Opinion Where is the real Romney?

1. On abortion: “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honouring my word in that regard.”

2. “I am fighting for an overturning of Roe vs Wade.”

3. On gay rights: “As we seek to establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens,I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.”

4. On the 2009 economic stimulus: “No time,nowhere,no how.”

5. “There is need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion in net worth. That translates into about $400 billion a year less spending that they’ll be doing. … Government can help make that up in a very difficult time. And that’s one of the reasons why I think a stimulus programme is needed.”

6. On climate science: “I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor.”

7. “Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah,I don’t know that,but I think that it is. … I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans. … What I’m not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don’t know the answer to.”

8. On healthcare: “It’s critical to insure more people in this country. It doesn’t make sense to have 45 million people without insurance. It’s not good for them because they don’t get good preventative care … but it’s not good for the rest of the citizens either,because if people aren’t insured,they go to the emergency room for their care when they get very sick. That’s expensive. They don’t have any insurance to cover it. So guess who pays? Everybody else.”

9. On financial bailouts: “The idea of trying to bail out an institution to protect the shareholders or to protect a certain interest group,that’s a terrible idea. And that shouldn’t happen.”

10. “TARP got paid back,and it kept the financial system from collapsing. …Well,it was the right thing to do.”

The answers? I’ll tell you in a moment,but first let me say that,by now,we have a pretty good feel for how Obama governs. In contrast,Romney is an enigma. He was a moderate governor of Massachusetts,but he has tried very hard to prove to rightwing conservatives that he is one of them. So a crucial question for voters: Which is the real Romney?

Personally,my hunch is that the real Romney is the pragmatist,the nonideological problem-solver. Further evidence for the moderate Romney: Before entering politics,he was a registered independent,and in 2002 he declared,“People recognize that I am not a partisan Republican,that I’m someone who is moderate,and that my views are progressive.”

Yet there are strong counterarguments that worry me. The first is that the early Romney may have been the false one. He may have been a centrist only to be viable in a liberal state like Massachusetts. Or Romney may have evolved,with the Republican Party itself,to become more ideological. Or after all his time in the Republican primary echo chamber,he may have come to believe his own rhetoric.

So,Governor Romney,a simple question: Who are you? If you’re elected,will we get Moderate Romney or Hard-liner Romney? And the quiz? It illustrates the problem: Every single statement was made by Romney.