Matt Ortega

Updated below

Oliver Willis provided a link to yet another Mitt Romney debate video, this one from 2002, where he vehemently defended his pro-choice stance. Also, Willis points to a Boston Globe article from June 2005 where Romney adviser Michael Murphy told the conservative National Review that he “faked” his pro-choice position.

Four days ago, ABC’s Political Radar posted the explanation the former governor gave to George Stephanopoulos for Sunday morning’s edition of This Week on his vote for Senator Paul Tsongas in 1992.

ABC News’ Jonathan Greenberger Reports: Republican presidential candididate Mitt Romney offered a new explanation today for why he supported a Democrat in 1992.

That year, Romney, then a registered independent, voted for former Sen. Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic presidential primary. He told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, in an interview that will air Sunday on “This Week,” that his vote was meant as a tactical maneuver aimed at finding the weakest opponent for incumbent President George H.W. Bush. [emphasis added]

Mitt Romney, the James Bond of political maneuvering. Woodrow Eisenhower of race42008.com disputes the claim that Tsongas was the weakest opponent in the field. As Matt Mackowiak noted, Romney gave a different reason to the Boston Globe in 1992.

“Romney confirmed he voted for former U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas in the state’s 1992 Democratic presidential primary, saying he did so both because Tsongas was from Massachusetts and because he favored his ideas over those of Bill Clinton,” the Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh and Frank Phillips wrote on Feb. 3, 1994. “He added he had been sure the G.O.P. would renominate George Bush, for whom he voted in the fall election.” [emphasis added]

In the now infamous video from the October 1994 senatorial debate with Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), then-Republican candidate Romney, visibly frustrated by Kennedy’s remarks, distanced himself from the Reagan/Bush White House. He said, starting at 2:32 on the YouTube video:

Look, I was an Independent at the time of Reagan/Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan/Bush.

It seems far-fetched to me that a middle-aged politician could feasibly move away from a political icon and over a decade later, embrace that same person with open arms. Akin themselves to that icon positively, no less.

Now, presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants conservatives to believe that he is the second coming of Ronald Reagan by pointing to the 40th President’s evolution from an FDR supporter to conservatism.

I don’t buy it and I don’t think a majority of conservatives will buy it.

Updated 2/20/07, 7:44pm [by Matt Ortega]: Governor Romney produced his first television ad for the presidential cycle. It is the first ad to hit the airwaves and comes four months earlier than the previous presidential cycle. (Hat tip: Alexander Mooney, CNN Political Ticker)