This article contrasts President
Obama and Governor Romney. It is from a major Mormon
publication.
President Barack Obama speaks about the choice facing women in the upcoming election, Friday, Oct. 19, 2012, at a campaign event at George Mason University in Fairfax , Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Nowhere has Mitt Romney’s
pursuit of the presidency been more warmly welcomed or closely
followed than here in Utah . The Republican nominee’s political
and religious pedigrees, his adeptly bipartisan governorship of
a Democratic state, and his head for business and the bottom
line all inspire admiration and hope in our largely Mormon,
Republican, business-friendly
state.
But it was Romney’s
singular role in rescuing Utah ’s organization of the 2002
Olympics from a cesspool of scandal, and his oversight of the
most successful Winter Games on record, that make him the
Beehive State ’s favorite adopted son. After all, Romney managed
to save the state from ignominy, turning the extravaganza into a
showcase for the matchless landscapes, volunteerism and
efficiency that told the world what is best and most beautiful
about Utah and its people.
In short, this is
the Mitt Romney we knew, or thought we knew, as one of us.
Sadly, it is not the
only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made
abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea
party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s
shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical
right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate
champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most
frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy,
really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"
The evidence
suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive
Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor
their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless,
lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they
would trade their votes to hear.
More troubling,
Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical
plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare
(or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of
Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions
of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would offset his
tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the
military) by doing away with tax deductions and exemptions is
utterly meaningless without identifying which and how many would
get the ax. Absent those specifics, his promise of a balanced
budget simply does not pencil out.
If this portrait of
a Romney willing to say anything to get elected seems harsh, we
need only revisit his branding of 47 percent of Americans as
freeloaders who pay no taxes, yet feel victimized and entitled
to government assistance. His job, he told a group of wealthy
donors, "is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince
them they should take personal responsibility and care for their
lives."
Where, we ask, is
the pragmatic, inclusive Romney, the Massachusetts governor who
left the state with a model health care plan in place, the
Romney who led Utah to Olympic glory? That Romney skedaddled and
is nowhere to be found.
And what of the
president Romney would replace? For four years, President Barack
Obama has attempted, with varying degrees of success, to pull
the nation out of its worst financial meltdown since the Great
Depression, a deepening crisis he inherited the day he took
office.
In the first months
of his presidency, Obama acted decisively to stimulate the
economy. His leadership was essential to passage of the badly
needed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Though
Republicans criticize the stimulus for failing to create jobs,
it clearly helped stop the hemorrhaging of public sector jobs.
The Utah Legislature used hundreds of millions in stimulus funds
to plug holes in the state’s budget.
The president also
acted wisely to bail out the auto industry, which has since come
roaring back. Romney, in so many words, said the carmakers
should sink if they can’t swim.
Obama’s most
noteworthy achievement, passage of his signature Affordable Care
Act, also proved, in its timing, his greatest blunder. The set
of comprehensive health insurance reforms aimed at extending
health care coverage to all Americans was signed 14 months into
his term after a ferocious fight in Congress that sapped the new
president’s political capital and destroyed any chance for
bipartisan cooperation on the shredded economy.
Obama’s foreign
policy record is perhaps his strongest suit, especially compared
to Romney’s bellicose posture toward Russia and China and his
inflammatory rhetoric regarding Iran ’s nuclear weapons program.
Obama’s measured reliance on tough economic embargoes to bring
Iran to heel, and his equally measured disengagement from the
war in Afghanistan , are examples of a nuanced approach to
international affairs. The glaring exception, still unfolding,
was the administration’s failure to protect the lives of the
U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, and to
quickly come clean about it.
In considering which
candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had
hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for
organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership
that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have
watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack
toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of
presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of
detail and worthy of mistrust.
Therefore, our
endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who,
against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe
and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a
brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in
whatever guise, does not deserve a first.
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