From the "Why I'm Happy I'm Not A Republican" files. RON FOURNIER, Associated Press, Jan 15, 2007 Mitt Romney's victory in Michigan was a defeat for authenticity in politics. The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents' record and continued to show why he's the most malleable — and least credible — major presidential candidate. He was a political independent who voted for Democrat Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Massachusetts presidential primary; now he is a Reagan conservative. He was for embryonic stem cell research; now he favors restrictions on it.
Remember the last few political campaigns when John McCain was the dangerously unhinged one in comparison to the others? Well things certainly have changed.
The most amazing part of this is that people actually vote for these characters!
[...]
This is a man who campaigned for governor of Democratic stronghold Massachusetts as a supporter of abortion rights, gay rights and gun control — only to switch sides on those and other issues in time for the GOP presidential race. The first thing he did as a presidential contender in January was sign the same no-tax pledge an aide dismissed as "government by gimmickry" during the 2002 campaign.
Jean White-Ginder still waiting on meeting with Huckabee
Dallas Voice, Jan 10, 2008
Republican presidential candidate refusing to return calls to set up meeting, despite commitment to talk to mother of AIDS victim Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, now a Republican candidate for president, told the Associated Press in 1992 that people with AIDS were carriers of a plague who should be isolated from the general population.
Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of Ryan White and a board member of The AIDS Institute, along with officials at the Human Rights Campaign and The AIDS Institute are still waiting to meet with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee after he committed to meeting and discussing his 1992 remarks that people living with HIV and AIDS should have been “isolated.”
[...]
Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate, said Dec. 11 that he would be “very willing to meet with” White-Ginder and other AIDS advocates after he was questioned on the campaign trail about his comments in the early 1990s.
But Huckabee has yet to make good on that promise.
“We are still waiting for the meeting,” said A. Gene Copello, executive director of The AIDS Institute. “It is our sincere hope that Gov. Huckabee will keep his word” to meet with White-Ginder. HRC President Joe Solmonese said Huckabee’s campaign has refused to return any calls about setting up such a meeting. “Is Governor Huckabee a man of his word or is this just more typical political double-speak?” Solmonese said. “It has been 29 days, Jeanne White-Ginder and the HIV/AIDS advocacy community
continue to wait.”
Solmonese and Copello said the two organizations sent letters to Huckabee’s campaign on Dec. 10 and again on Dec. 12. The second letter said the groups were looking forward to “discussing our experiences and personal insight with you and your campaign. This was not and is not an issue of ‘political correctness,’ as you have stated previously. Rather, this is an issue of valuing science-based evidence over
unfounded fear or prejudice.”
Huckabee called White-Ginder directly two weeks after the initial letter and agreed to the meeting, the men said, but since then, Coppelo’s calls to the candidate have gone unanswered.
|