President Mitt Romney


Peter

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A quick take on Mitt Romney

His buttoned down looks and demeanor, experience in business and government inspire confidence. He is a “con-do” guy. He has his own dough.

I have compiled some quotes and one article about him. He may be a front runner soon, or not, depending on your judgment.

quote

“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’ That was the question Mike Huckabee not-so-innocuously posed in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses in 2008.

end quote

The "don't mormons" quote is from the article below. I hope no one will start a thread about "The Huckster."

Peter Taylor

And now, here is Mitt Romney:

2006 “I understand that my views on laws governing abortion set me in the minority in our Commonwealth. I am pro-life.”

“…the drug that they’re referring to not only is a contraceptive, but it’s also an abortive product. Individuals who have already become impregnated and that have a living embryo within them take this drug and ends the life of that embryo. So it’s not only a contraceptive, it’s abortive.”

–Source: Interview with Hugh Hewitt (July 2005)

*Explaining his decision to veto an emergency contraception bill.

"Like the vast majority of Americans, I’ve opposed same-sex marriage, but I’ve also opposed unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference. Americans are a tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage and it is a debate about activist judges who make up the law

“I would like to see us, as a nation, bringing in fewer illegal immigrants.”

. . . rather than interpret the law. "Illegal immigration has to end."

-Source: Radio Interview, The Mike Gallagher Show (January 2007)

Ronald Reagan

“Ronald Reagan is also my hero and a friend of all of ours…I believe that our party’s ascendancy began with Ronald Reagan’s brand of visionary and courageous leadership.”

–Source: Speech in South Carolina (February 2005)

Veterans

“Our veterans know the meaning of service better than anyone else and they aren’t about to quit working when they come home. The best reward we can provide our vets for their service isn’t a medal or a check; it’s a livelihood and a means of supporting themselves and their families.”

–Source: press release promoting “Hire a Veteran” month (November 2005)

2005 “I think we ought to have more oil. We ought to develop more sources of oil so that we can increase our supply. But the last thing I want to do is suck it all dry as quickly as we can. I want use less of it.”

–Source: Interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews (December 2005);

The article from yesterday’s news:

5 challenges for front-runner Romney

Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns Tue Apr 12, 5:32 am ET

By the next-in-line custom of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney should be his party’s presidential front-runner. And he is, sort of, but his early polling and his pick-and-choose primary map betrays the precariousness of his position.

No conversation about the former Massachusetts governor begins with a listing of his strengths as a candidate. Instead, Romney is the rare national politician defined largely by his shortcomings. The most prominent among them— his role in enacting a sweeping Massachusetts health care law exactly five years ago—was already being dissected by his Republican and Democratic opponents on Monday just moments after he announced he’s forming a presidential exploratory committee.

It’s an awkward space to occupy. How Romney deals with the health care issue and his other perceived weaknesses will go a long way toward determining whether he can outlast his prospective opponents and capture the Republican nomination in 2012.

Here are five of his most significant challenges—and what can be

done about them.

The Genuine Article

For all the talk about Mormonism and flip-flops, Romney faced a more fundamental problem in 2008: he couldn’t relate to voters. The more delicate term is authenticity, a reference to the impression that he was a walking PowerPoint presentation – full of crisply-delivered bullet-points but lacking a human touch. (See also: Evangelicals meet: Could be heaven for Mitt)

On the campaign trail, he was as clinical as he was political. When an Iowa boy with autism spoke up at one of his town halls there, he responded not with a comforting hand but rather with a recitation of National Institutes of Health funding levels.

Romney is never going to be a back-slapping politician who will pull up a chair, reach across the table for a piece of fried chicken and talk effortlessly about sports or anything else that might establish an emotional connection with voters.

But Romney advisers still hold out hope for Mitt 2.0. (See also: Poll: Mitt Romney GOP's best New Hampshire hope)

On a personal level, he’s making some overt efforts to come off as less stiff. As Romney’s friends will relate, he comes off in private as much more at ease than his public image would suggest. It’s especially true when he’s in the company of his down-to-earth wife, Ann. Expect to see more of them as a couple – as they’ve done already on some talk shows – in a fashion that brings out what associates say is the real Romney.

It was no accident that the Republican announced his exploratory committee in a casual jacket and open-collared shirt. In fact, it’s rare to find Romney in a business suit these days. The message: He’s not a starchy, inaccessible rich guy who was born in a Brooks Brothers suit.

It’s a small, but not insignificant, step toward humanizing the former governor. And it’s part of a broader make-over—check out pictures of Romney over the last two years and you’ll find his hair, always perfectly coiffed in 2008, is now occasionally out of place. One image even had him in an old-fashioned barber’s chair.

The hope in Romneyland is that in a time of financial distress, voters will place credentials above or at least equal to likability. The thinking is that even if Romney isn’t the guy that you’d like to have the proverbial beer with, he’s an adult with business and turnaround experience at a time the country needs a CEO more than a pal in the White House.

The new approach isn’t without risk. Too much overcompensation on his image–say, jeans at a debate –and he could seem even more inauthentic.

It also wouldn’t hurt Romney if he had a moment where he could demonstrate real passion—perhaps something similar to Reagan’s “I paid for this microphone!” declaration in the 1980 New Hampshire primary. It would have to be spontaneous – or at least appear as such – to portray him a flesh-and-blood leader who people can rally around. It was at that moment, future historians would say, that people began seeing Romney as a president.

A Pre-Existing Condition

Of all the flaws in Romney’s candidacy, the one most likely to doom him in the primary is his record on health care. (See also: New Hampshire GOP chair Jack Kimball defends Mitt Romney on health care)

Five years ago, almost to the day, Romney signed a law expanding health care coverage in Massachusetts and requiring every resident to purchase insurance.

For a Republican running against President Obama – whose national health care overhaul enraged the GOP – that accomplishment might be a dealbreaker.

The best political analog would by Hillary Clinton’s vote for the Iraq war. That issue alone made her vulnerable in the 2008 primaries. And Clinton’s inept, shifting explanations for her vote stirred up deeper reservations about her within the Democratic base.

So far, Romney has struggled in much the same way to explain his health care record, attempting to distinguish “Romneycare” from “Obamacare” by calling the Massachusetts law an experiment in states’ rights.

The law addressed “problems that were in many ways unique to Massachusetts,” Romney claimed in New Hampshire last month.

His explanation hasn’t satisfied hard-core health care opponents.

If Romney ultimately needs a sharper-edged response, he has at least two options.

The first would be a full walk-back and apology for his past position; the second, a full-throated, give-no-quarter defense of a policy he helped craft.

Either would be easier to navigate than the middle-ground he’s attempting to chart now, but either could also just as easily compound his problem by reinforcing his finger-in-the-wind image or confirming to conservative skeptics that he’s in sync with Obama on the issue.

In the video unveiling his exploratory committee Monday, Romney didn’t mention health care at all.

“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’

That was the question Mike Huckabee not-so-innocuously posed in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses in 2008. It captures what, once again, will be one of Romney’s central problems in the Republican primary: a level of ignorance and intolerance in the ranks of the GOP’s conservative grassroots when it comes to Romney’s Mormon faith.

Some Romney advisers attribute his nine-point Iowa loss to Huckabee almost entirely to religious discrimination. One former aide recalls a focus group in which nearly half the group indicated they found the candidate’s faith problematic. The former Massachusetts governor had other difficulties in Iowa but there’s no getting around the fact that there are some evangelical voters who simply won’t support a Mormon.

The solution?

Well, Romney tried to deliver a Big Religion Speech last time assuring such voters that Jesus Christ was his savior and making the case for the role of faith in public life. It didn’t work.

The approach now is to just not bother with those who have qualms over Mormonism. That means keeping the focus on bread-and-butter economic issues and not delving into his faith. Voters can judge Romney’s character on the way he’s lived his life, this thinking goes, and look at his commitment to family.

Translated into strategic terms, that means focusing on states where the electorate isn’t dominated by evangelicals (New Hampshire), where there is an outsized share of Mormons (Nevada) or where the primary turnout will be large enough to outnumber the contingent of voters who can’t get past his religion (Florida).

The Bain of his existence

Romney’s all-jobs, all-the-time message may be his best hope of sidestepping questions about the policies he implemented as a blue state governor.

But taking refuge in his business background as a Bain Capital executive presents a different set of risks for Romney. Put simply: You don’t make a fortune in private equity without closing a few plants.

During Romney’s 1994 Senate campaign and 2002 run for governor, labor groups brought in workers from American Pad and Paper – among other companies – to talk about how Bain took over and cut jobs.

In his announcement video, Romney conceded that his private-sector record is not blemish free.

“Sometimes I was successful and helped create jobs, other times I was not,” Romney said. “I learned how America competes with companies in other countries, why jobs leave and how jobs are created here at home.”

That message might prove effective. But in a worst-case scenario, Romney could go the way of another presidential candidate from Massachusetts, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who downplayed his spotty legislative record by touting a different part of his biography – his service in Vietnam. When that military record came under fire and Kerry failed to vigorously defend it, the rationale for his candidacy crumbled.

Flipper

At campaign events four years ago, Romney was often trailed by a kid wearing a dolphin costume. The joke: Mitt is a flip-flopper.

As long as YouTube exists, Romney isn’t going to be able to get away from questions about his past stances on issues. He tried feverishly in 2008 to suggest that it wasn’t so, but Romney the 1994 Senate candidate and Romney the 2002 gubernatorial candidate was more moderate than the current iteration. His primary opponents and national Democrats were already reminding reporters minutes after his Monday announcement that the news came on the anniversary of his signing healthcare reform into law; a Democratic website, “Multiple Choice Mitt,” will launch on Tuesday.

The Romney approach to the flip-flop rap appears to be one of focus. As his video illustrated, the former governor intends to keep to a tight message on jobs and fiscal issues. He’s not going to try to pounce on every opportunity to outflank his primary rivals on the right – remember the Sanctuary Cities battle with Rudy Giuliani? – but rather to talk about what he knows best and what voters care about most.

That won’t be enough for Republicans who are animated by cultural issues. But, as with his Mormonism, the view in the Romney camp is that those voters will probably never be with them. Romney is the beneficiary of a moment when the conservative grassroots are focused on jobs, spending and worries about American decline more than they are exercised about abortion and gay rights.

Still, he’ll have to come up with a cohesive message about where he was and where he is on cultural matters—one that will allow him to pivot back to his preferred focus on jobs and the economy. Different versions of his stances on hot-buttons will only reinforce the problem.

Edited by Peter Taylor
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Peter:

Simply put...yesterday was the anniversary of Massachusetts "RomneyCare," which, is a complete disaster with[also the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War wherein Abner Doubleday fired the Federalist cannon back at them thar Rebels in South Carolina] :

1) premiums tripling;

2) emergency room visits drastically increasing per capita;

3) medical care deteriorating; and

4) less Massachusetts citizens covered in comparison to pre RomneyCare.

O'biwan cites RomneyCare, and it's concept of mandating coverage, as the prototype for O'bamaCare or, as his supporters call it, the best and most cute medical care system ever devised by the mind of man that cures all and costs less and is better than sex Law.

He presents himself as not genuine and is frankly a loser to O'biwan because he will never be able to argue against O'bama Care with any credibility at all. I am reasonably sure that he is on record as stating that he "loves mandates!"

Now Is The Time For You To Say “Anyone But Mitt!”

Adam

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Adam wrote:

Simply put...yesterday was the anniversary of Massachusetts "RomneyCare," which, is a complete disaster with [also the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War wherein Abner Doubleday fired the Federalist cannon back at them thar Rebels in South Carolina] :

End quote

I had forgotten the first Union cannon shot being Abner’s, but I remembered the baseball connection. I don’t think he founded Doubleday Books : o )

I must say, Reidy convinced me about the inadvisability of even wondering about Trump. I will quit mentioning him.

Mitt Romney is a very different possibility. I have my doubts about Mitt, as do you, Adam. However, I think he sought election in Massachusetts and then sought to get along with the electorate in liberal Massachusetts. Does that also eliminate Pawlenty who is from Minnesota, a socialist state? These guys are politicians. So are Paul Ryan and Rand Paul.

Mitt may sound like a Tea Party guy during the campaign, but does he possess the inner strength and conviction to avoid being a big mandate republican or would he govern as a Tea Party Republican? This is like the sports swami picking the final four. If Mitt sounds like a Tea Party guy during the campaign, he will also generate a savvy political sense to hold the “moderate middle.” It is a tough call when we consider the whole, possible republican field, because ROMNEY IS ELECTABLE. He will appeal to his base to get elected, and he will sound moderate and sane to the moderates, but will he later stick with a libertarian agenda?

The primaries are a quagmire. What if Romney is what we get? Measure him against McCain. I think Mitt is immeasurably better. He will drop socialized medicine. His social agenda will be tempered with the fact that he is a religious outsider: he won’t push it.

My shout out that HE IS ELECTABLE has got me thinking. Your possible retort might be that EVERYBODY is elect-able against Obama. I disagree. Obama’s assets will be a billion dollars, his superior campaigning skills, and the State Run Media. What will happen when the Republican Nominee makes that first big gaff? There will be an avalanche of denunciation. There will be “Woodward and Bernstein,” in depth exposes about the Republican MORMON candidate, and scathing derision from the major news outlets, the Comedy Channel, and Saturday Night Live.

Romney could calmly look those “useful liberal idiots” and "statist demons" in the eye and say, “You don’t bother me. You don’t matter.”

We need a superb campaigner, a man who is completely sure of himself and a person with the EGO to KNOW that he (or she) is the best choice for the United States. Romney fits the bill.

Peter Taylor

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I am reasonably sure that he is on record as stating that he "loves mandates"

Adam

If I were an American I would definitely vote for him.

I used to have mandates myself and I can't say I loved them all but I sure enjoyed most of them.

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How much lower than the Objectivist movement sink? Now I see an "objectivist" stumping for the likes of Mitt Romney. Heaven help us.

Yep.

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Mitt Romney's authorship of RomneyCare makes his candidacy dead on arrival.

And if Romney were even slightly smarter, he'd have found better uses of his and everyone else's time in 2011 and 2012.

Robert Campbell

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Robert.

I am in full agreement with that.

Chris Matthews likes Mitt Romney, though. (Aw... c'mon... lemmee do a little guilt by association... :) ) I was surfing the channel during commercials and heard Matthews say something to the effect that he recognizes the upper-class breeding in Romney and he really likes that.

Romney comes off to me as a phoney-baloney. It's probably my hillbilly roots talking, but there's something about him that's a little too slick and rehearsed. It makes my BS meter go into overdrive when I hear him talk.

And all that's before I get to the health care thing.

Michael

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I wrote:

We need a superb campaigner, a man who is completely sure of himself and a person with the EGO to KNOW that he (or she) is the best choice for the United States. Romney fits the bill.

End quote

Brant responded, echoing the other boos and hisses:

Quote

Something of a modern-day John Dewey.

End quote

Argh! OK. Who then? We need a superb campaigner, a person who is completely sure of himself and can weather the State Run Media and ubiquitous liberal comedians, with the EGO to KNOW that they are the best choice for the United States, and who is a libertarian, fiscal conservative.

When you add in the experience factor that leaves Paul Ryan who is not running, Michelle Bachman, and a few others.

Tim Pawlenty?

Wikipedia writes:

A year earlier it was announced that Pawlenty would be serving in a lead role for McCain as a national co-chair of his presidential exploratory committee[30] which led to Pawlenty becoming co-chairman of McCain's campaign (along with Phil Gramm and Tom Loeffler).[31]

In 2008 Pawlenty expressed support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), however in 2010 Pawlenty stated that he had been speaking solely as a surrogate for GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona and never actually supported the idea himself.[35

End quote

Serving with Phil Gramm seems damning in hindsight, but remember who was running then on the Republican side and that they were better than Obama. Pawlenty's supporting TARP may nix his chances.

I hope someone will start a “clean thread” where we can explore the possibilities.

Peter

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I just saw a reprinted Boston Herald two panel, political cartoon. In the first panel it shows Mitt Romney in a sopping wet sweat band, jogging, with the caption, “Mitt preparing for the race.”

In the second panel it shows a 10 foot tall lumbering Frankenstein monster labeled “Romneycare” racing to catch the frightened Mitt who is barely escaping its clutches.

I just listened to Mark Levine on another thread. He is blasting Obama and saying he has his favorite republicans but he will vote for anyone other than our current Pharaoh. Rush’s depictions of Obama are also emotionally vitriolic. Tit for tat. We will hear some classic smears when the heat turns up, from The State Run Media, later this year.

Primaries can chew a candidate up and spit them out. Who will win the early states? Who will win the most? Will it be someone Objectivists will vote for while holding their noses? I hope not. It will depend on activism and we at OL can supply plenty of that.

Mitt (Romneycare) and Tim Pawlenty (for TARP before he was against it, and on McCain’s election team) may have too many detractors, to do well. Them or Obama or none of the above?

Sarah (Evita) Palin is an excellent campaigner but her overt religiosity may doom her. I am sure they will reprise that video of her with that black priest in front of the Alaskan congregation, when the priest starts speaking “in tongues.” That has got to be one of the worst spectacles I have ever seen. Her or Obama?

Paul Ryan, who says he won’t run anyway, might not be such a good campaigner. His speechmaking is not eloquent like Reagan, but I would place him above the oratorical abilities of Dubya Bush.

I just typed in his name on Yahoo search, and one of the top ten answers was “Paul Ryan for President”:

Quote

Though Ryan has repeatedly denied a desire to run for President, citing concerns for his family and the role he can play in his current position as House Budget chairman, the political winds may be changing. Stephen Hayes, a Wisconsin native and contributor to the conservative publication The Weekly Standard, gave an interview this morning with influential Milwaukee, WI talk-show host Charlie Sykes saying the following: "I take him at his word when he says he doesn’t want to run. He doesn’t want the office. But . . . when he’s the best spokesman for the alternative vision of the country’s future, how can he not run?"

End quote

He said a year ago that his children are too young for him to run. I tried his home site and Wikipedia but I could not find the ages of Liza, Charlie and Sam, but Paul was married in 2001. Their ages be 7, 8, 9 or some such combination, which might place them at 8, 9, and 10 in 2012. With the luck of the Irish, perhaps America will get lucky.

Peter

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Paul Ryan, who says he won’t run anyway, might not be such a good campaigner. His speechmaking is not eloquent like Reagan, but I would place him above the oratorical abilities of Dubya Bush.

I don't know about that after seeing this video, I was impressed.

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I wrote about Paul Ryan:

His speechmaking is not eloquent like Reagan, but I would place him above the oratorical abilities of Dubya Bush.

Pippi Longstocking disagreed:

Quote

I don't know about that after seeing this video, I was impressed.

End quote

Thank you for the link, Pippi.

Ryan’s emotion and subsequent minor flubs were genuine. I don’t know. I will say he is an OK speaker when reading his own material where he has invested his emotions especially disgust. With a “thousand points of light” speechwriter he could be a lot better. Did I detect a glimmer of a presidential bid? Or was that just about him running the republican budget?

I hope everyone will go to his site and hit the contact button. I think you are required to hit the “not in his state contact button,” which I did when I recently contacted John Beohner, fill in your info and then you can email him. I am going to do it after I finish here.

Our Founding Father’s promised to support the United States with “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” I am pledging my trust, and my support.

Peter Taylor

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  • 1 month later...

Great Video - I am not a bump in the road by Romney media team

He may be a stiff, ethanol pandering, failed medical plan candidate, but he at least has executive ability!

He picked a great media team. Now as long as they keep his tight assed face off the screen, he might have a chance.

Adam

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If they can keep this jerk in the closer with his mouth taped he will be the Republican nominee, but that will of course be a disaster!

This guy is as tone deaf as Obiwan.

Al Gore endorsed his position on the hoax of global warming today.

Story here

Gore's blog post:

Good for Mitt Romney -- though we've long passed the point where weak lip-service is enough on the Climate Crisis June 15, 2011 : 12:49 PM

While other Republicans are running from the truth, he is sticking to his guns in the face of the anti-science wing of the
Republican Party
:

"It seemed like a straightforward question on a second-tier issue: Would Mitt Romney disavow the science behind global warming?"

"The putative Republican presidential front-runner, eager to prove his conservative bona fides, could easily have said what he knew many in his party's base wanted to hear."

"Instead, the former Massachusetts governor stuck to the position he has held for many years -- that he believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to it."

'All poor Mitt needs is a nice word from Barbara Streisand and he'll have locked up endorsements from conservatives' 3 most prominent villains representing their 3 most hated parts of society: the federal government, environmentalists, and Hollywood'

Edited by Selene
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  • 3 months later...

New Perry ad slams Romney on his Massachusetts Mandate - great closing visual which mimics O'bama's campaign visual and slogan - excellent job!!

http://youtu.be/LfcOGWRfXdk

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  • 2 months later...

romney%20doctor%20costume_thumb.jpg

This is the key part from the section of the hard-cover edition of Romney’s “No Apologies” entitled “The Massachusetts Model.”

It’s [RomneyCare] portable, affordable health care—something people have been talking about for decades.
We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country.
And it was done without government taking over health care.” [emphasis added]

But when the paperback came out, it read:
It’s [RomneyCare] portable, affordable health care—something people have been talking about for decades. And it was done without government taking over health care.”

Once again, don’t take my—or ABC’s—word for it.
Click here and see the pages of the two different editions side by side.

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From a story on the web:

I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to man and how much is attributable to factors out of our control. I do not support radical feel-good policies like a unilateral U.S. cap-and-trade mandate. Such policies would have little effect on climate but could cripple economic growth with devastating results for people across the planet.” -- Mitt Romney No Apology, p. 227

Summary: Mitt Romney on Cap and Trade/Global Warming

Cap and Trade legislation would be disastrous for our economy.

The earth’s climate has been constantly changing throughout its history.

We should not take extreme measures when we are unsure of human role in global warming.

Treaties, like Kyoto, would affect the U.S., but not major greenhouse gas emitters like China and India.

end quote

Just in case Mitt wins the majority of primaries it would be wise to stay abreast of his stances, and hope he doesn’t sit down next to Nancy Pelosi and support Cap and Trade like Mr. Newt. Mitt is receiving a lot of endorsements.

It’s time to give Mitt a second look when he gets more than 25 percent in a primary. I think I will look up that Anybody But Mitt web site and see what they are saying.

Peter

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I went to the AnybodybutMitt web site and did not see anything new. Some good questions for Mitt would be, “Since you have unequivocally stated that you will roll back Obamacare as one of your first jobs as President, if you were, hypothetically, reelected as Governor of Massachusetts would you roll back Romneycare? Would you support a rollback of Romneycare if you are elected President?”

Peter

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