Jimmy Carter isn’t helping:
“I’d rather have a Democrat but I would be comfortable — I think Romney has shown in the past, in his previous years as a moderate or progressive… that he was fairly competent as a governor and also running the Olympics as you know. He’s a good solid family man and so forth, he’s gone to the extreme right wing positions on some very important issues in order to get the nomination. What he’ll do in the general election, what he’ll do as president I think is different.”
Here’s Obama in Rolling Stone:
“I don’t think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say, ‘Everything I’ve said for the last six months, I didn’t mean.’ I’m assuming that he meant it. When you’re running for president, people are paying attention to what you’re saying.”
They’re not talking about the exact same thing. Obama is talking about sincerity, integrity, honesty, and what a candidate can or cannot get away with. Carter is talking about what kind of president Romney would be. But, aside from the sheer political malpractice of Carter’s remarks, here’s where I have a problem.
Romney held one set of positions when he was running for senator and then governor of Massachusetts. He’s been espousing an entirely different, often diametrically opposed, set of positions during this campaign. In all three cases, his positions were well-suited for the office he sought. When Romney became governor, he had to deal with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, so his options were quite limited. He governed within a tight set of constraints. But he didn’t govern much differently from how he campaigned. Now he seeks a new office. What reason do we have to believe that Romney won’t similarly govern as he has campaigned? Why would we expect him to be a brake on a severely conservative Congress? Why should we disbelieve Grover Norquist, for example?
“We’re not nominating a candidate to tell the party what direction to go. All of them ran as Reagan Republicans. We know what we’re doing and who we are — we just want a guy to sign the bills.”
In other words, why should we believe that Mitt Romney governed Massachusetts the way he wanted to? He was a Republican. Wouldn’t he have made different choices if he had a Republican legislature to work with?
The truth is that we don’t really know what is in Mitt Romney’s heart because he never tells us. He just says what he thinks he needs to to advance his political career a few yards down the field. He never stood up to the base of the Republican Party on a single issue during the entirety of his campaign for the nomination, but Jimmy Carter expects him to buck them once in office? Why?
It’s a stupid argument and it is exactly what Romney needs to convince moderates to believe if he is going to win. Carter is a fool on both counts.
Not sure on which planet Jimmy Carter has been residing for the last three and a half years, but it most certainly is not this one. Is it not obvious to people like Carter that if Mitt wins, the likelihood that the House stays Tea Party Central and that the Senate flips Republican is almost a certainty? Does he have even the slightest clue what that means? There is really no way that we can describe this election as anything less than a seminal moment in deciding what type of country we are going to be. If Mitt is elected, you might as well scrub the history books of all the accomplishments and social progress of the last 75 years. The inmates will have officially taken charge of the asylum. Let the witch burning begin!!
Has Jimmy even been paying attention to the GOP primary?
Carter is either severely out of touch or counting on the Redoublechins’ hatred of him to make them vote for Obama out of spite.
I was thinking something similar. It could be both at the same time.
Not to well thought out Jimmy. Romney has no soul you might want to thing about that. I’m not comfortable hoping satan will be more mellow once in office.
One other point his children are grown shouldn’t his wife be enjoying the pride of working at Walmart. No offense I know she is touchy about her lazy ass life.
l’ve always kind of had a soft spot for carter, vis-à-vis his early positions on energy and the environmental issues, but this is exactly the kind of naiveté that’s cost him dearly throughout his political life.
if he truly cannot see the potential for disaster should romney be elected along with a ratpublican congress, then perhaps old age has finally begun to take its toll on his mental capacity, ala his successor.
Whatever other problems we have, you have to admit that Obama has been taking it to the republicans.
you’re on point, BooMan
Jimmy wrote an excellent energy policy that 30 years later Obama is finally beginning to implement. And if it had been implemented 30 years ago the Middle East, and our involvement in it would likely look a lot different — and better.
He has done excellent work on Habitat for Humanity
He wrote an excellent book on fly fishing.
He was a distinguished Navy officer and is not a dumb or heartless guy.
Next?
Romney will not govern as president differently than he campaigned because his own party would crucify him. ROMNEY would become the Carter of his own party. Congress would never send him bills he asked to sign. He will sign what they tell him to sign.
The party has a clear history of eating its young.
With a different candidate, maybe, just maybe Carter could be right but only if that candidate had enough charisma to win enough Democrats and independents to make his own party largely irrelevant. With Romney that ain’t happening.
Disease eradication efforts
There you go.
Wanna throw in the Camp David Accords too?
Nah, cause I don’t agree with Camp David and kinda think they were a mistake lol.
Too early!
Carter needs to publicly endorse Romney about a week before the election.
“It’s hard to see it sometimes, but Mitt is a good Democrat!”
“Sure, he had to lie about lots of things, that’s what it takes win the nomination. I’m sure he’ll let the ‘Real Mitt’ show after the election.”
I call it the Kiss of Death Strategy.