Thursday, April 19, 2012

Mitt Romney and the NRA: The Conning of the GOP Voters

Mitt romney Nomadic Politics
by Nomad
Damn the historical record! To hell with what I said in my past. I'll say anything! I'll do anything! I am severely conservative, Darn it.

That seems to be the line that Mitt Romney thinks will carry him to the White House. And it's entertaining for your average progressive liberal to watch Romney attempt to con his own party into believing he has somehow actually changed- reversed every one of his positions.
The latest scrubbing redacting and erasing involves the National Rifle Association (NRA). Speaking National Rifle Association's annual convention in St. Louis with an estimated 70,000 people in attendance, Romney last weekend made every attempt to win the hearts and minds of gun owners.

"This organization is sometimes called a single-issue group," Romney said, "and that is high praise when the single issue you're fighting for is freedom."

Yet, when surrounded on all sides by liberals in Massachusetts back in 1994, he proudly defended his support of an Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady gun control law.   ‘That’s not going to make me the hero of the NRA,’ he said, rather smugly. ‘I don’t line up with a lot of special interest groups.’”
That alone would be embarrassing enough but Romney's position on gun ownership certainly didn't stop there. 

Here's a definitive list of Romney's gun control positions of the past, supplied to us by John McCain's staff during the 2008 campaign.
  • As governor, Romney quadrupled gun licensing fees and vowed not to “chip away” at tough gun laws. 
  • In January 2006, Romney said he owned a gun – then two days later admitted he did not and the gun belonged to his son. 
  • Romney bragged about being member of the NRA but later revealed he didn’t join until August 2006, just before launching his presidential campaign. 
  • Romney recently said he’s “been a hunter pretty much all my life” but later admitted he hunted only twice in his life, later clarifying remarks by claiming he has hunted “small varmints … more than two times.”
As everybody is well aware by this late a date, this is a familiar pattern with Romney. From gay rights to abortion, from health care to immigration, Mitt will be whatever he needs to be to get elected. He changes his opinion faster than RuPaul changes wigs. (At least, RuPaul manages to keep the illusions in tact.)
And after he is elected, what will he be? That's anybody's guess but if his past record is anything to go by, he could be the most liberal Republican president since Eisenhower. 

All this is very amusing for your average liberal, watching the expected nominee of the Republican party attempting to pull off this hoax and watching the obvious discomfort of die-hard Republican voters trying to find something, anything to like about Mitt Romney. 
Not everybody at the NRA gathering was so easily fooled. When Think Progress asked a few members the response was lukewarm (as warm as slush, I mean) and some pretty openly expressed their dislike for the front-runner. Here's what one respondent said: 
“I heard Romney’s [speech]. I think he’s an idiot. And I’m a Republican. … I believe that people should stand up for their principles and I think that he panders to whoever he’s talking to."
Bloomberg News collected a few other opinions and they were equally disheartened.
“He’s better than Obama,” said Tom Zenthoefer, 53, an NRA member from Fenton, Missouri. “It will be a hold-your-nose situation.”
Dennis Kershman, 60, an NRA member from Bennett, Colorado, offered a similar take from the convention floor.
“If it’s the lesser of two evils, I’ll vote for Romney,” he said. “I will not vote for Obama.”
Against all the laws of common sense, it would seem that Republican voters, in their unreasonable dislike for President Obama, would prefer to vote for a candidate that is clearly lying about every one of his positions. 
It won't be the first time either. The Tea Party candidates promised that if they were elected they would bring jobs to American workers. All they did was draft a series of idiotic, dangerous and backward bills in state legislatures and in the Congress, they did whatever ALEC or the Koch brothers told them to do. 
Meanwhile the economy has been clawing its way back despite the obstructionists in the House of Representatives. An all-around fiasco.

Some people, like the Republican conservatives, just never learn.