The Occasional Observer

Jeff Jacoby over at the BloGlo managed to get into print a column that wasn't a one-side thrashing of Mitt Romney's integrity. In fact, his words should help alleviate the fears of many conservatives who have been fed a steady diet of "don't trust the flipper" stories.

If after listening to Mitt, hearing about his personal story and family life, and listening to him outline his principles, you feel in your gut like he's got to be a true conservative, then Mr. Jacoby wants you to trust your gut. He has been following him since the '94 campaign, and he had this to say (bold emphasis is mine):

As a Senate candidate in 1994, Romney was at pains to portray himself as a liberal RINO -- a Republican In Name Only, smartly saluting Roe v. Wade and declaring that he would do more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy.

"Inhibited by a fear of being (gasp!) controversial," I wrote at the time, Romney "is tiptoeing through his campaign, determined to emit no 'shockers' and antagonize no voters." Voters didn't buy his act, and Romney lost in a landslide -- even as Republican Governor Bill Weld, running hard on an agenda of tax cuts, capital punishment, and workfare, was re elected in a cakewalk.

Romney's very public migration rightward over the last few years is a different kind of act, one intended not to hide his real views but to liberate them. In 1994, Romney struck me as an extraordinarily bright, talented, and decent man -- and a political neophyte who fell for the canard that the only way a conservative could win in Massachusetts was by passing for liberal.

Thirteen years later, Romney is where he should have been all along. Yes, it took some tap-dancing and artful dodging to get from there to here, and some voters will wonder which Mitt Romney, the 1994 edition or the one on offer today, is the real deal. Can he put those doubts to rest? If he's going to win his party's nomination, he'll have to.

A lot of folks who are supporting Rudy or McCain seem to want Mitt to issue some sort of grand mea culpa for his '94 statements. That would be silly. He's already said he's learned from experience. He doesn't need to grovel and put a lot more quotes out in the public record that focus on his words of 13 years ago--that would merely distract from the important issues he's running on now.