the word on Mitt Romney
I find myself pondering the meaning of the Mitt Romney Gun controversy. In case you missed it, Mitt Romney pandered before some voters in New Hampshire and… well…
This week in Keene, N.H., Romney told a man in an NRA hat that he had “been a hunter pretty much all of my life,” the Associated Press reported. The Romney campaign later acknowledged that Romney, 60, hunted one summer as a teenager and once in his late 50s. Earlier this year, Romney said, “I have a gun of my own.” It turned out his son owns guns, not Romney. After boasting about his membership in the National Rifle Association, Romney later admitted he joined the group less than a year ago.
To the degree that one can hate a politician with no discernable influence on one’s life, I hate this guy.  The number of times that the phrase “flip flopper” was tossed at John Kerry needs to be amplified to the nth degree and tossed at Mitt Romney. He is the Republican front-runner in terms of funds raised, though the constant Flipper costumes that heckled him at the ConservativePAC Convention exemplifies the troubles that that advantage is going to have to overcome for the Republican primary voter to get to the point where the general election voter will be forced to stare at… perhaps some other man running around trailing him in a Dolphin costume. (Reminscent of the Chicken-costume that heckled George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992.)
I had always assumed that Mitt Romney had served two terms as governor of Massachusetts. Looking at his record, though, I see that he had one term. So, he moved in during the 2002 Republican tide, and at the end of his term the state turned back from its recent history of electing Republican governors and flipped to the Democratic candidate. Understand, on his way out — with an eye for the Republican nomination, Romney started talking before Republican audiences on what a loony place he is governing.
Such a lunative state that it believes in fairly stringent gun control laws, for instance. A state not particularly impressed by its candidates’ NRA credentials. Mind you, other states are and demand you bend to the line– Montana’s famed governor doubled over backward to assure the state that he loves and uses guns. I think Massachusetts might elect an NRA – member as governor, but only if he (or she) doesn’t run around and use it as a central placard. Hence, Mitt Romney’s gun faux pas.
He should have picked a different state to run for governor to launch a Republican presidential bid.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
There is more to the hunting story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18020511/
There is no “flip-flop” on the issue that Romney supports allowing people to lawfully use firearms for hunting. Romney isn’t a hard core hunter. So what. He never claimed to be, not even in his original comments you site above. In fact, he downplayed the extent of his experience and sited to a few of the several times he had hunted.
Now, if you hate hunters, you may hate Romney for supporting them. If you love hunters, you may wish he was more experienced in hunting, but you can’t really be too mad at a person who claims he is a hunter and supports other people in their desire to hunt.