Romney and Massachusetts! (Boston, Amherst, Adams: home, buy, school)

[Mr. Joshua]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Fees and add-on costs were raised everywhere. That might well have been necessary, but makes life here more expensive.
Romney spent a great deal of time not being in the state and running down the pointy-headed liberal state that he happened to get elected to. It was disgraceful. He has few friends around here.

He has few friends around here because he is a Republican and this is an extremely lopsided Democratic state and the only thing he ran down was the extreme liberal loonies who have way too much control over the state.

[Blueberry Pancake]

Romney will lose in Mass, a democratic state.

[tamiznluv]

Originally Posted by Blueberry Pancake

Romney will lose in Mass, a democratic state.

Maybe not, pancake. There are many liberals who voted for him in '08 and won't again. We put Scott Brown into the senate after Kennedy finally died. Some people have smartened up and don't vote just the party line. They vote for the person.

[konfetka]

You could say Obama refused to work with the Republicans, or you could say Republicans refused to work with Obama, so he can't accomplish much and won't get re-elected.

For me it's an easy choice between a guy, who made millions from gutting companies and firing people, and wants to run for president, like his daddy, to cut education for my kids and give himself a tax break and more money to the military vs. a guy who started his career working for the poor, and wants to invest in infrastructure and education.

[nineball]

Originally Posted by LindavG

He had moderate positions on many issues when he was governor of Massachusetts but he completely flip-flopped when he decided to run for President. Examples:

- First pro-choice, now pro-life
- First pro-tough gun laws, now lifelong member of the NRA
- First pro-universal health care as a model for the country, now against
- First pro-economic stimulus and government bail outs, now says it was a terrible idea
- First against lobbying and believes the association between money and politics is wrong, now accepts tens of millions of dollars from corporations and interest groups for his campaign
- First pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants, now argues for "self-deportation"
- First advocate for gay rights and against 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', now says DADT seems to have worked but it's up to the military to decide

It's a good thing these "changes of heart" - and many more - are all caught on tape for everyone to see:

This should be a thread by itself. Maybe even political scientists can study the flipflops interwined with lies.

[missionhill]

For what it's worth, I think Mitt Romney is a very able, capable executive type, someone who can get things done, rarin' to go, and so on. I see all the flip-flopping as lip service to the idealogues in his party. Underneath he is a pragmatic type who would govern more as he did as Governor than as a right-wing zealot. However, a candidate is not an independent actor; he brings with him the whole Republican Party ethos of cutting taxes, leaving everything to the private sector, putting right-wing idealogues on the Supreme Court, sneering at unions and any other manifestations at collective efforts, curbing individual rights, plus all that disgusting American exceptionalism nonsense. Obama may not be as capable an executive, but he has learned a lot on the job and his party isn't motivated by reaction to the complexities of modern life. I'm hopeful that Obama's second term will be full of accomplishments.

[btownboss4]

He was a good Governer from 2002-2004/5ish, then he started his run for the Presidency, and Ignored the state (not unlike Patrick)

[seeriously]

Massachusetts gets to say bye-bye to Mitt again.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by btownboss4

He was a good Governer from 2002-2004/5ish, then he started his run for the Presidency, and Ignored the state (not unlike Patrick)

Or Dukakis if you go back some years. It makes sense that it would be difficult to campaign for the presidency while still being an effective incumbent governor. Given that reality, it also seems that the honorable move would be to step down as governor once the full-time campaigning for the presidency begins (again especially true of Dukakis, who remained officially, but ineffectively, as gov. while actively campaigning during the pres. election year, not just looking toward a future run). That would seem to be the honorable move, but these are politicians after all.

[ogre]

Flip-flopping or flexible thinking? I wouldn't want someone so rigid that he could never adjust his views as he aged and gained a more mature perspective, or as he saw how a policy he had opposed or supported in the past worked out once it became established. That's not to say that flip-flopping and flexibility are the same, and that which way you label a candidate is just a matter of bias. Flip-flopping is flip-flopping and flexibility is flexibility. However, it is true that bias might lead a person to view one as the other.

When I look at Obama's record, I find this to be an easy choice. Unemployment still as high as it was when Obama took office (even without accounting for people who have simply given up looking for work and dropped out of the workforce), with estimates of a rate of underemployment at somewhere around 14 percent, higher by some estimates; no real action on the economy other than to funnel taxpayers' money to those who have supported him politically and into failing businesses in his pet field of green energy; gas prices double what they were when Obama took office; a 60-percent increase in the national debt; record numbers of people receiving food stamps; a thuggish, Chicago-big-city-machine style of politicking, and that from the guy who promised to bring everyone together and "reach across the aisle;" Al Queda expanding into new territory in the Middle East; Israel more or less abandoned; Iran chugging along toward being nuclear . . .

I truly believe that in future years, once enough time has passed to allow for good perspective, Obama may well come to be regarded by historians as the worst president ever. Admittedly, when it comes to others who have often been described as possibly the worst ever--Buchanan, Grant, Harding--I know only a few basics, not all the ugly details, but I believe that Obama will ultimately be regarded as at least a serious contender for the title "worst ever."

Romney at least is clearly a very capable executive, who managed to turn around this state's finances for the better. I'll take that over what I've just described above.