Which Mitt Romney will go down in history? Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/831

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By ROBERT S. MCELVAINE | 10/31/12 9:25 PM EDT

Surely the biggest mystery of the 2012 presidential campaign — even greater than that of what was wrong with President Barack Obama in the first debate — is this: Who is Mitt Romney? The conundrum deepened at the final debate, when the Republican candidate took different positions on almost every foreign policy issue from those he has stated in the past. It was reminiscent of Richard Nixon in the first presidential debate in 1960, when the vice president repeatedly said such things as, “The things Sen. Kennedy has said many of us can agree with,” and “I agree with Sen. Kennedy’s appraisal generally in this respect.”

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Rather than a self-made man, he is a self-made-up man.

When Romney shared the debate stage with Ted Kennedy in 1994, he mutated into a candidate with positions almost identical to those of the legendary liberal lion. When he shared the stage with a group of right-wing Republicans during the innumerable primary debates, he took on the views, characteristics and policies of the people surrounding him. Viewers could be forgiven for mistaking Romney for Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain.

But at the general election debates this month, the person with whom he shared the stage was a moderate Democrat, and Romney took on the trappings and positions of a moderate candidate; indeed, he almost became Barack Obama. Now he was a believer in government regulation — “You can’t have a free market work if you don’t have regulation. … You have to have regulations so that you can have an economy work.” Suddenly, Social Security, Medicare and people with pre-existing conditions had no greater friend than Mitt Romney.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83115.html#ixzz2AwryAa2D

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1. K/R

Good read. Thanks for sharing.