There’s a big fight going on in Ohio, and as far as Conservative Republicans are concerned, Mitt Romney is on the wrong side of the issues. That is, todayhe is anyway — because it seems
Romney is trying to represent both sides of the issue at the same time.
Two very important initiatives are on the ballot for the upcomming election. Issue 2, will allow the people of Ohio to roll back the union busting provisions passed earlier this year by Republican governor John Kasich. If issue 2 passes, the people of Ohio would have essentially repeal Kasich’s decision on limiting collective bargaining in his state. Issue 3, also on the ballot, would allow Ohio to withdraw from any Health Care mandate.
So why are Conservatives even more upset with Mitt Romney today than they were yesterday? Because he went to Ohio and gave a non-answer when asked about his position on the ballot initiatives. His non-answer would allow him to flip flop later on if necessary, and Conservatives were not happy. They expected Romney to say that Jon Kasich’s decision to limit collective bargaining was correct. Instead, all they got was;
“I am not speaking about the particular ballot issues. Those are up to the people of Ohio. But I certainly support the efforts of the governor to reign in the scale of government. I am not terribly familiar with the two ballot initiatives. But I am certainly supportive of the Republican Party’s efforts here.”
Conservatives became confused. This to them, was not a strong stance against the Issue 2 and they collectively denounced Romney, causing his campaigners to later try and patch things up. His campaign spokes person issued the following statement; “Gov. Romney believes that the citizens of states should be able to make decisions about important matters of policy that affect their states on their own.”
That statement was still not good enough to those who wanted Romney to take a position for or against the ballot initiatives. A top conservative group called The Club For Growth made this observation;
“The big problem many conservatives have with Mitt Romney is that he’s taken both sides of nearly every issue important to us. He’s against a flat tax, now he’s for it. He says he’s against ObamaCare, but was for the individual mandate and susbidies that are central to ObamaCare. He thinks that collective bargaining issues should be left for states to decide if he’s Ohio, but he took the opposite position when he was in New Hampshire. This is just another statement in a long line of statements that will raise more doubts about what kind of President Mitt Romney would be in the minds of many Republican primary voters.”
Romney’s true colors are shining through, but what’s upsetting to his conservative base is that they those colors are subject to change day to day.
