Mitt Romney flips and flops on Ohio's anti-union law

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(UPDATE: Romney clarified his position on Wednesday. He's "110 percent" anti-union. "I fully support Gov. Kasich's Question 2 in Ohio," he said. "I'm sorry if I created any confusion there." Sure, except that his refusal to be clear was clearly intentional. He likely only clarified his position because he was called out on it. He's going against the majority of Ohioans on this, but pandering to the right-wing GOP base -- and to the party's new mainstream -- would appear to be more important.)

Mitt Romney appeared to depart from the Republican race to the bottom yesterday by refusing to endorse Ohio Gov. John Kasich's law (SB 5) that denies collective bargaining rights to unionized public sector workers. (The law will be put to a state-wide vote in two weeks, and polls show a solid majority (57% according to a poll released yesterday) of Ohioans favoring repeal.) The thing is, Romney endorsed the law back in June. This, of course, is typical Romney. He says one thing when he wants to appeal to the right, another when he wants to appeal to public opinion. As Steve Benen writes:

Think about what transpired: the Republican presidential frontrunner visited with a Republican phone bank to offer support for the Republican campaign to curtail collective bargaining rights. But Romney refuses to take a position on the issue? He's "supportive" of their efforts, but he won't say whether or not he agrees with their efforts? 

Seriously?

Putting aside party and ideology, it's hard to shake the realization that Mitt Romney lacks a certain political courage. He's so desperate to calculate how every decision might affect his ambitions that he struggles to remember what he believes, and either ends up cowardly ducking issues or taking both sides of nearly every fight. It can be hard to watch, and even harder to respect.

Basically, Romney just says whatever he thinks he needs to say to maximize his political appeal, and that means flipping and flopping all over the place. Unlike Perry and Bachmann, he may not always be racing to the bottom in terms of ideology (it's hard to know what he really thinks about SB 5), but he's certainly leading the way, well ahead of Newt Gingrich, in terms of shameless pandering and self-promotional opportunism. This is one of the major reasons why so many Republicans are suspicious of him, or outright loathe him, and why even as the frontrunner with divided and often embarrassing conservative opposition he can barely crack 25% percent support in polls. He's just so transparent, and it's just so obvious what he's up to.

What else is new?

Even extremist Pat Robertson thinks the GOP presidential candidates are too extreme

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, too extreme to win the election, not necessarily too extreme in purely ideological terms (where he surely agrees with their extremist views).

But, as ThinkProgress puts it, "[y]ou know you've hit rock bottom when one of the most radical, hate-spewing figures in America calls you 'extreme.'" (Watch the clip below.)

My one quibble: I'm not sure this is rock bottom. Perry, Cain, Bachmann, and, yes, even Romney can still go much lower in their efforts to out-extreme each other. (Consider, for example, Perry's recent flirtation with Birtherism. Haley Barbour, occasionally known for being sensible, or at least pragmatic, is smart enough to know this is bad move.)

And it will likely get much, much worse as we head into 2012.

Battleground Ohio: The war against the Republican war on democracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress:

Earlier this year, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a sweeping bill intended to make it harder to vote in his state's elections. Kasich's anti-voter law drastically cuts back on early voting and erects new barriers for absentee and even for election day voters. Today, however, opponents of Kasich's war on voting will submit over 300,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's office — well over the 231,000 signatures necessary to suspend the law until it can be challenged in a referendum in November of 2012. If enough of the signatures are deemed valid, the practical effect of this petition will be that Kasich's law will not be in effect during the 2012 presidential elections when Republicans hoped the law would weaken President Obama's efforts to turn out early voters who support his reelection. 

Long story short: Republicans hate democracy and do everything they can to restrict the exercise of the franchise, that is, to manipulate democracy by making it harder for certain people (and specifically those likely to vote against them) to vote. Once upon a time, this meant blocking blacks from voting, especially in the South. It's a bit more subtle now, but the intent remains the same.