Mitt Romney has maintained his image as a moderate republican thanks to his various positions on issues such as the environment. Though Romney’s fiscal agenda is defined by uniquely conservative values, his stance on the environment drift to the left. For example, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney, “hired Douglas Foy, one of the state's most prominent environmental activists, and put him in charge of supervising four state agencies.” As a result, Romney’s administration was responsible for “a regional climate-change initiative and helped draft regulations to put emissions caps in place for coal-fired power plants.” Romney’s justification for these unusually liberal policies was, "I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people, and that plant, that plant kills people."
Unfortunately for Romney, despite the fact that these comments and positions were taken more than 8 years ago, his political opponents have been sure to remind the conservative voting base of their existence. For example, presidential candidate Rick Perry has compared Romney’s stance on environmental issues as comparable to that of Barak Obama. In response, the Romney camp released a statement accusing Perry of using “distortions and fabrications,” mixing policies implemented by his predecessors and successors with his own. Perry shot back by highlighting the fact that, "Massachusetts was one of the first states to implement its own cap and trade program, which included limits on carbon emissions from power plants. “
Unfortunately for Romney, republican primary season is characterized by candidates pushing as far to the right as possible, so as to gain the collective support of the conservative base in order to win the party nomination. Because Romney hails from the more liberal northeast, it will be much tougher for him to highlight his conservative colors when compared with candidates from red blooded states such as Texas, Georgia, and Utah.
However, Romney is able to survive the onslaught of conservative brinksmanship during the primary season, his relatively moderate record may give him the edge he needs to capture the mainstream electorate and the Whitehouse.
While Romney's relatively centrist policies may cause him trouble in the Primary, I think that he is the only legitimate candidate and will be able to outlast everyone else. Cain is already crumbling with the scrutiny of the front-runner. Perry and Bachmann are both crazy and have more or less fallen off of the pace. Huntsman is similar enough to Romney to be considered, but nobody has heard of him. If Romney doesn't win this primary, I think it will be a tremendous upset. Unless Romney has skeletons in his closet that compare to Cain's.
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