The Romney Strategy to Win Florida – Massive Negative Ads from “Independent” Super Pac; Assault on Mr. Gingrich by Establishment Conservative Republicans; Move to the Far Right on Social Issues

Will It Work?  -  Probably So

Mitt Romney is not known as “constant” person, in fact he is just the opposite.  But to give Mr. Romney credit, there have been two constants in his life and persona since at least 2006.  The first thing is that he firmly believes (despite a lot of evidence to the contrary) that he ought to be President of the United States.  The second thing is that he will say anything necessary to do the first thing.

Now that Mr. Gingrich has emerged as a credible (or “incredible if you prefer”) alternative, Mr. Romney has decided that Mr. Romney will go to any extreme to head off Mr. Gingrich.  This apparently involves going to extreme positions.  First off is the highly popular “Obama is attacking religion” theme by requiring that employers, including religious employers who are operating businesses not related to their religion to offer contraceptive coverage in their health care plans.

he’s gone forward and said that religious institutions, universities, hospitals and so forth, religious institutions have to provide free contraceptives to all their employees, even if that religious institution is opposed to the use of contraception, as in the case of the Catholic Church. Even in that regard, fighting to eliminate the conscience clause for health care workers who wish not to provide abortion services or contraceptives in their workplace, in their hospital for instance. It’s an assault on religion unlike anything we have seen.

Now the interesting thing here of course is that just the opposite is occurring.  Some religions believe that contraception is wrong, and they are free to say so and to not practice contraception.  Requiring them to engage in contraception would be an attack on freedom of religion.

But these religions want to go further than just practice their religion, they want to force their religious beliefs on non-believers.  So when they operate a business like a health care facility or university, businesses that serve the general public, employ the general public and in most cases take public money, they want to make as a condition of employment the right to deny their employees access to contraception.  The President’s policy is not attacking religion, it is defending the religious rights of those who want to have gainful employment and not have a religious belief forced upon them.

Mr. Romney takes the same stand on the issue of same sex marriage, pandering to the right wing to gain votes. 

There’s been an assault on marriage. I think he is very aggressively trying to pave the path to same-sex marriage. I would unlike this president defend the Defense of Marriage Act. I would also propose and promote once again an amendment to the constitution to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.

If Mr. Obama is trying to promote same sex marriage, he is doing it in a very unusual way, because to his discredit he is opposed to same sex marriage.  As for the “assault on marriage”, one should note that Mr. Romney’s marriage seems very strong despite his residing in a state that allows same sex marriage.  Maybe if Mr. Romney could tell us how his marriage has been assaulted by allowing same sex marriage right in his neighborhood in Boston he might have a little more credibility with the rest of us.

So anyone who doubts the “constants” in Mr. Romney’s life, well the above is pretty good proof of the two constants we mentioned..