3Q WORLD TOUR: The Mitt-igator

Is Mitt Romney the Teflon candidate of 2008? For his sake, he had better be. Romney has been all under the news lately. Last week his official announcement on Tuesday (prepared remarks here) was overshadowed by the Valentine's Day snowstorm that shut down the East Coast. He was cut short on an early Bush endorsement. Worst of all have been the growing number of recent disclosures that Mitt has been changing a lot of his opinions with the convenient timing of the 2008 election cycle's beginning. The more I read about him, the more I become completely baffled by his candidacy. On the one hand, I will freely admit that he has a certain je ne aise quoi about him, and I don't think I am the only one who believes that. Plus he likes to use charts, and who doesn't love charts?!! Even though the news hasn't been the greatest, and not a lot of people had heard of the guy six months ago, it seems like the more people hear, the more they want to know.

But will they like what they hear? Mitt, it seems, is more than willing to try his darnedest to make that answer "yes". But is his darnedest too darned much? First it was his abortion flop, based on his 1994 statement an abortion, "I believe society should allow individuals to do whatever they choose," that he is currently running away from as quickly as possible. Then came his statement to the Log Cabin Republicans on gay rights: "We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern." Uh oh. That may have worked well in Provincetown, but it ain't working in Allentown. Queue up 2006, and he is pushing a ballot to ban gay marriage in Mass. Last of all his been his NRA flap. The Boston Globe revealed yesterday that Romney joined the NRA in August of 2006. I imagine he said something a long the lines of: "You know, I have always been a strong supporter of gun rights, but my planned neighborhood in Belmont, a dry town you know, didn't allow gun owners until very recently." Actually, I think his official response was through a spokesman and basically said, "we care about the future of gun freedom and not the past." The Republicans would show themselves, and not for the first time, to be extremely hypocritical if they elected a flip-flop artist from Massachusetts to represent them. At this point, we know Sam Brownback won't allow it. Then again, as Mitt himself said, "I was not always a Ronald Reagan conservative. Neither was Ronald Reagan, by the way. But like him, I learned with experience."

In other news, Republican candidate Ron Paul is sponsoring a hemp bill along with 9 Democratic co-sponsors including Dem candidate Dennis Kucinich. Oh, and don't get me started about how more and more columnists are talking about the potential demise of face-to-face campaigning. I think one of these days I am going to write a 15,000 word rant about it. Long Live the Granite State!

Still in the Tac,
BTB