The real story of Romney’s conversion—a series of tentative, equivocal, and confused shifts, accompanied by a constant rewriting of his past—paints a more accurate picture of who he is.
Romney has complex views and a talent for framing them either way, depending on his audience. He values truth, so he makes sure there’s an element of it in everything he says. He can’t stand to break his promises, so he reinterprets them.
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Romney began to think about running against Sen. Ted Kennedy. Romney approached the idea as he had always approached things: with a businessman’s prudence. He hired Republican pollster Dick Wirthlin to survey the Massachusetts electorate and identify challenges Romney might face. Scott, a friend of the Romney family, reports in his book that Wirthlin came back with tough news: No pro-life candidate could win statewide office in Massachusetts.
Until this moment, Romney hadn’t taken a public position on abortion. He had pro-life experience as a Mormon leader and counselor. He had pro-choice experience as the relative of a woman who had died from illegal abortion. In general, he respected women, and he didn’t like government telling people what to do.
Within the Romney family, his mother had preached the separation of religious practice from public policy.
Mormons, having suffered persecution at the hands of other Christians,
feared the injection of sectarian faith into politics.
The LDS church also had a doctrine of free agency that distinguished the rightness of choices, such as whether to drink alcohol, from the freedom to make those choices.
Above all, abortion wasn’t Romney’s issue. He was a CEO interested in management and finance. His comments throughout the 1994 campaign reflected ignorance about RU486, morning-after pills, and parental consent laws, which in those days were major topics in the abortion debate.
Romney was smart enough to learn about these issues if he had wanted to. He just didn’t care that much.
Romney could have framed his complex feelings about abortion either way. Wirthlin’s poll said that if he ran as a pro-lifer, he’d lose. It would be simplistic to say that the poll dictated Romney’s decision. But we know that he used the poll to influence the most important pro-life organization he had to appease at the time: the elders of the LDS
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If he didn’t frame his position as pro-choice, he’d lose. Many of the church leaders were unhappy with Romney’s formulation. But if they wanted him in the Senate, this was the best they were going to get.
Scott was present when Romney talked about the meetings after he returned to Boston. Judy Dushku, a Mormon feminist, says she heard a similar account from Romney in 1994:
I went to his office and I congratulated him on taking a pro-choice position. And his response was—Well they told me in Salt Lake City I could take this position, and in fact I probably had to in order to win in a liberal state like Massachusetts. …
I said, Mitt, it doesn’t make me happy to hear that.
What you’re suggesting is that you’re not genuinely pro-choice. It’s a position of convenience. He said—Oh no, I actually had an aunt who died of a botched abortion. So I have some positive feelings about choice, but basically I know that I have to take that position.
If you don’t think Romney would say such a calculated thing, look at this video. It shows Romney on The O’Reilly Factor on Dec. 19, 2011, explaining how he came to his pro-choice position.
He tells Bill O’Reilly: “I thought, ‘
Well, I can say and can understand the idea of leaving the law the way it is. The Supreme Court has made its decision. I'm just going to say I will support the law and preserve the law as it exists.’ ”
Notice the language: I can say … I’m just going to say. This isn’t a man talking about what he believes.
It’s a man talking about framing a public posture under constraint.
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Mitt Romney’s abortion record: flip-flop or conversion? - Slate Magazine
