Mitt Romney: A Changed Man

Washington Post: GOP Candidate's Ideological Turnabout Has Critics Wondering: Who Is This Guy?

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by David Segal.

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Like every great sales pitch, Mitt Romney's case for Mitt Romney is low on the hard sell.

At the Sheraton Hotel here one recent morning, the boasting is handled by a former governor of South Carolina, who opens this "Ask Mitt Anything" session with a precis of the candidate's career. This includes academic achievements (Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School "in four years!") and election as governor of Massachusetts in 2002, which is described in a tone befitting a miracle.

"He ran for governor in the bluest state of all blue states," says James Edwards, "the bluest state you can think of, as a conservative Republican, and he won 51 percent of the vote in a four-way race without a runoff!"

Romney deflects the praise with a regionally tailored quip. "It's like that song, maybe you've heard it," he says, about to quote country star Toby Keith. "'I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was.'" He's an unlikely honky-tonker, this 60-year-old who's spent his adult life in the suburbs of Boston and looks like the mayor of whatever town the Cleavers lived in. During his pre-Q&A remarks, Romney speaks with an assortment of golly-geeisms straight out of the '50s, with lots of sunny talk about values, the importance of a big military, the virtues of small government. He repeats the word "strong" so often you'd think he's earning royalties from it.

"People in this country, they warm to the message that I've described -- of a strong America, a strong military, strong economic vitality and strong families," he says.

As a performance, it's smooth, folksy and winningly sincere. But it doesn't sound much like the man who won that vote in Massachusetts. That Romney positioned himself, and for a while governed as, a moderate: in favor of abortion rights, courting gay voters and crusading on environmental matters in a way that had the state's green activists pinching themselves with joy.

He now says his pro-choice leanings were a mistake. He has become one of the country's highest-profile opponents of gay marriage, and he warns against taking Al Gore's side regarding action on global warming.

Many candidates change. Romney seems to have given himself a makeover. Which has prompted more than a few people to ask: Who is this guy?

The search for an Overarching Theory of Mitt has been a preoccupation in Massachusetts, where his journey rightward played out in a highly public way. His fans say he simply evolved; his detractors call him a flip-flopper. But talk to those who've watched him longest, and some who were personally wooed during his run for governor, and you'll hear something else. The man is a born salesman, they say, and he has taken the modus operandi of selling to a whole different level in the world of politics.

"To Mitt Romney, politics is just another product," says Jeffrey Berry, a professor of politics at Tufts University and longtime Romney watcher. "Products can be recast, reshaped and remarketed in endless ways. Now, that might sound cynical, but Mitt isn't a charlatan. He's simply had so much success in the business world that his approach in that realm seems like the natural way of doing things."

Venturing Into Capital

All politicians must sell, of course, but none is steeped in the art of the sale quite like Romney. It's a talent he inherited from his father, a three-term governor of Michigan who once ran American Motors Corp. and logged thousands of miles to push its compact cars. A Time magazine cover story in 1959 recounted his visits to women's clubs, where his patter included the line, "Ladies! Why do you drive such big cars?"

After the younger Romney collected those Harvard degrees, he spent more than a dozen years as a venture capitalist, a job that requires you to pitch to companies (so they will let you acquire them) and to banks (so they will issue loans) and to investors (so they will invest).

As CEO of Bain Capital, a Boston-based firm that he founded in 1984, Romney bought all or parts of companies selling mattresses (Sealy), sneakers (Sports Authority), vibrating massage chairs (Brookstone), pizza (Domino's) and corporations in fields such as telecommunications, broadcasting, food service and on and on. Bain started with $37 million under management; by the time he left in 1999, that figure was more than $4 billion.

The job that followed, running the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, was a sell-a-thon, too. "Turnaround," his book about that experience, is unique among candidate bios in its attempt to wring drama from a cross-country rush to lock down sponsorship deals. This includes an eleventh-hour, face-to-face pitch to Gateway, from whom Romney hoped to get 5,000 computers.

"We have to know right away," Romney quotes himself saying to then-Gateway CEO Jeff Weitzen. "We have to start buying computers, or get them from you."

Romney clinched that deal. His only rough patch in the realm of persuasion came in his late teens, in France, where he served as a Mormon missionary, and went door to door evangelizing for his church. He tried everything to win converts -- singing, playing basketball, even giving lectures on archaeology, according to a letter he sent to his parents at the time, published recently by the Boston Globe. Nothing worked.

But he didn't hear a lot of "non merci" after that. Eventually he built a personal fortune pegged in the neighborhood of $350 million in the private sector. His latest pitch, for the Oval Office, is going poorly or pretty well, depending on whether you're talking about the whole country or key primary states. Nationally, Romney shows up in fourth place in polls, and he has lost the huge lead he once held in New Hampshire, where he's currently tied for first with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. He's leading, however, in Iowa. During a recent swing through South Carolina, he drew decent crowds and plenty of voters who were impressed with his background.

"He got elected in Massachusetts, which I consider a breakaway state of the Soviet Union," said Carl Langley, a retired newspaper columnist, after an "Ask Mitt Anything" event in Aiken, S.C.

What earned him that job in Massachusetts, though, is an idea that he doesn't mention much any longer. Back in 2002, he emphasized one promise, time and again: He would be the state's No. 1 salesman.

"There's virtually not a chief executive officer in the country that won't let me in to sit down with them in their office to pitch Massachusetts," Romney said at a typical campaign appearance in 2002, before the Massachusetts Software & Internet Council. "And that is what I'll do, inside Massachusetts, outside Massachusetts, outside of our country, to encourage businesses to come grow and thrive in the most robust portion of the economy, Massachusetts."

'Hearts Were Broken'

At that time, Romney deflected many of the social-conservative issues that he now embraces, and he charmed a handful of left-leaning interest groups who might otherwise have been enemies. A few of them say they wound up with the political version of buyer's remorse.

Including NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. In September 2002, at a face-to-face meeting at Romney's headquarters in Cambridge, Romney assured a delegation from the group that, no, he would not impinge on abortion rights. And yes, he would like to see easier access to emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B. He closed the meeting by taking on a just-between-us tone and saying, essentially, You need Republicans like me. And the party needs candidates like me, because this issue is killing the party, according to Melissa Kogut, who was then executive director of the organization. He didn't expect an endorsement, he told her, but he hoped the organization would refrain from attacking him during the campaign.

Which the group did, stressing instead its support for Democrat Shannon O'Brien. Kogut said at a news conference before the election that it would be "dangerous" not to elect a leader on this issue, but that's a long way from the war she and her colleagues would have declared against an antiabortion candidate.

Romney also awed the state's Log Cabin chapter, meeting with the gay Republican group in October 2002 and wowing attendees with opinions on domestic-partnership benefits in the workplace (he was for them) and discrimination based on sexual orientation (strongly against).

He spoke against gay marriage, one attendee recalls, but it sounded as if he could countenance civil unions when he said, "Just don't use the M-word." He emphasized themes of tolerance and respect, and by the end of the meeting Log Cabin members were pretty dazzled. After Romney left, the group unanimously voted to endorse him.

Environmentalists, meantime, were amazed to discover that this uber-capitalist seemed pretty much a Greenpeace fantasy. Once elected, he brought environmental activists into the fold, among them Douglas Foy, the formidable president of the Conservation Law Foundation, who was given a newly created Cabinet-level job. And not long after he was sworn in, Romney went to the oil- and coal-fired Salem Harbor Station power plant and threatened to shut it down if its owners didn't meet a deadline to slash nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions.

"If the choice is between dirty power plants or protecting the health of the people of Massachusetts, there is no choice in my mind," he said at an impromptu news conference, in February 2003, while hard-hat-wearing workers at the plant jeered.

But two years into his term, Moderate Romney started to vanish. NARAL's detente lasted until July 2005, when the governor vetoed a bill that would have allowed pharmacists to provide emergency contraceptives to women without a prescription -- a total 180 from his avowal during the NARAL meeting. Kogut, the group's former executive director, phoned the governor's office but, she says, he never called back.

"We felt completely played," she recalls. "We just couldn't believe it, given what he'd said to our faces."

The comity with gay voters was even briefer. In 2003, the state Supreme Judicial Court voted to legalize gay marriage, forcing Romney to take a stand on an issue that he had not discussed much during his campaign. At first he tried to find a middle ground, stressing both his opposition to the ruling and his hope that the legislature would pass laws providing some rights for same-sex couples, including civil unions. "The governor is not a crusader," said spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom after the ruling. "He did not come to office to crusade for or against gay rights."

[dlounsbury1]

I sure hear a lot of certitude from the Libs on this site. You soon forget that Hillary Clinton holds the all time record for flip flops. Hillary Clinton has flipped flopped more times in the last year on MAJOR issues than Romney has since his 1994 Senate Campaign than Hillary Clinton. Simply google "Hillary Flip Flops" and you will find plenty of Barrack Obama bloggers pointing out that Clinton flip flops more than a goldfish on a pet store floor.

[dfunderb83]

to jol310...
The Book of Mormon claims three distinct groups made the journey before Columbus. The Book of Mormon is merely a history of three distinct migrations. The archaeological record reveals many groups made the journey from many different points on this planet. Who is to say that the Book of Mormon people are not part of the bigger picture? The Church, based on "Free Agency," is interested in faith, and it is by faith and faith only that true converts accept the Book of Mormon. But, who is to say the Phoenicians did not transport the Jaredites? Yes, there are similarities in some cultural remains between the Ancient Near/Middle East and the Middle Americas, but none proves the Book of Mormon is authentic and it never will. Faith is the key. Did Romney do stupid things as Governor and CEO, etc? What is so preposterous about Joseph Smith''s experiences that wasn''t about the experiences that occurred when Jesus Christ personally walked upon the earth? The real fact is that Romney really appears to be the most capable candidate and it really is annoying the Protestant, Jewish and Catholic world.
To me Romney is a devout Christain practicing his faith as he understands it. He has raised a successful family and leads by example.

[wendy731]

Mitt Romney did not get rich from his Daddy.

Mitt''s Daddy didn''t get rich from Mitt''s granddaddy either. In fact, Mitt''s granddaddy knew very hard times. George and Mitt Romney both earned their money by working hard, serving well, and not aspiring to wealth. Sometimes wealth comes just by hard honest work and careful management.

We often live beneath our privileges because we don''t realize our own great potentional. We shouldn''t envy someone that has "made it" in the world. We would each hope for that for our own sons or daughters. It is the American Dream. We should all try a bit harder to apply our own intellegence more.

Mitt''s father George gave him a great pattern to follow; Mitt had to choose his way. It was not given to him. Would that every young man had a fine example in a father to pattern their lives after.

Learn about the history of extended Romney family. Brief paragraphs from newspaper columns won''t give you a full picture.

[wendy731]

My question is....Did Mitt Romney keep his promises to Massachuetts? Did he do all in his power to keep his campaign promises. If he won in the very bluest of states because he had the interest of that state in mind at the time he was running for Govenor ....Did he fulfill his promises? Did he have the interest of that particualar state in mind. Did he think he could improve conditions in Massachuetts? The people voted and he won a majority of the votes. Did he keep his promises? I think that is the issue. If he did keep all his promises...even if he personally did not indorse what he saw his state constituants wanted, then I think the man has integrity. If he makes promises as a candidate for President of the United States I think we can count on him keeping those promises. Integrity is keeping your word.

There are many in Massachuetts that don''t like the Govenor. They are probably the ones that didn''t vote for him in the first place. Did he keep his word to those who did vote for him? I believe that he did.

[gkc99]

Don''t any of the Romney boys want to thank America for their incredible good fortune, being multi-millionaires and all, by serving in the U.S. Armed Forces?

Or do the Romneys think all the dying should be done by lesser, inferior Americans?

[briannorwood]

DLounsbury1:

Gimme a friggin break! Mitt Romney is nothing but a flip-flopping panderer, who will apparently say or do anything to get elected.

I for one am sick and tired of it.

Furthermore, although most people are politely not admitting it, they still think Mormonism is a whacked out religion. I could never, never support a mormon candidate.

There. I said it.

[dlounsbury1]

This article is disingenuous. There is a huge difference between running for ANY governorship and president. That being the truth, if you look as far back as possible at Romney''s 1994 Senate Brochure Romney''s present positions lines up with his old positions on 12 of the 13 items (abortion alone being the sole exception).

The Log Cabin Matter: Romney still adamantly opposes discrimination against *** in housing, hiring, admissions etc. He had a gay cabinet member (not mentioned in the article either). I don''t know of any other republican governor who hired an openly gay cabinet member. Romney stood by his promise to prevent discrimination against ***. He never promised to jump on the gay marriage bandwagon. At the time there wasn''t one. The article fails to mention the dramatic pace at which the issue of gay marriage has been thrust on governors and courts. A simple look at the chronology of the movement dispels any myth of flip flopping.

When a liberal has nuanced positions they are complex, engaging and cosmopolitan. When an intelligent conservative has a nuanced or evolved position they are opportunists. Liberals just don''t do the heavylifting required to see the consistency in Romney''s position. The result is sloppy journalism at best and intellectual dishonesty at worst. Why not mention the multiple morphing of positions by all candidates? Could it be an underlying discomfort with the "mormon question."

[tbweb]

Mitt Romney: A Changed Man????

Mitt Romney is a human Chameleon, able to blend in and shape himself and his message on the fly! As long as Mitt Romney checks with his Lawyers first anything goes, including War!

[kansas1946]

That Romney positioned himself, and for a while governed as, a moderate: in favor of abortion rights, courting gay voters and crusading on environmental matters in a way that had the state''s green activists pinching
****************************************************

Flip-flop-flip-flop..
Poor Republicans.

[j-whitman]

COLONIEny,,,, Hillary does know what people want, no doubt about it -- She listens to the people... An audience member told her to tie her shoes & she did just that --------- Your GOP canidates would have ignored Americans, just as they have been for 7 years.

Notice, during the NY Yankee''s ball game Guiliani got booed not once, but twice.. The second was during the singing of "God Bless America"

[jol310]

Religion can be a divisive force in American politics. However, to respectfully question how a candidate''s beliefs might affect his or her decision making process is not necessarily out of bounds.

Should Mitt Romney%u2019s faith impact how anyone votes?

Mormon teaching declares that indigenous Americans are descended from two Jewish groups who arrived prior to the time of Christ. The Book of Mormon introduction states that these Semitic immigrants %u201C%u2026are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.%u201D

These are historical claims and are not about true or false faith. Faith by its nature is not provable or disprovable. Faith can do many things but it cannot alter facts.

If Romney accepts his church%u2019s teaching; he must reject all the empirical evidence accumulated by respected scholars who firmly declare Asia is the source of indigenous American origins. There is no evidence supporting the claim of Jewish ancestry and voluminous evidence debunking it. (I refer you to Charles Mann%u2019s excellent 1491 for a review of current scholarship regarding ancient America.) Maintaining willful ignorance by rejecting relevant evidence because it contradicts already held conclusions is legitimate cause for concern as it has already led to the deaths of too many soldiers.

Romney%u2019s presumed acceptance of demonstrably false claims as historical fact should give pause to anyone who values critical thinking abilities in a leader.

[colonieny]

bIASED REPORTING AGAIN FROM cbS:
iMAGINE:
...................................................
"HILLARY MANY MAY IDEOLOGICAL U-TURNS HAS DEMOCRATS HEAD SPINNING, WONDERING DOES THIS WOMAN KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS ? "

[gkc99]

Gee if I get a rich Daddy who gives me $100 million, can I be a biznissman too?

[condumism]

Heres the response from 3 Iowa Republicon gals as to why they support Mitt Romney: "Oh, he is soooo good looking!" Why else I asked? They just gave me blank looks without further reply. Leave it to the Republicon base, the one issue voter party.

[fibonacci_]

America only wants religious (= superstitious) presidents. All you religious people, please think about the fact that your beliefs have every characteristic of superstition. How can we people without religion discern it from superstition?

Better throw some salt over your right shoulder!

[prinzowhales]

Romney will continue the mindless Bush Iraq policies...He has support from many of the minions of the Jeb Bush gang in Florida--where hundreds of children are missing from the children services division of that state...where kids are tortured to death for not obeying instructions to exercise in that state''s boot camps.

Romney, with the loathsome Neo-Con, former UN ambassador John Bolton called on the UN to ban President Ahmadinejad and for the Court of International Justice to indict him for ''incitement to genocide''--this based on lies made up by the Zionist press that claimed he called for Israel to be wiped from the map...what he called for was regime change in Jerusalem.

A vote for Mitt the Gitt is a vote for war, it is a vote for AIPAC--the Israeli Intelligence front that spies on America...just like the ADL, which has been convicted in California of spying on Americans.

[taddles-2009]

I''''m voting for Mitt because he''''s the most qualified of any of the candidates running from either party.

Posted by perception5 at 05:53 PM : Oct 10, 2007

You''re voting for Mitt because you have a 4th grade education and are easily lead.

[perception5]

Mitt is the most viable moderate conservative in the Presidential race and the best qualified to bring new leadership with his vision for America''s future.

Gov. Romney has an impressive resume to showcase. When elected governor in 2002 he assumed a monstrous 3 billion dollar deficit and put the state of Massachusetts back in the black without raising taxes. Mitt also brought HEALTH INSURANCE TO ALL THE citizens of Massachusetts in 2006 WITHOUT RAISING TAXES......WOW!

His success in public office mirrors his record in the private sector at Bain Capitol where he reorganized and made household names of companies such as Domino''s Pizza and Staples.

Mitt also bailed out the U.S. Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, and turned a profit there for 100 million dollars. I have nicknamed Mitt, "the Rominator", for obvious reasons.

Candidate Romney graduated valedictorian in undergrad; then pursued a double degree at Harvard (M.B.A. and law) graduating in the top 5% of his class while doing so.

Romney has also taken a tough stance on terrorism and in an interview with the AP in June, Mitt indicated that he was against any permanent US bases in Iraq.

Romney currently leads all Republican candidates in New Hampshire, Iowa and Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina

I''m voting for Mitt because he''s the most qualified of any of the candidates running from either party.

[taddles-2009]

Mitt Romney is a man who will look you square in the eye, take your hand in a firm handshake and say exactly what''s on his mind....namely whatever he has to say to get your vote. Then he will do whatever he wants to do while you stand there amazed that he can lie with such a straight face.

But that''s what you get when you cross a lawyer with a business man, you get a liar who believes in his own lies enough to get up on a soap box and sell them to anyone who will listen.

Nice candidate Republicans, I guess you can''t expect much more from that party these days.

[nolalou]

Romney was hired in 1999 to run the Olympics in Salt Lake City. He said he wouldn''t use that job for political gain and hat he would not accept any severance pay when he finished the job.


Romney not only accepted a $476,000 severance package according to federal tax records, but he helped to lobby the committee for similarly large amounts for his 25 senior managers, 17 of whom contributed to his 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign or the state Republican Party soon after the games ended!