As Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for President. In the Republican race this year Romney was forced to run to the right of Santorum and Gingrich to ensure he won the nomination. This hard right turn could cause him problems with independents in the General Election in November. When his campaign spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, was aled this question he replied by basically saying that Romney is like an etch-a-sketch, that he could shake everything up and start again.
What the spokesman was saying is that the 'promises' Romney made to Republican voters at the start of this year and at the end of last year will broken. During this period he said many things that many voters find controversial. Which of these views will he abandon in coming months? During the primaries he has been very anti-gay, he said that is he became President then he would amend the United States constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. This would ban gay marriage, not only at the federal level but in every state that has already passed same-sex marriage such as New Hampshire and New York. Previously Romney took every opportunity he could to mention how anti-gay he was. Yet yesterday he was making a speech in North Carolina on the eve of a referendum The referendum is basically the same as what Romney supposedly wants for the whole country - a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. With this in mine it is bizarre that Romney made no mention of today's vote. it is the first hint of a whisper that Romney may be preparing to etch-a-sketch his views on gays that he had held for the past few months.
Another controversial issue which Romney may want to perform an etch-a-sketch on is that of his views on immigration. Prior to now Romney said he supported many anti-immigrant measures that state legislators proposed, an example is Arizona's 'Papers Please' bill. Like the gay rights issue, there is the first sign that Romney may renegade on this issue. The man behind many of the anti-immigrant legislation, Kris Kobach, and a hard-liner on immigration issues,was an informal adviser for Mitt Romney on his campaign. Yet in a list of advisers that the Romney campaign released, Kobach was missing from it. When the campaign was contacted about whether Kobach was still and adviser or not, they replied that he is a 'supporter'. I think that's a no. This is also just a whisper but nonetheless it is still a sign that Romney may 'change' his views in time for the general election in November. It is also important to not that currently only 20% of Latinos (one of the largest immigrant group in the states) back Romney for President. It is estimated for him to win he must get around 40% of the Latino vote. To do this he will need to hold off with anti-immigration stances.
So what else could he change his views on? Romney clearly needs to get his support with women up otherwise he will certainly lose in November. Will he go back on his promise to illegal use abortion and take a less hard line stance on contraception? Almost certainly. What about his support for killing Medicare as we know it, causing pain and suffering for millions of elderly people or getting rid of the Department for Housing and Urban Development (aka HUD) which will result in many military veterans being made homeless.
The fact is that Romney is going to have to etch-a-sketch some of these issues otherwise he will certainly lose in November. This puts Obama in a good position, he can easily accuse Romney of being a flip flopper extraordinaire without facing the same accusations. Unlike Romney, Obama has not had to fight in the primaries and go after the party's base before changing for the general election.
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