The Real Romney

During my two week hiatus recovering from a nasty winter cold, I read The Real Romney, by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman. While I've read and written about Romney profusely in the past couple of months, I must admit that the South Carolina stomping delivered by former Speaker Newt Gingrich forced me to reconsider the inevitability, and yes even the wisdom, of his pending nomination. As I've said previously, I was a staunch supporter of John McCain in 2008, a man I saw then as Romney's foil. I flirted with Tim Pawlenty early in this cycle, then embraced Jon Huntsman, only to migrate towards the former Massachusetts governor when their campaigns fizzled.

Mitt Romney remains a flawed frontrunner leading a weak field. This qualification aside, The Real Romney raises no further red flags. In fact, it paints a more complete picture of a man whose public persona is excessively robotic. He is the embodiment of a family man, deeply devoted to his wife Ann and their five sons. He is a man of true faith, who walked the walk by helping friends and neighbors in need, and still tithes ten percent of his income to the church.

Romney's intelligence and work ethic are second to none. His performance at Bain Capital speaks to his business acumen. His stewardship of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City saved the whole enterprise from catastrophe and provided an uplifting experience and spectacle for Americans truly in need of a pick-me-up in the months after 9-11.

The citicism of his career in venture capitalism that Romney has endured by his rivals, namely Gingrich and the since departed Rick Perry, is deplorable and was debunked in an earlier post. It remains the gift that keeps on giving to the incumbent president who should be planning a move back to Chicago come January. On the other hand, Romney's political career is also ripe for the picking, and I would suggest, fair game for Republicans and Democrats alike.

Romney will never live down the statements and policy positions from his longshot bid to steal the Kennedy crown in 1994. His pro-choice position, embrace of gay rights, and repudiation of the Reagan-Bush era are enough to make any conservative blush and swallow hard. His successful 2002 gubernatorial bid was similarly pragmatic in a deep blue state with a tendency to check a Democratic legislature with a Rockefeller Republican on Beacon Hill. He remained pro-choice, embraced climate change and measures to address it, and sought and delivered near universal health care coverage to Massachusetts residents via an individual mandate.

True, Romney did undergo a transformation on abortion, and I take this change of heart at face value. Holding Reagan and Bush 41 to the same standard, it's where you end up that matters in my mind.

Although he never advocated for gay marriage, he walked back his support of gay rights when the state supreme court legalized the former by fiat. Given that President Obama doesn't yet support gay marriage either, my hope is for a draw with Romney, as he has committed to upholding gay rights. The push for equality across sexual preferences is in my mind inevitable and justified, and I don't expect either Obama or Romney to stand in the way. This will without doubt add to conservative reservations about the Republican frontrunner, but my breed of elephants consider it an asset.

Romneycare continues to hang as an albatross on his prickly path to Tampa, but it's a trump card in the general election, and I'll dig into this further in a future post (Sneak preview: the individual mandate is conservative, and it is conveniently opposed as a means of undermining Obamacare, legislation that should be repealed for a myriad of reasons beyond the mandate). His clumsy statements on the Second Amendment have also inspired target practice on his pro-gun control record, but the individual right to keep and bear arms will be safe under Romney as it has been under Obama (indeed, 2008 and 2010 were banner years).

This brings us back to Bain Capital, where Romney proved his knowledge of the real economy, and the fall campaign will turn on this issue. I invite a debate over who is better prepared to restore prosperity on Wall Street and Main Street alike.

Let's go mano a mano over the tax code. I'm in favor of policies that encourage investment. What say you? Who will have the courage to embrace entitlement reform and save the social safety net for our posterity? Last week's State of the Union speech was noticeably barren on this count.

How about balancing the budget via spending cuts and a flatter, fairer tax code? Simpson-Bowles was sent promptly to the circular file, but a President Romney just might retrieve it.

So who is the real Romney? He's America's best bet to tackle today's tough issues, and yes, restore our country's greatness.