We take it the Concord Monitor ain’t feeling the Republicans. The New Hamsphire, which featured the aforementioned anti-Huckabee op-ed, announced this weekend that they will not vote for Mitt Romney.
Entitled “Mitt Romney Should Not Be President,” the piece revolves around Romney’s historic flip-flops:
If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats. If you followed only his campaign for president, you’d swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you’re left to wonder if there’s anything at all at his core.
…
When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we’ll know it.Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.
Romney’s handsome but misguided spokesman Kevin Madden dismissed the “liberal” editors.
(P.S. Did anyone else see Chris Matthews drill Madden about Romney’s MLK lie? It’s beautiful!)
ProfessorVP
Except- in varying degrees- for Kucinich, Gravel and Paul, which candidate ISN’T a complete phony?
hisurfer
There’s a difference between being ‘phony’ and moderating your views for the media and the electorate. No politician – shoots, no professional outside artists & actors – can blurt out what’s really on their mind at work. You learn how to phrase things properly.
So I really don’t agree that all these guys are phony per se. Romney, of course, is … his beliefs seem to be based on the latest polls. Huckabee, obviously. I’d add Ron Paul to the list of fakes – he’s only a ‘libertarian’ when it comes to right wing causes. Giuliani and McCain? I don’t know if they’re phony or if they’ve just sold their souls to the devil.
Hillary is overly managed and controlled, and Obama isn’t the political innocent his campaign likes to pretend he is, but neither, I think, is phony. I do believe, in the end, that we’re getting a good sense of who they are. Biden (whom I’ve met), Dodd, and Richardson are all pretty much the same men on the campaign trail as off, for better or worse. Edwards is really the only major Dem right who I can’t quite figure out.
As for the rest? It’s easy to be brutally honest when you’re on the D List. Just ask Kathy Griffin.