Unstable Platform?

Some would argue that politicians have to lie, but how much is too much? Throughout the campaign, to democrats, presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign has seemed glaringly inconsistent on most of the issues. Even worse, the Romney campaign denies anything that they may have said that doesn’t go with what Romney is saying in any given moment.

For example, Romney’s stance on abortion has flip-flopped for many years according to PolitiFacts.com. In fact, in 1994, he was pro-choice. “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country,” Romney said. Years later, in 2002, he stood by with what he said during his campaign for governor. “I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, it should be sustained and supported. And I sustain and support that law and support the right of a woman to make that choice,” Romney said. Despite taking a pro-choice stance for years, in 2008 Romney shared something else with Fox News. “I never called myself pro-choice. I never allowed myself to use the word pro-choice because I didn’t feel I was pro-choice,” Romney said. Most recently, Romney commented on his abortion to the Des Moines Register editorial board in early October 2012. “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda,” Romney said. However, when he was talking to reporters in Ohio the very next day Romney, yet again, had something else to say.”I think I’ve said time and again that I’m a pro-life candidate and I’ll be a pro-life president,” Romney said. “The actions I’ll take immediately is to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget. And also I’ve indicated that I will reverse the Mexico City position of the president. I will reinstate the Mexico City policy which keeps us from using foreign aid for abortions overseas.”

Besides abortion, Obama pointed out himself some of Romney’s inconsistencies on foreign policy. “Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida,” Obama said. Not only is it unclear where Romney’s priorities lie as far as who the United States should be defending the country against, Obama also pointed out during the debate that Romney flipped flopped on his Iraq stance within the past few weeks. “You say that you’re not interested in duplicating what’s happened in Iraq. But just a few weeks ago, you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now,” Obama said.

Not only has Romney clearly been inconsistent throughout his political career and the presidential race, he claimed to the New Hampshire Editorial Board that he was ever inconsistent, despite the facts. “I’ve been as consistent as human beings can be,” Romney said. “I cannot state every single issue in exactly the same words every single time, and so there are some folks who, obviously, for various political and campaign purposes will try and find some change and draw great attention to something which looks like a change which in fact is entirely consistent.”

Yeah, that makes sense, nice try Romney. Personally, I look for honest qualities in a leader. To me, consistency and honesty go hand and hand. How can you have faith in a candidate as a president if before they even make it to office they can’t even have a consistent plan during the election process? I know people strongly feel that Romney has good ideas, but how can they be implemented if he can’t even make a definitive decision on where he stands during the race? Without a strong and consistent platform, four years of Mitt Romney would look like, well, four years of indecision.

Barack Obama summed it up best the day after the last debate at a rally for supporters. “Trust matters,” Obama said. “You want the person who’s applying to be president and commander-in-chief to be trustworthy, that he means what he says, that he’s not making stuff up depending on whether it’s convenient or not.”

 (Mary Schwalm/AP Photo)

 

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.