Mitt Romney’s Commitment To Flip Flopping

by Stuart Shapiro

Governor Romney has been criticized for insufficient commitment to any principles that would guide him as president.  Heck, he’s even been given that dreaded label in politics, a “flip-flopper.” Well Romney has found something he believes in:

“In the private sector,” he said, “if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well you’ll get fired for being stubborn and stupid. Winston Churchill said, ‘When the facts change I change too, Madam.” What do you do?”

Well OK, he’s got a point.  Except for two things:

That’s different from what he said a week ago, when he said he doesn’t change positions.

And as Steve Benen points out:

Romney would have voters believe that he’s simply adapted to changing facts. The circumstances make this impossible to believe — his radical transformations, purely by happenstance, just happen to coincide with political expediency to further Romney’s ambitions? The parallels between his metamorphoses and the shifting political winds are an accident?

Please. The list of Romney flip-flops is just too long, and covers too much ground, to be a remarkable coincidence. There’s nothing remotely sincere about his repeated reinventions. The guy has demonstrated a willingness to flip-flop like no other American politician in a generation.

Governor Romney is what he is.  An elite product of the political system who will blow with the prevailing winds.  When the general election comes, you can be sure he’ll blow toward the political center again.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.