Romney Secrets The Media Are Hiding From You
By Gregg Jackson
Friday, November 9, 2007
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I am a co-host of a Boston talk radio show "Pundit Review Radio." My co-author, Paul, is a thirty year Boston journalist.

We recently authored a Townhall.com article on an Evangelical theologian who endorsed Mr. Romney and how historically unprecedented that endorsement was. Hundreds of angry people responded to that article- many of whom called us "bigots."



Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks to reporters after signing his declaration of candidacy paper to have his name appear on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary at the Secretary of State's office at the State House in Concord, New Hampshire October 29, 2007. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES)
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As long as Mitt Romney keeps America focused on his religion, he may win the upcoming January primaries.

But as soon as Americans are able to penetrate the religion smokescreen and see his governor's record, voters may think twice.

The media – liberal and conservative – have been a willing co-conspirator in keeping Mitt's governing record a secret. Am I suggesting the Romney campaign deliberately focused America on his being a Mormon to hide his record as governor? You decide.

For your edification, here's the real Mitt Romney.

1. Mitt is a liberal. How do you think he got elected to the most left wing state in America? He was as pro-abortion, pro-gay agenda, pro-gun control as Ted Kennedy when elected governor. He was pro-choice when he was elected and pro-abortion when he left the governor's office. When he was elected governor, the Baked Bean State did not have gay marriage. When he left, it did. When he was elected, Massachusetts had a Republican governor for nearly two decades. When he left, it didn't. What it had was a Hillary disciple who is now transforming the Cradle of Liberty into an amalgam of the Soviet Union, Sodom and Las Vegas. Imagine what Mitt could do as president.

2. He's that liberal?! He gave Massachusetts a socialist government health care plan entitled "Commonwealth Care" that some call Hillarycare as he was walking out the door. And, apparently he didn't know it included abortion as a health benefit. Because by then, he had discovered abortion was "wrong."

And speaking of health, Mitt presided over the opening of the most corrupt and most expensive public works project in U.S. history – The Big Dig tunnel-bridge system. This project killed nearly a dozen people in the 48 months since it opened. When an immigrant woman was crushed to death by a cement-ceiling panel that fell on her as she traveled through one of the new tunnels, Mitt went on TV and said he would get to the bottom of this dangerous, deadly project. But he didn't. Here was a public safety issue a conservative could have made a presidential-run-reputation on, exposing the Democrat corruption and fixing the problems. But he ignored it, preserving the public health menace for future victims. Instead, he took campaign contributions from international Big Dig contractors.

3. I thought he was pro-life? Romney's Massachusetts health care plan says "no." The plan covers abortion. What kind of Pro-lifer thinks abortion should be part of his health care plan? Romney signed this bill into law after he claims he had a discussion with an anonymous Harvard doctor wherein he discovered abortion was morally wrong.

Would it be too cynical to suggest the Harvard doctor was a PHD at the Kennedy School of Government who gave him a lot of computer printouts on Republican voters showing they don't like abortion? Was it then he "discovered" abortion was wrong ( i.e. the wrong position for a conservative presidential candidate)?

Unlike Reagan who had a true turnaround on abortion, Romney has ping-ponged back and forth on this issue for years. As a 1994 U.S. Senate candidate, he said he had believed for nearly a quarter century that abortion should be "safe and legal." Yet by 2001, the Salt Lake City Tribune quoted him as saying, "I do not wish to be labeled pro-choice."

A year later, running for governor in Massachusetts, Romney was definitely Pro-choice and promised he would not touch any abortion law. During a candidate's debate, he was so firmly Pro-choice, he renounced an endorsement from Massachusetts' Citizens for Life.

But last year in South Carolina, a modern day miracle occurred. Romney declared, "I am firmly Pro-life...I was always for life."

4. But he does stand for family values, right? If you think two guys getting married constitutes a family, then yes, he's into family values. Publicly, he was as normal and upstanding a family values guy as you'll see. But privately, he seemed to be working for the gay agenda. When the Massachusetts' Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the citizens of the Commonwealth, Romney could have exercised a "bill of address" to impeach the activist judges. But he didn't. He signed something he didn't have to directing town clerks to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples or be fired. One Justice of the Peace Linda Gray Kelley did lose her job because of her religious views against gay marriage.

Romney went even further however and directed his Department of Health to change the state marriage licenses to read "Party A" and "Party B" replacing "Husband" and "Wife."Romney was under no legal obligation to do either of these things. Would a true family values governor do this?

He now claims to support a constitutional amendment to protect marriage. Yet in 2002 then governor Romney called a similar attempt to amend the Massachusetts' Constitution "too extreme."

He's the kind of family values guy who distributes pink fliers proclaiming, "Mitt and Kerry wish you a great Pride Weekend" during "Gay Pride" events. Oh, he's against the gay agenda!! And he's for it.

5. But he's a fiscal conservative, right? When it comes to spending money, he is more liberal than Ted K. He's spent the gross national product of small nations on media, which accounts for all the good press he's gotten. Ninety percent of voters may not want him, but 99 percent of the media loves him - even conservative talk radio show hosts.

Big spenders Hillary and Ted K praised the health care law signed by Romney. Coincidentally, it is quite similar to a plan unveiled by Hillary dubbed, "Healthy Choices." Romney Care increases government mandates, regulations, costs and bureaucracy with less choice for consumers. The Congressional Budget Office noted that this level of government intervention and regulation was "unprecedented."

Unprecedented – as in – even the out-of-control socialist Democrats hadn't gone this far. Sally Pipes, of the Pacific Research Institute who reviewed Romney Care in a recent Wall St. Journal article said the governor's plan was in "intensive care" right after birth. Only months after going into effect, the plan was costing Bay Staters $150 million more than the public was first told.

Premiums are nearly double what Romney promised. Keep in mind, Massachusetts already has the highest health care costs in the world. And Mitt increased them. Let's connect the dots.

RomneyCare will take "Taxachusetts" into the 75 percent tax rate. That's his fiscal legacy to the place American Democracy began. Imagine what Mitt could do as president.

6. But he'll elect conservative judges, right? Romney loves to preach passionate sermons against "judicial activism." He promised to nominate strict conservative constructionists to the federal bench. The problem is, his record disagrees. The Boston Globe reports that as governor, Romney "passed over GOP lawyers for three quarters of the 36 judicial court vacancies he faced, instead tapping registered Democrats or Independents including two gay lawyers who have supported expanded same-sex rights."

7. Are you saying he can't be trusted? Ted K called him John Kerry. The term he used was "Multiple Choice Mitt," i.e. Mitt takes numerous positions on issues. He's for it, against it and – oh what the heck – he's such a nice guy he agrees with both sides. When it comes to issues Ted is right, Mitt looks like John Kerry. The good thing is voters seem to understand Romney better than the media. A recent Pew Center Poll found only 12 percent of respondents thought of Mitt Romney when the word "honest" was presented to them-the lowest percentage of the four major Republican candidates.

For all you Iowa-New Hampshire-South Carolina gun owners, keep this in mind. Mitt is for and against the 2nd amendment. While campaigning in New Hampshire last April, he said to a man wearing an NRA hat that he was a "life long hunter." Romney's campaign quickly issued a retraction, admitting he'd only hunted twice in his life. He declared his love for Massachusetts' fascistic gun laws and favors the Brady Law, which the NRA opposes. Perhaps the time will come when he "discovers" the second amendment is a good thing. But it can only happen during an election campaign.

8. Well then, what's all this about Mitt being the "pragmatic" Republican choice? Ah yes. Keep in mind, pragmatic means "what works." Mitt has a voter approval rating down around that of the Pelosi congress, in spite of all the media's acting as his press agent. Voters don't trust him. The idea that he is the Hillary-slayer is at odds with his record, which...uh... has much in common with Hillary, in particular the gay-friendly, socialist health care stuff.

If pragmatic means "what works," then what is it about Mitt that works? When most Americans wouldn't vote for Mitt in spite of all the money he's thrown out and all the media glorification, doesn't that seem to be the opposite of pragmatism? Contrary to conservative talk radio common wisdom, Mitt is the un-pragmatic choice. If Mitt does to America what he did to the "Birthplace of American Democracy," America will be in a nose-dive by 2012.

Co-author Paul Dinger is a 30 year veteran Boston journalist writing a book entitled "The Secret Meaning of America."

Gregg Jackson is a radio talk show host on WRKO in Boston and author of "Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies: Issue By Issue Responses to the Most Common Claims of the Left from A to Z."

Be the first to read Gregg Jackson's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox.

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religiouslib writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 12:10 AM
has hugh hewitt read this
i will be surprised if it is still here in the morning.

very well documented.
steve writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 12:52 AM
Well corroborated elsewhere:
A Nat'l Review article corroborates his extreme liberalism in Mass from just last year how extremely liberal he was on health care (before they started flacking for him in the past year) at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/pipes200601260811.as p
in an article beginning "Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is trying to accomplish in his final year in office what Democrats can only dream of these days: boosting government spending on and regulation of health care and requiring individuals to purchase government-designed policies. Romney’s plan, which is backed by such liberals as Sen. Ted Kennedy ... the Republican presidential hopeful is pouring political capital into creating a new state health-care bureaucracy, further regulating health insurance, forcing individuals to spend their money on a government designed product, and increasing spending by $200 million. It’s not hard to see why liberals such as Kennedy are excited about his bravery. They recall what such acts of courage did for another Massachusetts governor with presidential ambition, Michael Dukakis."

For corroboration on his bogus prolife "conversion", MSNBC reported this year at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17023959/

"Romney says his moment of illumination about the immorality of abortion came two years ago during a meeting with an embryonic stem cell researcher. "The comment was made that this really wasn't a moral issue, because the embryos were terminated or destroyed at 14 days," Romney said...
The Harvard University researcher with whom Romney met, Douglas Melton, has disputed Romney's recollection of their Nov. 9, 2004, meeting in the governor's Statehouse office.
"Governor Romney has mischaracterized my position; we didn't discuss killing or anything related to it," Melton said in a December statement to The Boston Globe...."
Patrick writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 2:17 AM
Another sneaky liberal statist
Romney, Ghouliani and Billary.

In the immortal words of Alfred E. Neumann:

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
scallywag writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 3:15 AM
gregg,
i know you're hoping that most of the people reading this article are ignorant of mass politics, but not all of us are. you distort and fail to put into proper context any of your points. the most laughable is the big dig. you sound about as reasoned as mayor ray nagin or sen. mary landrieu about hurricane katrina. while i could sit down in front of you and prove to you how ridiculous you are in a one hour conversation, but it would be an utter waste of time because your malcontent for romney has something deeper to it than his politics.
i'm every bit as involved with politics as you may be, but i couldn't even conjure up your brand of vitriol for a candidate i disagree with as much as you apparently do with romney. you should maybe get out of the opinion business and get a constructive job that maybe offers you a little more life experience. everyone can opine like you do, but could you ever achieve the kind of successes that gov. romney has in his lifetime. has anyone's livelihood besides your own ever depended on you making a critical decision. grow up gregg.
grubby07 writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 3:17 AM
steve
Thanks for the cite.

I heard Jackson speak in October - quite impressive. Accordingly, I must favorably weight his opinion.

It doesn't appear he has much regard for Romney. As a boomer, he doesn't rate much on the trust scale with me either.

As far as these so called front runners, to know them, it seems, is to loath them. If the GOP nominates either Giuliani or Romney, we're almost guaranteed to see these flippers and floppers turn into something we would hardly recognize.

One thing I do believe - we on the right shouldn't be stampeded toward any particular GOP candidate with the warning that he is the only one who can beat madam klinton. In addition to all her negatives including the 50% of the voting public who'll never vote for her, there really isn't much left but to allow her to beat herself.

It may be simplistic, but I'm leaning towards allowing the NRA to influence my choice.
jagrmeister721 writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 3:29 AM
File this under: Trying too hard
Even more obnoxious than flip-flopping politicians are biased columnists who stretch the truth. Laying the "Big Dig" at Romney's footsteps is just Exhibit A in a long list of shadings and fabrications in this column.
soulsamurai writes: Friday, November, 09, 2007 3:35 AM
Only 1 governor's record is conservative
There are two governors runnning, Romney and Huckabee are both experienced. However Gov Huckabee's conservative record far outshines Romney's. He has a habit of getting things done, as well as being consistent on life and family issues. As a strong advocate of the FairTax he also has the best plan for reducing the size and scope of the Federal Gov't (the IRS goes out of business and you get to keep all your earnings, no income taxes!) Besides all that he's the staunchest supporter of the 2nd amendment!

If you haven't seen this interview with Glenn Beck check it out:

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View &Blog_id=597