Mitt Romney: Flip-Flopper or the Answer for Conservatives

Before beginning my study on former Governor Mitt Romney's website, most of what I knew of him came from various news sources. I had heard that he was a Pro-Gay and Pro-Choice governor, but now has switched on those stances over the past few years and is now casting himself as a true conservative. While this doesn't bother me, because people can change their ideas and beliefs over time (I know mine certainly have) it does bother me that it has not gotten the negative connotation of flip-flopping that Gore received in 2000. Then Governor Bush charged and the media incessantly reported that Gore was a flip-flopper on many issues, and that hurt him in the end. Again, I don't think Romney should be labeled this, it is just an observation that this label has largely been unable to stick to Gov. Romney like it did to V.P. Gore. Oh, and that he's a Mormon, which can be discussed in greater detail in other articles. I am not going to delve into whether or not religion should come into play when electing a President (at least not in this article).

Now, while listening to various pundits about Romney is somewhat useful, to get a better look at his candidacy, I decided to break down his website to see where he stood on the various issues. Overall, his website is a bit clunky when it comes to his issues pages. He put together a large PDF file entitled "Strategy for a Stronger America" that contains 10 "challenges" and his plan for them. Throughout the PDF file are various pictures and speeches that he has given through the past several years. He also have various press releases regarding various issues and then has just short snippets of other issues and hardly touches on them. This variation makes it a little difficult to discover what he stands for unless you do a lot of digging, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but for the average American with either the attention span of a 2 year old, or little experience with the Internet (I"m thinking my parents or older, one's who use the Internet, but not as well equipped with it and who are going to be voting in larger numbers than younger generations who are apt at using the Internet) or both. However, once we get through that we can break down each issue to see where he stands. Apparently, before I even wrote this, someone must have told him the exact same thing because his website is much easier now (I needed to check on something that I had printed) and is easier to navigate. Obviously his staff is tweaking his website to make it more user friendly...kudos!

Strategy For A Stronger America

This is the best place to start when looking at Governor Romney's issues. This PDF file (quite large, with a lot of pictures, which is nice, but unless you have a nice printer, doesn't look as nice when printed out for easier reading) is separated into 10 main challenges that Mitt Romney identifies as the core issues in his campaign.

Challenge # 1 -- Keeping American's Safe At Home and Abroad

Romney breaks down this first issue by looking at three various challenges. Basically he spends the entire time attacking the Clinton administration for their cuts in the Military and how that has weakened America. Huh? So, what about the past 7 years of the Bush administration? Have they left spending on the military at Clinton levels? I find it quite amusing that even after 7 years of the Bush administration, a serious Presidential candidate would spend all of their time talking about how bad the Clinton Administration was to the Military. His solutions to these problems that are 8 years old? A stronger military including increasing our end strength by 100,000 troops. I am curious as to how he is going to do this since the military is having a hard time recruiting as it is and have been forced to lower their standards to meet those goals. He also states that we need to transform and strengthen our domestic civilian international efforts. I'm not quite sure what this means, but he does reference the Goldwater-Nichols military reforms of the 1980's and that we need to "build" upon them. Again, this is so generic as to be misleading. Building upon an act that was so expansive in its reforms can mean anything. Gov. Romney then talks about protecting our homeland and that it begins well before they reach our shores and borders. This is true, but he doesn't say much on how we will do this except to say that it must be a priority and it will place a demand on new US capabilities.

Overall, this is a bad start to his campaign. To spend the entire time blaming the Clinton Administration and then giving absolutely zero specifics on how he would fix the problem is not a good way to begin. The only specific thing he advocates is increasing our end strength by 100,000 troops, but again fails to tell us how. Hopefully he will improve upon this start.

Challenge # 2 -- Confronting Radical Jihad

Here Gov. Romney discusses the impact that Jihad-ism has had on our country and the world. I think one of the best paragraphs in all of his information is one this topic. He basically says three things: 1 -- we cannot just wish that Jihad-ism will go away, 2 -- US Military action cannot solve it and 3 -- that Muslims are going to have to defeat the radicals and we need to work with them. This is one of the more intelligent statements regarding radical jihad that I have heard from a Presidential candidate. His solutions are interesting. First off, he states that we need to create a "Special Partnership Force (SPF)" in the military. Essentially the SPF would be a Peacekeeping force within the US Military, but I understand why he is trying to give it a new name. Most American's don't like the idea of 'peace-keeping' or 'country-building' but this is exactly what that force would be used to do, which we sorely need. His next step talks about developing a partnership with our Middle East allies to ensure that those countries have "public schools, micro-credit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health care, and competitive economic policies." While those are great goals, I'm not sure how he would do that? Are we going to push the World Bank to give micro-credit loans to small businesses in Islamic countries? Are we going to give military forces or his newly created SPF to ensure the rule of law? Are we going to build up their infrastructure to ensure health care and education? His goals and statements are very good and idealistic, but I would like to see more specifics on how he would achieve such results.

Overall, this topic is better than the first, he doesn't blame the Clinton Administration for failing to take on Islamic extremism and focuses instead on what needs to be done. However, he is still a little vague on how he will achieve this. Even his most specific plan, the SPF, is not explained in full on how he would achieve that or even get it started or where the troops would come from. So, while an improvement, there is still some more specifics needed.

Challenge # 3 -- Combating Nuclear Terrorism

This topic Gov. Romney spends most of his time talking about Iran and their ambitions to attract Nuclear materials for a nuclear weapon as well as discussing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and how countries can ignore this treaty. I find it interesting that he ignores the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, probably because the US has ignored this law since Bush came into office. However, he is right that Iran is trying to gain Nuclear Weapons, and that is not a good thing. Unfortunately, I am not sure if Gov. Romney's plan would be successful. He states that we should try to isolate Iran by sanctioning them economically and diplomatically and then trying to get other nations to join us, specifically other Arab nations. Unfortunately this will fail. While this is a pretty specific plan, he gives no indication as to how to get other Arab nations on our side against Iran. When the majority of the world's population believes that the US is a greater threat to our security than Iran, unless we change that, we won't get others to side with us against Iran. Also, he says that we should not engage them, but didn't this work with North Korea? We engaged them and now they are eliminating their nuclear program and allowing nuclear inspectors into the country, so why wouldn't this work with Iran?

Overall, he has some good statements here and some specific ideas on some parts, but doesn't give enough info on how he would get other nations to support our isolation of Iran. Until he can show how he would do this, I would be skeptical of this idea, however, at least he is being more specific with his ideas.

The second part of the Nuclear Terrorism issue deals with preventing terrorists from gaining nuclear capabilities. Here he has some very good specific ideas. He talks about making nuclear trafficking on the same level as genocide, updating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, direct talks with Russia and developing a fuel bank to support countries who want energy assistance. All of these ideas have merit and can be done. He doesn't really get too specific on any of these as to how he would achieve it unfortunately, but overall, they're very good ideas. Gov. Romney now needs to specify as to how he would achieve it to make this issue solid.

Challenge # 4 -- Latin American Allies

Here, Romney essentially says that we must confront dictators in Latin America such as Castro and Hugo Chavez. Other than that, there isn't much else on the problems front, but he has a lot to say regarding his plan. His first step is to continue to "Isolate Castro with Economic Aid and Diplomatic Sanctions." Personally I find this baffling. Have the sanctions worked to bring down Castro? NO! It's been almost 50 years and he's still in power, guess what, trying to isolate a country that has plenty of friends who will keep their leaders afloat does nothing except hurt the people of that country. But at least Gov. Romney is being specific in his plans. He does advocate increasing foreign aid in foreign investment into countries that "stand alongside us" which is a good start. However, he also says we should use our media "savvy" to spread our democratic ideals and try to bring down Castro. Again, not sure how we would do this or what he would do to implement this plan, but there it is.

Overall, there is a lot of tough talk regarding Castro and Chavez that is probably directly aimed at appeasing Cuban-American's who are very anti-Castro and regimes as such. This rhetoric however needs to be backed up by more substantial plans than "we'll spread democracy" and "use our media savvy."

Challenge # 5 -- Global Economic Competition

His challenge here doesn't mention a lot except that other nations are developing into strong economies, which leads me to ask the question: 'Is that such a bad thing?' I mean really, shouldn't we be trying to have every country develop into a strong stable economy since the entire world is now interconnected through globalization? Basically, Romney is saying that we need to make America even stronger so we can continue to compete on a global scale, which is a good idea, so lets see what his plan is to keep us competitive. First off, he wants to lower the Corporate Tax Rate. I guess if you are for this, you will support Gov. Romney, if not, you won't. However, he doesn't specify how much or how it will be off-set because he also says that we need to get control of our deficit spending (not in this section, but another section). This is the type of political talk that I dislike, anyone can say that they will lower corporate taxes, but by how much and how are we going to pay for it is a lot tougher question that needs to be answered. He also states that we need to strengthen our education by focusing on Science and Math, implementing more Charter Schools and working with public-private partnerships. Again, this is all good and well to say we need to focus on education, but how are we going to improve it? Education is another topic altogether that can be discussed, and while I agree with Gov. Romney that we do need to focus on education, I leave with no better idea on how he would achieve that with his website. He then spends most of the time talking about cutting taxes, a good move if you are a Republican running for President. Again, this is all great and I love paying less in taxes, however, I also like having my roads fixed and my salary paid (I'm a public school teacher, so your taxes pay my salary). So, how is he going to pay for all of these tax breaks? Are we going to keep deficit spending? Are we going to cut spending? If so, where do we start cutting? It is these questions that again make me upset when reading his page.

Overall, his focus is mostly on lowering taxes, but without any real statements on how he would pay for those tax cuts. It's easy to say "Read My Lips, No New Taxes" and to also say you are going to end our debt, but it is a lot harder actually putting those words into real results, just look to President Bush.

Challenges 6-10 will be continued in the next article.