Mitt Romney renews ‘core’ debate with recent words and deeds

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff

Talk to people about politics and one of their most common complaints centers on the hyperbole permeating the debate.

Yet beneath the bluster, there is often a granule or more of fact, pinned to policy or rooted in personality.

In recent weeks, Mitt Romney has given fresh life to the longtime political complaint that he lacks a core.

The criticism has been leveled anew both by rival Democrats and Republicans, who may be hyperbolic as they work to dethrone him as a GOP presidential front-runner.

The consistency of the complaint, though, underscores a major challenge the former Massachusetts governor faces if he hopes to win his party’s nomination and unseat President Obama just over a year from now.

Can voters still getting to know him grow to trust what he says?

Some conservatives already have questions over past changes in his positions or enthusiasm about abortion rights, gay rights, and tax policy.

Broader support from moderates and independents garnered through his stance on more contemporaneous issues will be critical to him winning the nomination and the presidency.

One challenging incident occurred yesterday, as Romney visited Ohio.

After appearing at a phone bank where the GOP was trying to drum up support for two referendums on the state ballot next month, Romney was asked what he thought about the questions.

One would limit the collective bargaining rights of state workers. The other would block the state and federal governments from imposing a mandate requiring Ohio residents to obtain health insurance.

“I am not speaking about the particular ballot issues,” Romney told reporters. “Those are up to the people of Ohio. But I certainly support the efforts of the governor to rein in the scale of government. I am not terribly familiar with the two ballot initiatives. But I am certainly supportive of the Republican Party’s efforts here.”

In June, though, Romney struck a different chord.

He backed the collective-bargaining question in particular, saying on his Facebook page: “My friends in Ohio are fighting to defend crucial reforms that the state has put in place to limit the power of union bosses and keep taxes low.”

Today, speaking with reporters in Virginia, Romney apologized for “any confusion.” He clarified to say he supports the collective bargaining limits “110 percent.”

Last week in Nevada, Romney engaged in another political straddle.

As the GOP field gathered in Las Vegas for a debate, controversy roiled between Nevada and New Hampshire officials over the timing of their respective presidential votes.

Nevada had tentatively moved its caucuses, where Romney hopes to score a Mountain West victory, to Jan. 14. New Hampshire objected, since it felt the state was trying to shoe-horn itself in between the leadoff Iowa caucuses and its own first-in-the-nation primary.

Five of the eight presidential candidates - Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman - threatened to boycott Nevada if it didn’t change its caucus debate.

Huntsman even skipped the Las Vegas debate to put an exclamation point on his affinity for New Hampshire.

Romney is working hard to win the New Hampshire primary, and he reiterated his support for the state holding the campaign’s first primary. But he sidestepped the very different question of whether Nevada should move its own vote, which would conducted by caucus.

The mechanics of the actual voting mattered not to New Hampshire officials; the timing of it did, since their state would benefit significantly from a bigger gap between its vote and that in Iowa.

The Union Leader, New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, said in an editorial that Romney was “willing to sacrifice an institution beneficial to the republic for his own political advantage.”

Last month, there was a third incident.

As the Republicans sought to burnish their populist, Tea Party credentials, several sought meetings with Donald Trump to seek the New York real estate titan’s endorsement.

Sarah Palin, while she was still considering a campaign, had pizza in public with Trump in May. In mid-September, Texas Governor Rick Perry visited the Trump Tower and then went to a more upscale restaurant with The Donald.

On Sept. 26, Romney had his turn - during an appointment that aides clarified was scheduled before the Perry meeting.

The political media assembled at the Trump Tower, ready to document the get-together, clustering around an entrance just off Fifth Avenue. Longtime aide Will Ritter, usually a reliable indicator of Romney’s arrival point, stood in front of the door, making cell phone calls as if to indicate the candidate’s imminent arrival.

And then the moment passed.

Ritter revealed that Romney had already met with Trump and left for his next Manhattan appointment. The aide then hopped in a cab and drove away.

Romney ended up seeking the backing of Trump without a public embrace.

In each case, there were documentable political reasons for Romney’s decisions.

In Ohio, support for the collective bargaining limits has waned since the summer, with the most recent poll showing it losing 60 percent to 40 percent.

Answering questions about that ballot question, meanwhile, would have subjected Romney to questions about the other ballot question. That, in turn, would have raised the topic the health insurance mandate in the Massachusetts universal health care law he signed while governor.

It is widely unpopular with conservatives and an underpinning of the “Obamacare” federal universal health care law Romney and his rivals now pan.

In Nevada, meanwhile, the potential landmine defused over the weekend, when local Republicans agreed to change the date of their caucuses.

Romney was able to retain his connection to the Silver State while professing his love for the Granite State, which he did again on Monday during a rally outside the State House in Concord, N.H.

And with Trump, Romney had the opportunity to present his credentials to a potential opinion-maker without appearing alongside someone who has, among other things, questioned the validity of Obama’s birth certificate - which Romney has said is not in dispute.

In each case, the former governor exhibited a level of diplomacy often expected of a president.

But what is smart politically can also be revealing personally, and Romney’s Democratic and Republican rivals alike have seized on that dimension of his persona.

Perry’s top spokesman issued a blistering press release attacking “finger-in-the-wind politics” after Romney’s Ohio ballot-question dodge yesterday.

“Americans are tired of politicians who change their beliefs to match public opinion polls,’ said Perry Communications Director Ray Sullivan. “Mitt Romney has a long record of doing this on issues like government-mandated health care and the Obama stimulus. Mitt Romney needs to realize that when you try to stand on both sides of an issue, you stand for nothing.”

Today the Perry campaign created a new anti-Romney Twitter hashtag, #FlipFlopMitt, for people reporting or discussing such incidents.

Another rival, Huntsman, voiced a similar complaint amid the Nevada-New Hampshire debate.

“If you’re not willing to stand with the people of New Hampshire when their first-in-the-nation is being questioned, it gives rise to the question of, ‘Where do you stand?’” the former Utah governor said earlier this month.

Democrats, meanwhile, have already stated they will accuse Romney of lacking a core should he emerge from the primary campaign as Obama’s general election challenger.

David Axelrod, the president’s top political adviser, used the term after last week’s debate.

“He has been bumping along with a quarter of the vote in the Republican primary, and there seems to be resistance to him,” Axelrod said. “I think there is a sense there is no core to him.”

In another interview before the debate, Axelrod said of Romney: “There is no principle too large for him to throw over.”

Yesterday, the adviser took to Twitter to append a more succinct comment to a report about the Ohio ballot-question dodge.

“Profiles in Courage,” he wrote.