On Wednesday, a Romney senior advisor had this to say about the candidate:
There is some debate amongst prominent columnists as to the significance of the gaffe. Joe Klein at Time Magazine believes it's a disaster on the order of John Kerry's"I voted for it before I voted against it" fumble in 2004. Ezra Klein (no relation) argues that it isn't that big of a deal because it doesn't tell us anything new; we already knew Romney would easily change positions, so this doesn't change anything.
I come down on Joe Klein's side on this. While Ezra's right that it doesn't tell us anything new, the Etch-A-Sketch image makes a convenient, bite-sized summary of Romney's total lack of core convictions on many issues. A low-information voter isn't going to read the awesome article on Romney's abortion stance I linked to last week (have you read it yet? You should!), but they will remember "Romney's the Etch-a-Sketch guy". For famously-wonky guys like Ezra, the image doesn't change his understanding of Romney, but for the average voter, it will make a big difference.
(I'll attempt to do another post this evening on ObamaCare.)
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Yeah, I don't know. Similarities to the Kerry "flip-flop" thing are nothing to be proud of. The sad thing is that everyone, democrats and republicans both, know that what he said was actually TRUE...true of both candidates and true of every candidate since I've been alive. Message and point always change, sometimes dramatically, sometimes with some subtlety, but they always shift toward the center of any campaign. Now it's true that Romney started his career much further toward the center, which makes the line such a handy political weapon, but the democrats aren't gonna earn my respect for using it.
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