"One day [Romney] has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan, but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Gov. Romney agreed with the president with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign," – former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, in endorsing the president for re-election in an appearance on CBS This Morning.
There are some criticizing Obama for painting Romney as a conservative extremist and getting meep-meeped in the first debate by Romney's ripping off his far-right mask like an alien and revealing the moderate underneath. They should have targeted him as a weather-vane flip-flopper from the get-go. Matt Bai has some insights on this.
But I tend to disagree with Matt and agree with Bill Clinton. (There I said it.)
The reason is that Romney's positions were indeed far-right until October 3, and he still leads the most extreme GOP ever to wield political power. After a while, telling people that Romney's positions are meaningless because they could change again at any moment refuses to take the candidate's positions as what he says they are. You end up in parallel universes. You are attacking a mythical candidate that voters cannot see. Which is why the Republican attempt to portray Obama as a leftwing extremist just never worked with those outside the Limbaugh bunker.
I think making Romney own the GOP's extremist positions since 2008 – he picked Paul Ryan for Pete's sake – was crucial and necessary. And if the Obama camp now pivots to Powell's point – that Romney's new persona is just a mask to put his far right proposals into effect, then the two critiques complement each other.
Romney is a chilling shape-shifter who played a far right candidate for nine months and Mr Rogers for one. Can you trust such a man in the Oval Office? How do we have any idea what he'd do? His refusal to provide the math on how his budget plans work, and his endorsement of Obama's foreign policy the other night while retaining all the war-mongers for the Israeli right among his advisers, completes the picture.
In other words, keep calling Romney a far-right extremist, which he is on paper; but say he can shape-shift and flip-flop at any moment as we can now see. He's both. He was a severe conservative because he is a flip-flopper. And not just a tactical one, like many pols. But a structural one – a man with no core but Mormonism, which itself can change doctrine at any moment with no explanation in the pursuit of market share.
(Photo: A fan hugs President Barack Obama as he works the rope line following a rally at City Park in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday, October 24, 2012. By Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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