Quote of the Day: Dionne on Romney's Swerve to the Center

As Mitt Romney seems to be frantically swerving to the center in recognition that far right positions will not get him elected, the real question becomes what, if anything, does Romney really believe and what would he do in office.  The answer is frankly that no one knows for sure since Romney seems only driven by opportunism and a willingness to say whatever he thinks most people want to hear.  In a column in the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne sums it up well.  Here ares some telling quotes from the column:

His [Romney's] strategy at the end is to try to sneak into the White House on a chorus of me-too’s.

The right is going along because its partisans know Romney has no other option. This, too, is an acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition that the grand ideological experiment heralded by the rise of the tea party has gained no traction. It also means that conservatives don’t believe that Romney really believes the moderate mush he’s putting forward now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the conservatives are forgiving Romney because they think he is lying, what should the rest of us think?

Almost all of the analysis of Romney’s highly public burning of the right’s catechism focuses on such tactical issues as whether his betrayal of principle will help him win over middle-of-the-road women and carry Ohio.

The total rout of the right’s ideology, particularly its neoconservative brand, was visible in Monday’s debate, in which Romney praised one Obama foreign policy initiative after another. He calmly abandoned much of what he had said during the previous 18 months.  

The biggest sign that tea party thinking is dead is Romney’s straight-out deception about his past position on the rescue of the auto industry. .  .  .  .  This would be the same Mitt Romney who tried to pretend on Monday that he never said what he said or thought what he thought. 

I do not trust Romney whatsoever.  He is perhaps the biggest liar we've seen in politics in many years - and that is frightening.  It's also frightening that some voters seem prepared to believe the lies.