Part 3
Massachusetts Conservatives Express Their Views on Mitt Romney

Most Agree Mitt's Better On Fiscal Issues than Social Issues

Part 1: Massachusetts Conservatives Express Their Views on Mitt Romney Part 2: Massachusetts Conservatives Express Their Views on Mitt Romney Sidebar: New Chairman Works for Healey's Husband

By Ed Oliver
February 2003 Print Edition

MassNews spoke with 18 citizens, a cross section of Massachusetts conservatives, last month to get their early take on Governor Mitt Romney.

Fiscal conserv-atives are mostly optimistic about
Rom-ney's ability to manage the current budget deficit, although they don't seem to expect a radical departure
from big government.

Social conservatives want Romney to look up from the spreadsheets at other issues, but most seem resigned to four more years of inattention to family values at best, and pro-active championing of a liberal social agenda at worst.

Those who want a resurgent Republican Party expressed hope that Romney will work to rebuild the party by helping to recruit and support good candidates.

HOWIE CARR Radio Talk Show Host; Boston Herald Columnist My expectations are that he's going to do a good job. I think he's fully engaged, I don't think he'll become bored as Weld did after a few years. I think that he wants to do a good job. He's certainly got his hands full, and I'm confident that he's going to crack the whip on these guys in the legislature and the quote/unquote human service advocates. I think he'll do a pretty good job.

ANTHONY R. SCOTT Holyoke Police Chief I hope Governor Romney streamlines government because I think the bureaucratic mess on Beacon Hill is totally out of control. There is a lot of redundancy, a lot of patronage, and I'm hoping that the Governor has the fortitude to stick with it and actually cut government. I also hope that he abandons his position on judges and adopts my position to have judges certified by the people.

[Note: Under Romney's plan, judges would no longer have lifetime tenure, but would automatically be reappointed after 10 years, unless the Governor objects, with the consent of the Governor's Council. Chief Scott's proposed Constitutional Amendment to make judges accountable to the people would require judicial reappointment with the consent of the Governor's Council every six years, but only if the people vote their approval.]

CHIP FORD
Director of Operations, Citizens for Limited Taxation
We're pretty happy with his no new-taxes position. His attempt to reform government is long overdue and necessary. Patronage and pork are a way of life in politics on Beacon Hill. I'm sure he has never run into anything like that in business. He can fight it by using the bully pulpit and going to the people. Forty-six percent of the people supported repealing the income tax. The public is pretty fed up, we're calling it 'the silent near majority.' We're hopeful, but the Beacon Hill cabal is still in control.

We're also waiting for Romney to take up the Amirault commutation. That's what finally did in Jane Swift. That's when Barbara Anderson and myself and a lot of other conservatives pulled our support for Swift overnight. Barbara was on the phone the next day calling Romney asking him to run. That one issue drove a stake into the heart of Jane Swift. It was all over. So Romney says he'll revisit it, and we're waiting and watching and hoping. I think he's a man with more moral conviction than Jane Swift.

I think he's got a lot of bright ideas. He's moving in the right direction. I think he picked a great cabinet. We've finally got some outsiders. Whether or not they can get their philosophy through the legislature remains to be seen. All we can do is watch and support him. You can't ask for more than he has done already. Now all we can do is get behind him.

LAURIE LETOURNEAU Director, Life Action League I'm very pessimistic about Mitt Romney on social issues. I think as far as the money problems of state government, he probably will do a good job because he's one of those phony Republicans. By phony Republicans I mean Republicans who care more about the almighty dollar than they do about social issues. I think he's very hypocritical because depending on what state he decided to run in, he was pro-life there but came back here and decided he was pro-abortion.

To me, people who do an about face on the pro-life issue have no moral integrity.
Both his wife and son are for the Protection of Marriage Act. He refuses to do so because he's playing to the crowd once again. He's for so-called therapeutic cloning. I would tell Mitt Romney he should have more respect for human life.

Unfortunately conservatives were duped into believing he was going to be much better than Shannon O'Brien. So they voted for him, which to me was a mistake because it would have been a lot better to have that liberal win and conservatives take back the Republican party.
Right now my hope is that Mitt Romney listens to all Republicans. The social conservatives have been denied a place at the Republican table during the Weld-Cellucci-Swift era. We've been cast aside. Many of these people voted for Romney hoping that he would be more open to listening to all sides of an issue, and we are going to demand that he do that. He was elected by a lot of conservatives. The one group in the Republican party that is ignored and denigrated is the pro-life Republicans. That just is not right.

I have one suggestion for Mitt Romney on where to cut the budget, and that is all these sex education programs in the schools and the gay straight alliance nonsense. Mr. Romney can cut the education budget because you can spend all the money you want on education, but without family support for the students, very little is going to change for the better. What do we get for what we're spending?

I'm not fooled by Mitt Romney. His wife seems like a nice person and it seems like he has a nice family. But I have no respect for someone who plays fast and loose with an unborn baby's life. He's even changed his mind on federal funding of abortion. He was against it in 1994 and he was for it during this campaign. No one should use the pro-life issue as a political football, which is exactly what Romney did.

He doesn't think we need the Protection of Marriage Act. He isn't in favor of it. I don't know why, now we have 36 states that need it. I don't know why Mitt Romney doesn't think we need protection of marriage, especially when the homosexual groups are already filing marriage legislation again. I think we do need it. That is something Mitt Romney should keep on top of.

MARSHALL MORIARTY President, Baystate Republican Council My initial reaction as far as Romney's fiscal announcements, I think they've got to be done. There's no question that the state as well as the cities have to take a look at the services they're providing and understand that they can't do everything that sounds nice, that there has to be priorities. People have to make the tough decisions, which hasn't been done in this state for a long time.

I'm very encouraged to see that he's going to take a look at the various aspects of state government and see what can be changed and what can be modified to provide better and more efficient services.

I really don't have high expectations as far as social policy. I just don't see the commitment for change or the perception of a need to change although there really has to be great concern and attention brought to bear on that.

BRIAN CAMENKER President, Parents Rights Coalition Obviously as a fiscal conservative, I think Mitt Romney is what the state needs. But as a social conservative, nobody's expecting anything. Romney started right off-the-bat populating his transition team with gay activists and Log Cabin Republicans and no pro-family people at all. Not only that but a lot of pretty liberal Republicans and Democrats. The fact that he's brought gay activists into his camp this early and shunned pro-family people is really worrisome.

I think this is probably an extension of the Rappaport issue. He probably hated Rappaport and hated anybody that liked Rappaport. He's probably bought into the Weld-Cellucci-Swift mantra that you could be a Republican without really being a Republican.

I think also that the way he is treating the party is very worrisome by wanting to put some hack, you know, a friend of a friend of a friend into the top position, who has never had any political experience at all.

Pro-family people are really worried about Romney, that he will completely sell out everything. They worry he'll let the gays and the social liberals have anything they want because as Weld used to say, it's 'not on my radar screen,' and he doesn't want to look bad to the Boston Globe. That's a fear that everybody has, and since most conservatives were backing Rappaport, that he will use this opportunity to stick 'em because he probably doesn't feel that we have any power anyway.

Before the election, Romney made a big deal about meeting and sitting down with Log Cabin Republicans. That's basically a front group for the gay activists. He did the best he could to avoid meeting with any pro-family people at all before the election and sort of continued afterward.

LEA COX
President, Concerned Citizens for Drug Prevention Inc.
Massachusetts Delegate, Drug Watch International
Given Mitt Romney's conservative credentials, it's my hope that he will be tough on drugs, that is, that he will uphold and support laws against marijuana and that he will deny free needles to addicts.

One of Romney's biggest challenges is that we are a very liberal state with a very partisan legislature. He'll have to fight for everything he gets. The fact that he had a meeting with the Mass. Municipal Association proves that he has the intestinal fortitude to put his money where his mouth is.

I am certainly thrilled that he is there rather than his opponent. Shannon O'Brien would have been a disaster for us. So I'm happy on that score. As long as he's not a Weld type Republican, I will be happy.

MATT KINNAMAN Former Republican Congressional Candidate 1st District I think that Governor Romney's success in the campaign was due largely to a clear enunciation of a conservative vision for economic growth. The most important thing is that the Governor continues to proclaim a clear vision of economic growth based in the power of the people to create growth when government expenses ride more lightly on their backs.

My hope for Governor Romney and for the Commonwealth is that we become a leading example nationwide of what good, clear, conservative Republican principles of economic growth can achieve for all people.

We want everyone to keep more of what they earn. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder need that the most. I believe that Governor Romney can do that. I believe that message is in his heart. That is how he is oriented economically and he knows that is how it works. He knows where growth comes from and I wish him the best in that. He has a golden opportunity.

JEANINE GRAF Former Talk Show Host First, I have to say for the record that I just don't know Mitt Romney. I haven't met the man. I have to reserve certain comments until after that. But my impression initially of him is, he is a man who has come to work without financial gain. That grabbed my attention. Both he and the Lieutenant Governor. I think that's a positive.

I think what else is positive is he is a man of faith, and I am hoping that his integrity will not just be one of those things that falls into political jokes here and there.

During this time of fiscal crisis, this is one point in time that we need true leadership. Leadership not from political panderers as in the past, but true leadership from men and women of integrity who literally do what they say they will do. It's a time for having statesmen, not politicians.

I am hoping Mitt Romney is everything I hoped for. One day I hope to meet the man. I wish him well in his new job and I hope that his vocation is a part of his calling and I hope his faith will be a part of that vocation.

While conservatives are many times fiscally conservative but socially liberal, we can't say liberal because it's not. For me the true liberal is a person who cares deeply about the poor and the disenfranchised in society.

To be pro-life is to choose life according to the Biblical mandate every day of our lives. If it means looking at the environment and not letting it fall apart, that's choosing life. If it means looking at an infant that could be sacrificed to experimentation, we should choose not to do that, but should choose life, and to move all across the board in choosing life, not just to be pro-fetus, but to be pro-life should be across-the-board. If this is a man who stands for something, we'll see it all across the board. We won't be political pariahs as conservatives and pick every move he makes apart. We'll stand with him. If he compromises himself, that would be a shame, but that is yet to learn.

We want to look at what impact the man will have on the future of this Commonwealth, that he will see there are some things he should fund, and there are some things he should never fund, such as the Teachout 2000 fiasco [Fistgate]. The fact is that our budget is hurting and yet we choose to teach trash that should not be a part of any budget. I'll look to the man, Mitt Romney, and see if he can divide the truth on that issue.