Romney running for govenor of a liberal state: I promose not to criminalize abortions

he follows his promise

Romney running for pres: I am pro-life

if you think about this logically it is pretty silly argument to fret that he is going to do something encouraging abortion as Pres

I dont even understand this issue. Roe vs wade is in effect. It isnt changeing anytime soon. To make this the primary issue to vote on in this day and age in the current circumstances borders on totally bizarre and absurd to me. Hello western civilization is under siege from outside its borders lets spend all out time arguing about internal social policy!

However, since that was brought up, I will say that he has changed his mind on several fronts. And the question remains, why?

My entire point with the references and dates regarding Reagan is that there was a shift seen in his thinking that does not seem to be tied to political expediency.

As for Romney, it is too soon to tell. I, for one, am skeptical.

If someone promises to do something, you need some reason to believe they will follow through.

I’m not saying I would never vote for Romney, I’m just unconvinced.

You guys are as bad as the Democrats. You guys act as if it were a matter of life or death… (just kidding)

Muslims want to destroy our way of life. Aging hippies (er, baby-boomers) are going to bankrupt are government with in the next twenty years, and I cannot order a hamburger in LA because I don’t speak Spanish — under population is not a problem, and all you guys care about is what to do with unborn fetuses.

Its simple. The founding fathers deleted the abortion clause before they ratified the Constitution. Its not in there. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, the Constitution is silent. The numb nut judges messed up with Rose v. Wade. It should be overturned and the states should decide. (Come to California for a vacation in the sun if you want to kill your baby)

It is important to appoint originalist judges (for a whole host of reasons), but I’m just tired of the abortion thing. That is why I’m leaning towards Giuliani.

He will appoint judges like Roberts and Alito. That’s good enough for me. What’s his view on abortion — WHO CARES. He is not going to issue an executive order requiring conservative bloggers to have abortions against their will. Other than appoint judges, he is irrelevant to this irrelevant issue.

1) He gets “it”, Jihad’s war on non-beleivers. Most of the candidates, republicans and democrats dont get “it”, the most important issue of our time. This war is in our streets, our neighborhoods, our schools, and our government.
Our current president doesn’t even get “it”.
2) He is for border enforcement.
3) He is for making Bush tax cuts permanent and supports a simpler tax code.
4) He has promisied to appoint conservative judges.

Let’s face it, many of us voted for Bush because he was the best of a sad lot and we didn’t want to risk seeing a man who should probably be treated as a war criminal (John Kerry) becoming Commander-in-Chief. I voted for Bush in 2004 and …

As you said, when Reagan passed a pro-abortion bill, which increased abortions and is something Romney never did, it was in his first term.

I have never heard one substanitive reason to dislike Romney other than he has changed his position on some issues as has every other politician in the time of man and that he is a Mormon.

So now that we have established that evolving on the position of abortion is not an issue for a conservative candidate and Romney’s executive, education, view on judges, the war on islamic terrorism and personal hygiene record are better than or equal to every other candidate in the race, what other reason is there other than he sucks less than Rudy and McCain in a national election?

I was quoting Barnes to show the 1967 and 1980 gap, and to describe the change. I then tried to see if I could find anything within those 13 years that would show a move over a long period of time. I didn’t know when Reagan changed his mind.

The three sources I mentioned cited 1970, 1973, and 1975, as dates indicating Reagan taking a prolife position.

Nowhere did I mention Mormonism in the comment, and I don’t believe I ever have mentioned it at any time. Please do not impugn my motives.

From these bits and pieces I have concluded it is far too early to compare Romney to Reagan. Reagan’s track record consistently moves to the prolife position. Romney has yet to convince me.

Fair enough. You want to quote Fred Barnes, let’s use all his words.

The most telling example of conservative indifference to the abortion issue occurred in California. In 1967, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a bill that virtually decriminalized abortion. At the time, Mr. Reagan was troubled by the passionate lobbying against the bill by Cardinal Francis McIntyre. But on the advice of two of his most conservatives advisers, Ed Meese and Lyn Nofziger, Mr. Reagan signed anyway. He persuaded himself that the measure would have little impact. Instead, it prompted a surge in abortions.

Messrs. Reagan and Hyde were among the first Republicans to have strong misgivings. Within a year after signing the abortion bill, Mr. Reagan told political writer Lou Cannon that he’d never have done so if he’d been more experienced in office. It was “the only time as governor or president that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation,”

If only he had a little more time in office? You mean like Romney? No that couldn’t be, he is a one term governor just like Reagan was.

You guys can keep this crap up forever but it won’t change the facts. Reagan was at least as much a social liberal in a socially liberal state as Romney was. More even. Romney has never been divorced.

All this crap about he makes me uneasy and I don’t trust him in my gut is lame. He is as solid as an actor from Hollywood ever was. If you are twisted about the Mormon thing then just admit it. Honestly look at his record, his accomplishments, his educational and buisness accomplishments, there is no other candidate on either side of the aisle who comes close.

Rudy is pro-abortion. McCain is a blowhard who is dying to kiss the ass of any evangelical he can grab after trashing them last election..and Romney is a phony? Please.

the afsc couldn’t have put on a better performance.

jummy on February 21, 2007 at 10:57 PM

Does that mean you owe me a standing ovation? Or even an encore? Lighten up dude. There are only a FEW rascals among us Christians — and they are easy to identify since most are televangelists. Smile!

So Romney changed his view on abortion from when he was a governor to when he ran for the presidency. So did Reagan. Look it up.

JackStraw on February 21, 2007 at 7:59 PM

I have been seeing this continual comparison of Romney to Reagan. I decided to spend some time to track down Reagan’s timeline as he changed his stance on abortion.

First, one more note on Romney: Just last year Romney signed Massachusett’s Commonwealth Care health insurance plan that includes abortion services.

Romney has been attempting to distance himself from this health care reform plan, not because of the abortions, but because of the long term costs. He joked about it at the National Review Institute conservative conference last weekend.

As for Reagan, I think I linked a few weeks ago to this column by Fred Barnes Choosing Life How pro-lifers become pro-lifers. In it, he wrote:

In his first year as California governor in 1967, the legislature passed a bill to legalize “therapeutic” abortions…

His instinct was to veto the bill and the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles urged him to follow that course. But he signed it into law. Reagan was disturbed by his decision, however, and continued to think long and hard about abortion. The bill, according to Lou Cannon in Governor Reagan, “permitted more legal abortions in California than occurred in any other state before the advent of Roe v. Wade.” Reagan’s worst fear was realized.

By 1980, Reagan had changed his mind and become a firm opponent of abortion. He insisted on a pro-life plank in the Republican platform for the first time. In 1983, he published a passionate pro-life essay, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. It turned out that signing the abortion bill in 1967 was the only political mistake that Reagan ever admitted.

My current quest was to see if I could find any track record for Reagan between 1967 and 1980. I came up with this:

1. Lou Cannon in his book Governor Reagan His Rise to Power mentions on page 213, that in 1970 Reagan successfully opposed legislative attempts to further liberalize abortion law. I cannot find another reference to this.

2. On a Marxist website, (which I won’t link to, but you can search if you like) in an article titled Our Bodies! Our Choice! Winning the Fight for Reproductive Rights by Evelyn Sell, she writes:

For example, an abortion rights rally was set for March 10, 1973, in San Francisco to protest Governor Ronald Reagan’s statements against abortion.

3. TIME Magazine, Uproar over Abortion, February 16, 1976, discussing Carter, Reagan and Ford on abortion:

Ronald Reagan has come out flatly against abortion on demand and in favor of the constitutional amendment outlawing abortion except in rare cases posing a clear risk to the woman’s life.

From these bits and pieces I have concluded it is far too early to compare Romney to Reagan. Reagan’s track record consistently moves to the prolife position. Romney has yet to convince me.

So. It would seem that some of the conservative “purists” in the Republican party want to be free of us Christians so that they can pursue ideological nirvana. It would seem that we now live in a country, originally founded on the principle of religious freedom, where people that hold religious convictions are now simply unwelcome in a ubiquitous and universal sense (no matter what political party that they show an interest in). Is that it? Kinda’ ironic, don’t you think?

I think AllahPundit should start a new thread. The title/topic should read something like “Who hates the Christians most of all?” Everyone should be invited to participate. Muslims, liberals, conservatives, atheists, the MSM — everybody.

In the interests of giving my enemies (like jummy) fair warning, let it be said right up front that we Christians count it all joy when we are persecuted, and that we will not hesitate to pray for those that hate us.

Dude, you just come off as someone who hates Christians…I am a Christian and I do not want to change the constitution or legislate morality etc.

EnochCain on February 21, 2007 at 9:54 PM

well, i’m not. outwardly, i invest a lot of energy indefending the christian right; because of the “right” part. it’s easy when the line to refute is a bunch of hyperbolic nonsense about the war being a “christianist crusade” waged by an “american taliban”. not so much when i’m challenged with reasonable questions as to why the conservative movement wants to usurp the rights of the states to define marriage however they wish with a federal ammendment excluding gay couples. there is a lot of complexity to the issue further than what i described and some thoughtfull christians have contributed to my regard of that complexity. but i know despite all of those who would pipe up in the face of harsh rebuke to offer alternate explainations that at root the reasoning is “it’s in the bible.” that is not acceptable.

and it’s not solely that issue by a long shot. the whole span during which conservative republicans dedicated themselves to demonstrating how broadly they can define “life” by keeping a single braindead woman from the inevitable, they neglected real initiatives which could have benefitid millions of living people, like school choice. we never got school choice out of our congressional majority and the plug got pulled on schiavo anyway.

never again.

it’s because of christians’ siezure of the social agenda that the conservative movement hasn’t been able to develop a coherant, identifiably conservative social theory which is worthy of a secular political culture resting on ther pillars of pluralism and equality before the law.

jummy on February 21, 2007 at 9:39 PM

You remind of the liberals that hate the near enemy (Christians) SO MUCH, that you can not see the far more lethal enemy (the Islamofascist Jihadists). Haven’t you been reading the adjacent threads regarding our education system in the U.S.? The liberals have already brainwashed the vast majority of the population while they were still school children. Without the Christians, you may find “purity” for your ideology, but it won’t matter. You will be (very nearly) alone, and you will soon be dead (if the Jihadists and the liberals have their way). Which part of simple arithmetic don’t you understand?

Magic Corn, Chubby elves!

-Wasteland Man

P.S. Boy it looks like him though. Gets my vote 08. ^.^

…christians’ political aggression. christians do not have the privlege of retreating behind me after one provacative move or another when i know i’ll be strong armed out…

jummy on February 21, 2007 at 9:39 PM

The underlying presumption (of yours) here is that “political aggression” and “strong arm” tactics are somehow innate characteristics of ALL PEOPLE that call themselves Christians. Yes, there ARE people, some of them in very powerful and influential positions, that try to impose “litmus tests” and/or use or practice exclusionary tactics (bigotry?) — I would not try to make you believe otherwise. I simply do not believe that ALL PEOPLE that call themselves Christians think and act in that way. Furthermore, I would argue that the incidence of this sort of behavior is not any more or less common among people that call themselves Christians than it is among any other group of people. Bigotry is a part of human nature. Period. You will find it among liberals, Democrats, atheists, Jews, Gays, Hindus, conservatives, and Christians. No group is immune. But I would argue that the Christians are no worse that any other group. Do YOU believe that they are worse than other groups of people?

Most of what you write against Christians is ill-defined vitriolic screed, now that I’ve scrolled more thoroughly through your comments. Do you have any hard data for anything you say? Never mind. Forget I tried to engage you.

the republicans are going to lose this next election because of christians and their stupid litmus test. that’s forgone. i’m going to use these next four years doing everything i can to alienate christians from my republican party and my conservative movement so this never happens again.

jummy on February 21, 2007 at 9:39 PM

You overestimate the discernment of Christians in the United States. Rick Warren, probably the most well known ‘evangelical’ in the United States, had Barack Obama come speak at his church. Christians in this country really don’t know what they believe, and many just say they’re ‘Christian’, because they don’t know any better, or because it’s cultural. This ‘litmus test’ you describe, what exactly is it?

elections by alienating Christians, then I am absolutely CERTAIN that you do not understand the statistics of our national voting demographics. And if you don’t understand simple arithmetic like this, I suspect that you will ALWAYS be unhappy and disappointed, no matter HOW many Christians that you manage to alienate.

CyberCipher on February 21, 2007 at 9:49 PM

you know what? i don’t think christians can afford to be alienated from the republican party.

weren’t you just a moment ago using ap as a human shield? do you think a christian party standing alone as only christian can survive our lazais fairre culture any better than than the dour, hirsuit knuckle-strikers of the 70′s feminist movement?

so, take your ball and go home.

jummy on February 21, 2007 at 9:51 PM

Dude, you just come off as someone who hates Christians…I am a Christian and I do not want to change the constitution or legislate morality etc.

CyberCipher on February 21, 2007 at 9:30 PM
Reminds me of people from the LP…maybe they want a party that doesn’t lose every election.

EnochCain on February 21, 2007 at 9:34 PM

christians are doing an awesome job winning elections for democrats. root and branch. it’s because of christians’ siezure of the social agenda that the conservative movement hasn’t been able to develop a coherant, identifiably conservative social theory which is worthy of a secular political culture resting on ther pillars of pluralism and equality before the law.

it would be no loss to me, the party, the movement or the nation if the christian movement went ahead to overtly win elections for the dems. honestly. because christians are not nessesarily conservatives or even nationalists. a christian could just as easily be hiding a weapons cache for the sandinistas as the could be waving the flag while demanding that we change the constitution on behalf of their theory of what “god” approves of… lest they walk.

well, walk.

the republicans are going to lose this next election because of christians and their stupid litmus test. that’s forgone. i’m going to use these next four years doing everything i can to alienate christians from my republican party and my conservative movement so this never happens again.

jummy on February 21, 2007 at 9:39 PM

If you think that the Republicans can win Predidential elections by alienating Christians, then I am absolutely CERTAIN that you do not understand the statistics of our national voting demographics. And if you don’t understand simple arithmetic like this, I suspect that you will ALWAYS be unhappy and disappointed, no matter HOW many Christians that you manage to alienate.