How Could a Mormon Not Be for Romney?

Last week, after Mitt Romney was the subject of Fox News’s “12 in 2012” rundown of potential Republican candidates for President, I wrote a post “A Mormon not for Romney for President.”

I realized that most Latter-day Saints would take exception with this. I fully expect he will take the Mormon vote. But I was still somewhat surprised at the intensity of the response I got. This is just tough for many Latter-day Saints to grapple with. I think some must doubt my faithfulness. Let me assure you – I’m a returned missionary, all my sons went on missions. One is currently in the field. I carry my recommend. I think I’m as solid as they come.

I’m not going to post a lot of comments on this. I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to get. I don’t think people read these long trails of comments that thoroughly. If you’re like me, you scan the comments to get the flavor of them and then you move on.

The latest one, which I will just mention here, is from a woman who identifies herself as Lori. I’m sure she’s a sweet woman, and her emotional reaction comes from simply not being able to deal with this. It doesn’t compute in her mind. She accuses me of being irrational in my negativity and then she invents a rationale to try to grapple with my posting – saying that I’ve been duped, and Obama, Reid and Pelosi are behind this effort to smear Mitt.

I thought I made my thought process pretty clear in the original post, but here it is again, in more detail and hopefully greater clarity.

I like Mitt. I was an enthusiastic supporter of his in 2008. At the time I was a book publisher, and I published a book, Mitt Romney: The Man, His Values and His Vision, supporting his candidacy. I wrote the product description that appears on the Amazon page I just linked.

So I was hearing criticism of Romneycare from conservatives. My reaction to this was, “No, they’ve got it all wrong. Romneycare was a great solution. The truth will come out.” So, when I heard that Mitt was appearing on Hannity on Fox News, I made sure I watched. I eagerly awaited what was going to be a tremendously reassuring answer. When he got done, I thought, “Is that IT?” It was SO weak! I have waited since then for him to come up with a better answer. But instead of giving a better answer, he refuses to grant an interview to Bret Baier. This is NOT looking good.

Some posters have referred to Newt Gingrich’s defense of Romney. They sound good. But it’s MITT who needs to be able to answer this.

The answer I would most like to hear would go something like this. “You know, this was an experiment on the state level. In some ways it has been really helpful, but in some ways it has caused some additional problems. Massachusetts is a very liberal state, and the legislature has tinkered with this plan in ways that I don’t like. But I think it’s important for the Federal Government to stay out of this issue and let states like Massachusetts experiment with various solutions until we can come up with something that works.” If he could just ADMIT that there are some problems with it, that would be SO much better. But he’s REALLY sensitive on this flip-flop business. Remember when Romney was interviewed on “Meet the Press” and Tim Russert brought a pair of flip flops to the interview? I think that stings to this day. Yes, it was very unfair. McCain has a whole closet full of flip-flops, but no one in the establishment media brings that up.

My take here is that, because of this, he feels he has to continue on in an unabashed, full-throttle defense of Romneycare. This won’t do. This won’t work. I’m in no mood for this type of thinking and I believe most of the country feels the same way.

The Article 6 blog mentions my posting. At least they acknowledge that I could be rational. But they are clearly disgusted with me. The title of their post on this is: “Polls and Debates, Comic Books and Wisecracks.” John Schroeder mentions my post as the very last item on the page, and he calls it a wisecrack, with this comment: “Not to mention this post. The guy is entitled to vote as he likes and his reasoning is based on Massachusetts healthcare – something that will be an issue for many – so why the ‘Mormon crack’ in the post heading?”

And then he moans, “It’s going to be a long cycle.”

I think so. I think Mitt has been aced out of this by history and by a twisting of his record, to which he hasn’t responded well. It’s a shame. He’s a good man. But we need someone in 2012 who can give a passionate attack on government-run healthcare, and Romney has been maneuvered into a position where he will simply be unable to do that with credibility.