|
Salt
Lake Tribune
Tribune
endorsement: Too Many Mitts
Obama has earned another term
Oct 19 2012
Nowhere
has Mitt Romney’s pursuit
of the presidency been more warmly welcomed or closely followed than
here in
Utah. The Republican nominee’s political and religious pedigrees, his
adeptly
bipartisan governorship of a Democratic state, and his head for
business and
the bottom line all inspire admiration and hope in our largely Mormon,
Republican, business-friendly state.
But
it was Romney’s singular role
in rescuing Utah’s organization of the 2002 Olympics from a cesspool of
scandal, and his oversight of the most successful Winter Games on
record, that
make him the Beehive State’s favorite adopted son. After all, Romney
managed to
save the state from ignominy, turning the extravaganza into a showcase
for the
matchless landscapes, volunteerism and efficiency that told the world
what is
best and most beautiful about Utah and its people.
In
short, this is the Mitt Romney
we knew, or thought we knew, as one of us.
Sadly,
it is not the only Romney,
as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in
his
servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and
now as
the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s
radical
right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion
of the
middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of
the
campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly
believe?"
The
evidence suggests no clear
answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or
sound bite.
Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney,
though,
is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words,
they
would trade their votes to hear.
More
troubling, Romney has
repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to
simultaneously
reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of
it),
make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and
thereby
create millions of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would
offset his
tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the military) by
doing away
with tax deductions and exemptions is utterly meaningless without
identifying
which and how many would get the ax. Absent those specifics, his
promise of a
balanced budget simply does not pencil out.
If
this portrait of a Romney
willing to say anything to get elected seems harsh, we need only
revisit his
branding of 47 percent of Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes,
yet feel
victimized and entitled to government assistance. His job, he told a
group of
wealthy donors, "is not to worry about those people. I’ll never
convince
them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Where,
we ask, is the pragmatic,
inclusive Romney, the Massachusetts governor who left the state with a
model
health care plan in place, the Romney who led Utah to Olympic glory?
That
Romney skedaddled and is nowhere to be found.
And
what of the president Romney
would replace? For four years, President Barack Obama has attempted,
with
varying degrees of success, to pull the nation out of its worst
financial
meltdown since the Great Depression, a deepening crisis he inherited
the day he
took office…
Read
the rest of the article at the Salt Lake
Tribune
|
