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Conservative groups beware: Mitt Romney considers moving away from traditional marriage

By: Griffin@griffinelection (Diary)  |  April 13th, 2012 at 09:07 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

A top politico story yesterday focused on the push-and-pull of republican voters and Mitt Romney’s top supporters.  Apparently, the Romney campaign has struggled to find a balance between the views of his voting base and three of his donors on creating a new right to gay marriage.  I sincerely hope that this story isn’t true.

Barack Obama is going to change course and declare his support for gay marriage prior to the election.  He would be a fool not to.  In 2008, he ran as a social moderate.  Obama has been signaling that his views on traditional marriage are “evolving”.  He will change.  The Romney campaign seems to think it may have to move toward the middle on this issue.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Romney campaign has sewn up the nomination.  But the strategy it is now pursuing is baffling.  He isn’t bringing together the right and he isn’t endearing himself to the middle.  And now he is considering moving away from his stance on marriage.

Conservative groups need to be careful.  This week, National Organization for Marriage endorsed Mitt Romney for President, even though he presided over Massachusetts as it became the first state in America to declare gay marriage a constitutional right under the puritan constitution.  Earlier this week, the pro-life lifenews.com sent out alerts reminding pro-life supporters that the number one goal was defeating Barack Obama in 2012.

The question is — is that the ultimate goal?

Is the number one job of pro-life groups this year to elect a formerly pro-choice governor who won’t commit to overturning Roe?  Should pro-marriage groups commit to Mitt Romney?

Defeating Barack Obama is very important.  For the GOP it should be the number one goal.  But special interest groups can’t be in the business of selling their souls for a win.  There is a lot of races to get involved in without dedicating all resources to the former Massachusetts governor.  That is not to say that this site wishes the Governor’s campaign ill will.  It is simply to say that win or lose, we are all going to have to look at ourselves in the mirror the morning after the election next winter.  I hope we don’t get so desperate to beat Obama that we forget who we are.

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  • MartyBegan

    Social conservatives have to choose between someone, who while not actively pursuing thier own goals, is at least not hostile to them, and someone who’s entire platform is against all they believe in.

    For social conservatives this election should be about maintaining the status quo on thier issues, not any thoughts of a rollback. The economy and the overall quesrtion of government intervention in ones economic life needs to take precedence.

  • xymbaline

    If you get him the nomination, they’ll all evolve leftward.

    You might disagree, but what if you’re wrong?

    • acat

      “He’s kept the promises he meant to keep.” — Hillary Clinton explaining why Bill Clinton was not keeping some of his promises.

      Mew

      • xymbaline

        I like the Hillary quote above, and I think it applies, here, too.

    • noprisoners49

      Mitt needs 60+% of all remaining hard delegates to secure the nomination. As he polls in the 40s most of the time, how will he do this?

      • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

        you see it’s easy to win when you have no real opposition. Newt and Ron Paul don’t count as real opposition.

  • Seedyrom

    if he does it will be a post election event. His base is split on gay issues plus independents aren’t as open to it as some think. I’d say his base is 40/60 split leaning away from a change. Why would I say that? Obama never signed the Gay Worker Rights Executive Order written back in early 2009. Personally I think Obama is a little macho and a sports jock who sees marriage the same as many of us do. Obama gets the moderate label over some issues, this is one of them.

    As for Romney, sites like this will influence Romney through the legislature which knows where the conservative position is. Romney is best to say its a 10th Amendment issue and not for presidents to decide and stick to the marriage is between a man and a woman.

    • zachv

      As a whole, Obama’s base supports same-sex marriage 70/30 ref, but the split comes with respect to generations. The youth vote, which again is 70/30, isn’t as excited and riled up as in 2008, so Obama’s will be forced to depend a lot more upon the elderly vote. He’s not going to rile them..

      Romney is best to say its a 10th Amendment issue and not for presidents to decide and stick to the marriage is between a man and a woman.
      If Romney is elected in November, the one issue he’ll have to take a stand on is DOMA. A lot of LGBT advocacy groups and Democrats are going for the jugular on that.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Why don’t you lay out a strategy to stop Romney from getting the nomination, do it on a state by state basis and show us where anybody else gets enough money to compete.

  • SoFiMil

    .

    • zachv

      http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75060.html

      • SoFiMil

        ..

  • samcoastie

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/269984/my-pro-life-pledge-mitt-romney

    And his testimony before the senate on marriage

    http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281ffb4522&wit_id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281ffb4522-1-1

    There are things to worry about with Mitt, but these are not on my list.

  • Kyle-MI

    And you can’t out liberal the Dems. It would be political suicide to switch positions on gay marriage. Even these prominent donors know that. With donor friends like these, who needs enemies?

  • http://conservativemormonmom.blogspot.com ew88

    Rule number 1. Don’t believe anything printed by the left. I highly doubt it is true except in liberals’ wildest imaginations.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    drowned in an ocean of debt, and regulations, and I don’t really give a good damn flip of what the president thinks about marriage!

    It just is not something the Federal Government should be involved with, and it is not a pressing issue right now!