Mitt Romney is known to be a bit of a political windsock. When he was governor of Massachusetts, he was considered fairly liberal for a Republican. He was in favor of abortion access for women. He helped create "Romneycare", which was more progressive than anything occurring at the national level.
When he ran for president in 2008, and especially so in 2012, the old Romney was cast aside, and a new Romney was revealed. The new Romney was "severely conservative", he wanted to end abortions in all cases, including rape and incest. He hedged on Romneycare, saying that was the right thing for MA, but Obamacare was horribly wrong for the country.
As he began winning primaries, and it became clear he was the front-runner and likely candidate, it began to occur to the campaign that his hard-right turn for the primaries needed to be "corrected" for the general election. Romney senior campaign advisor Eric Fehrnstrom let slip in a March interview that they would be
shaking the etch-a-sketch to reset all his policy positions. It was a damning remark, because it put truth to the notion that Romney has no convictions to his positions. He is as comfortable changing his positions as he is changing his expensive suits.
It's unclear whether it's the general malaise and lack of enthusiasm for Romney, or the hangover from the economic crash of 2008 still hurts, or that people have looked at what President Obama has accomplished and blame Congress for what he hasn't gotten done, but Romney's
poll numbers have never been very good. He has been struglling to really just pull even with Obama, and it seems pretty clear that unless a major seismic shift occurs, he is headed for defeat.
His solution? Reboot the campaign... which he has tried several times.
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