - that he only spoke about his religion to get away from the abortion issue - but I just don't think that's true. The flip-flopping question will plague him the entire campaign. And he addressed it very simply in the online YouTube debate for the GOP candidates saying simply,

If people in this country are looking for someone who's never made a mistake on a policy issue and is not willing to admit they're ever wrong, they're going to have to find somebody else. On abortion, I was wrong.

The reason I think that opinion is wrong is that he had yet to really confront the religion issue, whereas the abortion question, he has had to reaffirm his stance several times. This most recent declaration I think is pretty emphatic and pretty direct. For most people, the problem they have with Romney is that it feels like he will say basically whatever needs to be said in order to get a leg up. I don't doubt that that might be true. The part that I don't like is that it seemed that he adopted a stance on an issue that directly conflicts with the church's position on the issue. Whether or not he actually endorsed abortion or not I think is not entirely relevant. Whatever he was wrong about, if it was his personal promotion of abortion or just that he advocated a policy permitting abortion, he clearly states that he was mistaken.

You might remember another prominent conservative who flip-flopped on abortion as well, Ronald Reagan. The guy even changed his entire party affiliation, going from Democrat to Republican. Want another example? Winston Churchill. Sometimes people really do change. Regarding this issue, Churchill said, "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain." I guess I'm more brain than heart.

One last thing about the GOP candidates: we really have a pretty good field to choose from. Romney is my favorite because I really do believe he's the best representation of a conservative, but the other candidates are also very viable possibilities. Although Giuliani isn't socially conservative, he would have a tough foreign policy and I think fiscally pretty conservative in his roots. McCain, probably the most liberal, is someone who stands his ground regardless of what is going on around him. Thompson is pretty much a corpse at this point. The only one I don't really like is Huckabee. He has little experience and just doesn't seem like someone who can go toe-to-toe with any of the Democratic candidates. My biggest concern with Romney is that we like him as a conservative, but will the nation like him as president? While he can keep the conservative base together better than anybody else, it's still unclear if he can get any portion of the liberal voters.

I was thinking about how tiresome it is that the campaigns started essentially a year ago and we are still a whole year away from the actual election. However, I started thinking about the job that these people are applying for and it really should be under the most intense scrutiny. Is there a more important position in the entire world? Being what it is, we should really pay attention to what is going on with it and know exactly who and what it is that we are supporting.