Has Romney Been Lying To GOP Voters ?

Willard Mitt Romney may win the Republican presidential nomination, but it won't be because he and his campaign aides ran a good campaign. It will be because he was blessed with the weakest (and probably the craziest) set of opponents in the history of modern party politics. And he needed that, because he started his campaign by flip-flopping on nearly every political belief he claimed to have in the past.

In an effort to appeal to the right-wing of the Republican Party's base, Romney changed his positions of health care, abortion, gay rights, and numerous other positions. And he's had so many positions on the Afghan War that it would take a world-class magician to figure out his real stand -- if he has one. About the only thing he hasn't changed his position on is his belief that rich people deserve more breaks than ordinary Americans do.

This has resulted in many of the party's right-wingers being unable to trust Romney. He is viewed by them as taking conservative positions during this campaign only to get the nomination -- positions that he will abandon once he has the nomination. And its not just Romney himself that is creating that distrust. His campaign aides and officials are also adding to reputation as a flip-flopper.

A couple of weeks ago, one of his senior campaign aides compared him to an etch-a-sketch, inferring that his positions would change again once he had the nomination -- moving to more moderate positions to appeal to general election voters. Of course this left both right-wingers and moderates wondering just what he really believes (if he has any real beliefs).

Now it has happened again. This time it was former Republican governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich, Romney's Maryland campaign chairman. Ehrlich told CNN that women (who have been abandoning Romney and the GOP in droves) should not care about the right-wing positions the candidate has taken during this nominating campaign (opposition to abortion, opposition to Planned Parenthood funding, and opposition to free and easy access to contraception), because Romney's "real views" would not be revealed until the general election campaign.

Ehrlich said that once women know Romney's "real views" about women's issues, the huge lead President Obama has among women would disappear. The inference, of course, is that Romney has been lying to the base voters of his own political party. He has been telling them what they want to hear (that he agrees with their views) instead of what they need to hear (where he really stands on the issues).

This brings a couple of questions to mind. Does Romney have any real views? And if he's been lying to the voters in his own party, what would make us believe he would tell the truth once he gets the nomination? He must think voters, both in his own party and the general public, are stupid -- if he thinks another flip-flop would be accepted.

The Romney campaign doesn't seem to have realized they we are now in the computer age. Anything a politician says is on the internet forever. Any change Romney tries to make from the positions he is now preaching will be instantly met with replays of those positions -- and just make him look even more untrustworthy to the public. They need to understand that the age of "etch-a-sketch politics" is over. The positions a candidate takes in the primaries are the positions he will be stuck with in the general election.