Opportunism, Not Conviction, Key to Romney's Positions

With Michigan voters going to the polls tomorrow in a crucial Republican primary, Mitt Romney is dishing out words he thinks his listeners want to hear -- following a familiar pattern of opportunism that leaves climate action out in the cold -- again.

Mr. Romney criticized the energy bill signed into law last month by President Bush that requires cars and trucks sold in the United States to achieve a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. Substantial majorities in both parties in both houses of Congress approved the measure.

Mr. Romney said he opposed the new mileage standard, describing it as an anvil tossed to Detroit by a government that did not understand the auto industry or care about its workers. "As president, I will not rest as Detroit gets to see layoff after layoff after layoff," he said.

Let's see if Michiganders fall for it. As Governor of Massachusetts, he had blazed a different political path, joining in progressive climate action initiatives and promising protection of gay rights.

But as his presidential ambitions grew, he left behind allies and positions that helped him get elected and attain popularity. The positions just would not jibe with the image he was creating as champion of conservative causes in his race for national office.

It should come as no surprise that he would pander for votes in Michigan by criticizing long-overdue fuel economy standards. In 2005, in what was widely regarded as a shameless political betrayal, he tried to undercut another climate action development -- at the expense of fellow Republican Governor George Pataki of New York.

Nine northeastern states had worked together for years on a regional greenhouse gas initiative (RGGI), with Massachusetts a key member of the effort. But then Romney pulled out just hours before a crucial deadline. The headline in the news the next day was this: Greenhouse Gas Pact Is in Disarray.

Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican who is expected to run for his party's presidential nomination in 2008, pulled his state out of the agreement yesterday, hours before the deadline for reaching an agreement, and just before announcing that he would not run for a second term next year.

Earlier this year, newspapers reported another rightward shift in his pursuit of the Oval Office -- this time around the question of gay rights. One headline: Romney's Tone on Gay Rights Seen as Shift.

Mitt Romney seemed comfortable as a group of gay Republicans quizzed him over breakfast one morning in 2002. Running for governor of Massachusetts, he was at a gay bar in Boston to court members of Log Cabin Republicans.

Mr. Romney explained to the group that his perspective on gay rights had been largely shaped by his experience in the private sector, where, he said, discrimination was frowned upon. When the discussion turned to a court case on same-sex marriage that was then wending its way through the state’s judicial system, he said he believed that marriage should be limited to the union of a man and a woman. But, according to several people present, he promised to obey the courts’ ultimate ruling and not champion a fight on either side of the issue.

“I’ll keep my head low,” he said, making a bobbing motion with his head like a boxer, one participant recalled.

Makes you think that Romney's campaign theme song should be that classic by the Shirelles -- Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. (Feel free to sing along, Mitt.)

Tonight you're mine completely
You give you love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure?
Can I believe the magic of your sighs?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I'm the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?

I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now, and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?

So tell me now, and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

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