Winning Progressive

Last week, President Obama and Multiple Choice Mitt Romney both gave speeches to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (“NALEO”) in which they addressed economic and immigration issues.  In his speech, President Obama outlined the economic issues at stake in this election, explained the importance of his new DREAMers immigration policy, reiterated his call for Congress to pass the DREAM Act, and explained why we need immigration reform and a Congress that will stop obstructing such reform.

Multiple Choice Mitt, meanwhile, was in full-bore Etch-a-Sketch mode.  Romney did reiterate some of his anti-undocumented immigrant policies, saying that he would:

re-double our efforts to secure the borders – that means both preventing illegal border crossings and making it harder to illegally overstay a visa.  We should field enough border patrol agents, complete a high-tech fence, and implement and improve exit verification system.

But gone was much of the anti-immigration rhetoric that Romney spewed during the GOP primaries.  In its place was praise for legal immigration and a softer tone on undocumented immigrants.   Romney also promised a “long term solution” for DREAMers but, outside of a promise to provide a “path to legal status” for anyone who serves in the military, he offered no details as to what that “solution” would purportedly involve.

What Multiple Choice Mitt did not address in his speech is whether he still supports the reactionary anti-immigration positions that he has long espoused, or whether he is willing to support sensible and humane policies to address the status of the approximately 11.5 million undocumented immigrants who are hard-working, taxpaying residents of the US.  So, in this edition of Questions for Mitt Romney, we ask:

* Does Romney support President Obama’s DREAMers policy?  It has been more than a week since that policy was announced, and Romney still refuses to give a straight answer as to whether he supports it, though a campaign adviser says he thinks Romney would repeal it.

* Does Romney still believe that the DREAM Act should be vetoed because it is a “magnet for illegal immigration”

* At a time of limited budgetary resources, does Romney believe it is good policy for the US government to be spending an average of $23,148 of taxpayer money to deport each DREAMer?

* Does Romney support the decision of the office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Romney’s 2008 Arizona campaign chairman to arrest a six-year-old girl on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant?

* Does Romney still support the strategy of “self-deportation,” which seeks to make life in the US so hard for undocumented immigrants that they “voluntarily” choose to leave the country?

* Does Romney still believe that Arizona’s harsh anti-immigration law is a “model” for the nation.

* Is Kris Kobach, the virulently anti-immigrant Attorney General of Kansas who crafted the self-deportation strategy, still an adviser to the Romney campaign on immigration issues?  What role would Mr. Kobach play in a Romney Administration?

The simple reality is that Mitt Romney has a long track record of taking extreme reactionary positions on immigration issues, and during the GOP primary Romney espoused views that led blogger Steve Benen to justifiably declare Romney “the the most right-wing candidate on immigration of any competitive presidential hopeful in generations.”  Nothing about Romney’s speech to NALEO last week changes the reality that, when it comes to immigration, a Romney Presidency would be marked by extreme anti-immigration policies of self-deportation, not the sensible and humane policies demonstrated by the DREAM Act.

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Earlier editions of this series include Questions for Mitt Romney on health care reform, the NRA and guns, Jerry Falwell and Liberty University, Robert Bork, and Ann Coulter.

With Rick Santorum having suspended his Presidential campaign, Mitt Romney is now the presumptive Republican candidate for President.  Over the preceding week or so, as it became clear that Romney would be the nominee, President Obama’s campaign sharpened its attacks on Romney and the rest of the GOP.  At the same time, Romney began making a predictable move towards the political center.  Many will attack this move as yet another example of Multiple Choice Mitt flip-flopping on the issues.  But Romney’s failure to stand up during the Republican primaries for the centrist values he will spend all fall pretending to support is a far more politically and substantively telling fact, as it shows that Romney would be unable as President to stand up to the rabid reactionaries who have overtaken his own party.

Romney first came onto the national scene, of course, as Governor of Massachusetts. Given that state’s progressive political leanings, Romney not surprisingly governed as a relative moderate.  He helped develop and signed the RomneyCare health care reform plan upon which ObamaCare is based.  Romney acknowledged the reality of climate change, and took relatively moderate positions on LGBT rights, immigration reform, and even choice.  Based on this record, Romney was widely perceived as a fairly moderate Republican who was not in league with the fire-breathing reactionaries who run today’s GOP.

A radically different Romney, however, appeared during the GOP Presidential primary this year.  Faced with a Republican Party that had been overtaken by rabid reactionaries, Romney decided not to fight for the centrism that he needed to pursue in Massachusetts or the reality-based conservatism that had been championed by his father George Romney in the 1960s.  Instead, Romney time and time again joined in and encouraged the level of craziness that define today’s GOP.  Examples abound, including:

* Supported Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) “marvelous” Austerity Budget, which would abolish Medicare and eviscerate social investments in order to finance $4.6 trillion in tax giveaways to the wealthy

* Sided with GOP Governor’s Scott Walker (WI) and John Kasich’s (OH) politically unpopular attacks on the rights of public employees to collectively bargain over their wages, benefits, and working conditions

* Vowed to “get rid of” funding for Planned Parenthood, and supported the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed any employer to deny its employees health insurance coverage for contraception

* Echoed the climate deniers’ false claims that “we don’t know what is causing climate change”

* Declared Arizona’s harsh anti-immigration law to be a “model” for the nation, promised to veto the DREAM Act, and took other steps that led blogger Steve Benen to justifiably declare Romney “the the most right-wing candidate on immigration of any competitive presidential hopeful in generations.”

* Signed the 2012 pledge of the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage, thereby vowing to support a federal anti-marriage equality Constitutional amendment, defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and appoint so-called “originalist” federal judges.

* Promised to abolish ObamaCare on day one of any Romney Presidential Administration.

Now that he is the presumptive Republican nominee, however, Romney is making a predictable move back to the center.  For example, as Thomas Edsall pointed out at the New York Times a few days ago, Romney has already made subtle changes to his rhetoric on immigration, reproductive freedom, and economic issues that suggest a less right wing approach. And Romney is already trying to back away from his attacks on Planned Parenthood and support for the Blunt Amendment by suggesting that women will support him once they understand his “real positions.”  As Romney’s communications director Eric Fehrnstrom might say, the Etch-a-Sketching has already begun.

With Romney’s positions bouncing around like a ping pong ball, how should Democrats react?  Remembering the attacks that were successfully leveled at John Kerry in 2004, many will eagerly brand Romney a flip-flopper who lacks the values and principles needed to be President.  And that is certainly true.  But to the extent such a focus requires pointing out that Romney is taking more moderate positions during the general election, that approach could also backfire as it could help Romney falsely convince voters that he truly is a centrist.  As Paul Krugman recently pointed out, the chattering classes in DC, in their desperation to find moderate Republicans who don’t really exist anymore, continue to try to portray Paul Ryan as a reasonable and fiscally responsible politician, despite his budget proposal that would increase the deficit, end Medicare, and slash the safety net in order to finance $4.6 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy.  If the chattering classes are doing that for Paul Ryan, imagine how eager they will be to accept Romney’s effort to convince voters that he really is a moderate.

As such, it will be far more important to portray Romney not simply as a flip flopper, but rather as a candidate so lacking in values, principles, and spine that, when the cards were down, he was entirely unable to stand up to the right wing and, instead, joined in the attacks on reproductive freedom, immigrants, LGBT Americans, working people, the poor, etc.  Given this performance, imagine how Romney would act as President, when he would be under extreme pressure from the Koch Brothers, right wing activists, and the Fox “News”-led conservative media echo chamber to carry out their right wing agenda.  When Romney is deciding who to appoint to the federal judiciary and to his cabinet, would he stand up to the right wing?  When Romney is deciding what Executive Orders to issue, would he stand up to the right wing?  When Romney is deciding whether to veto reactionary legislation passed by a Republican Congress, would he stand up to the right wing?  Romney’s performance during the GOP Presidential primaries demonstrates that the answer to each of those questions is almost certainly no.

In short, no matter how much Romney tries to moderate his positions over the next seven months, we need to remind voters that on issue after issue, Romney was more than happy to take on rabidly reactionary positions as his own throughout the GOP primary.  Romney may try to Etch-A-Sketch his way out of those positions now, but an Etch-A-Sketch is not going to stand up to the right wing reactionaries that have taken over the GOP and that would be running the show during a Romney Administration.

While Mitt “Etch-a-Sketch” Romney continues to struggle to defeat Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum in the GOP Presidential primaries, President Obama has spent the last couple of weeks making clear that Romney will face a far tougher opponent in the general election if he becomes the GOP nominee.  This effort by the Obama campaign has involved reminding voters of the success that the Obama Administration has achieved, aggressively attacking the dangerous conservative economic vision for our country, and challenging GOP attacks on him.

First, at the end of March, President Obama gave a stirring speech listing some of the substantial progressive victories that we have achieved over the past three years.  This speech helps remind progressives and other voters that while the past three years have certainly held their fair share of disappointments and setbacks, we have also seen major progress on numerous issues.  As President Obama said:

And here’s what I want to report — that in three years, because of what so many of you did in 2008, we’ve begun to see what change looks like.  (Applause.)  We’ve begun to see what change looks like.

Change is the first bill I signed into law — a law that says women deserve an equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work, because I want our daughters treated just like our sons.  (Applause.)

Change is the decision we made to rescue an auto industry that was on the verge of collapse, even when some said let Detroit go bankrupt.  One million jobs were at stake, so we weren’t going to let that happen.  And today, GM is back on top as the world’s number one automaker, reported the highest profits in 100 years — (applause) — 200,000 new jobs over the last two and a half years.  The American auto industry is back and it’s making cars that are more fuel-efficient.  So that’s helping the environment, even as we’re putting people to work.  (Applause.)

Change is the decision we made to stop waiting for Congress to do something about our oil addiction.  That’s why we finally raised our fuel-efficiency standards.  By the middle of the next decade, we will be driving American-made cars that get almost 55 miles to a gallon — (applause) — saves the typical family more than $8,000 at the pump.  That’s what change is.

Change is the fight we won to stop handing $60 billion in taxpayer giveaways to the banks who were processing student loans.  We decided let’s give those student loans directly to students — (applause) — which meant we could make college more affordable to young people who need it.  That’s what change is.  That happened because of you.

And, yes, change is the health care reform that we passed after over a century of trying.  (Applause.)  Reform that will finally ensure that in the United States of America, no one will go broke just because they get sick.  Already — already 2.5 million young people now have health insurance who didn’t have it before because this law lets them stay on their parent’s plan.  (Applause.)  Already millions of seniors are paying less for their prescription drugs because of this law.  Already, Americans can’t be denied or dropped by their insurance company when they need care the most.  Already, they’re getting preventive care that they didn’t have before.  That’s happening right now.  (Applause.)

Change is the fact that for the first time in history, you don’t have to hide who you love in order to serve the country you love, because we ended “don’t ask, don’t tell.”  (Applause.)

Change is the fact that for the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.  (Applause.)  We refocused our efforts on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.  And thanks to the brave men and women in uniform, al Qaeda is weaker than it has ever been.  Osama bin Laden is no more.  (Applause.)  We’ve begun to transition in Afghanistan to put them in the lead, and start bringing our troops home from Afghanistan.  That’s what change is.  (Applause.)

For additional progressive victories under the Obama Administration, see our list covering 2009 and 2010, or this list of the top 50 things accomplished by President Obama.

Second, President Obama gave a speech last week describing just how regressive the recent budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is.  Ryan’s budget, which Romney has described as “marvelous,” would abolish Medicare and replace it with inadequate vouchers, cut 14 to 27 million Americans off of Medicaid, and eviscerate most other government programs, while increasing military spending and giving millionaires an average additional tax cut of $256,000 per year over what the W. Bush Administration already gave away to the rich.  The Ryan budget would also increase the deficit, especially given that it relies on $4.6 trillion in tax loophole closures to offset the tax giveaways for the wealthy but does not identify a single loophole that would purportedly be closed.

In a great speech worth reading or watching in its entirety, President Obama took on the Ryan budget head-on, framing the issue as not just one about how to restore fiscal balance, but instead as:

a Trojan Horse.  Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.  It is thinly veiled social Darwinism.  It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who’s willing to work for it; a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class.  And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last  — education and training, research and development, our infrastructure — it is a prescription for decline.

President Obama then proceeded to outlines the contrast between the two parties on two key issues, health care and taxes, explaining that:

Instead of saving money by shifting costs to seniors, like the congressional Republican plan proposes, our approach would lower the cost of health care throughout the entire system.  It goes after excessive subsidies to prescription drug companies.  It gets more efficiency out of Medicaid without gutting the program.  It asks the very wealthiest seniors to pay a little bit more.  It changes the way we pay for health care — not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to improve their results.

And it slows the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission — a commission not made up of bureaucrats from government or insurance companies, but doctors and nurses and medical experts and consumers, who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best way to reduce unnecessary health care spending while protecting access to the care that the seniors need.

We also have a much different approach when it comes to taxes — an approach that says if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t afford to spend trillions more on tax cuts for folks like me, for wealthy Americans who don’t need them and weren’t even asking for them, and that the country cannot afford. At a time when the share of national income flowing to the top 1 percent of people in this country has climbed to levels last seen in the 1920s, those same folks are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years.  As both I and Warren Buffett have pointed out many times now, he’s paying a lower tax rate than his secretary.  That is not fair.  It is not right.

And the choice is really very simple.  If you want to keep these tax rates and deductions in place — or give even more tax breaks to the wealthy, as the Republicans in Congress propose — then one of two things happen:  Either it means higher deficits, or it means more sacrifice from the middle class.  Seniors will have to pay more for Medicare.  College students will lose some of their financial aid.  Working families who are scraping by will have to do more because the richest Americans are doing less.  I repeat what I’ve said before:  That is not class warfare, that is not class envy, that is math.

Finally, the Obama campaign has directly taken on the issue of rising gas prices, which Republicans have baselessly argued President Obama is responsible for.   In its latest advertisement (which we have embedded at the end of this post, the Obama campaign has detailed how his Administration has worked to break our addiction to oil while accurately identifying Romney as the “Candidate of Big Oil.”

While President Obama has an early lead over Romney of 49-45% overall, and 51-42% in swing states, we cannot become complacent if we want to win.  Seven months until election day is an eternity in politics, the media will of course be cheerleading for the GOP and do little to call Romney out when he tries to Etch-a-Sketch his way back to the center, and 8%+ unemployment is not a good starting point for any re-election campaign.  So it is critical that we all take the fight to the GOP over the next seven months.  It is nice to see that President Obama is already doing so.