Mitt Romney has changed his policy stance on abortion over the years, and his past views, captured on video, continue to haunt him now that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
The Caucus said the latest was circulated today by the rival campaign of Arizona Sen. John McCain, and the clip is fairly recent — from 2005. It features Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts, reiterating his commitment to maintaining abortion rights in the state.
UPDATE: The Romney campaign has released another longer version of the video in question to counter what an aide called “the McCain’s campaign’s desperate, distorting attack” on Romney’s record.
Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden also issued this statment:
Governor Romney consistently maintained, in an effort to protect the sanctity of life, that he would fight attempts to weaken the state’s existing abortion laws. Maintaining existing laws in a state like Massachusetts was an important fight in and of itself. It’s very troubling that the McCain campaign would attack the governor’s pro-life stance by trying to alter the context of a statement made at a news conference where he also made a passionate case for his veto of stem cell legislation that showed a level of disregard for the sanctity of human life.
The honeymoon is over for Fred Thompson now that the Tennessee Republican’s flirtation with a 2008 presidential run has reached the engagement stage.
The first round of opposition research is focusing on Thompson’s past statements about abortion, and now a video excerpt posted to YouTube a month ago is making the rounds.
When asked during a debate about his views on laws against “abortions for convenience,” Thompson said: “I do not believe that the federal government ought to be involved in that process. I think that we should not have federal funding for abortion. I think that states ought to be able to have reasonable controls over that. in terms of parental notification. … I think that battle will be won, but it shouldn’t be a political football and it shouldn’t be won in the courts.”
Thompson should be flattered by the attention, as it is proof that he is considered a serious challenger in a field of candidates that thus far has failed to wow the Republican base.
The video also proves that in the Web 2.0 era, a good test of a candidate’s mettle is how quickly and aggressively he or she is targeted on YouTube and other video-sharing sites. Voters saw it earlier this year with the assaults on Republican Mitt Romney (also on abortion) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and they are sure to see it many times over as the campaign gets hotter.
Every year on this day, abortion opponents rally in Washington at the March for Life to mourn the day the Supreme Court legalized abortion in America, and every year, President Bush calls to recognize “the sanctity of life” and to praise the protestors who are fighting for it.
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