When I was attending BYU, Gerald Ford came to campus and spoke to the students. After it was over, he opened the floor to questions. One student asked him what his stand on abortion was. Remember, this was BYU, a very pro-life place.
President Ford replied without hesitation, “I believe a woman should be able to have an abortion anytime and anywhere she wants.”
I remember thinking at the time, “Wow, what integrity. I completely and utterly disagree with him, but I would vote for him in a heartbeat. That is a man you can trust.”
In Mitt Romney, a Man of Integrity below, I wrote of several instances where Mitt Romney risked alienating his core constituents or didn’t chose to do the easy thing because it went against what he felt was the right thing to do. I would dearly love to hear supporters of other candidates relate instances where their favorite candidate went out on a limb and did the same thing — where they risked alienating their core constituents or where they refused to take the easy way out because of what they felt was the right thing to do.
Any takers?
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. (J.K. Rowling)
September 29th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I guess for Palin it would be the Alaska Supreme Court appointment.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
With Mitch Daniels it was selling the toll roads. Hoosier voters howled that he was selling the state to foreigners, but he did it anyways.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Mark I think you are spinning too much in favor of Romney. Romney is perceived by many to actually be the antithesis of sticking to core convictions, ranging from abortion, to bailouts, to gay rights. Synonyms for “integrity” would be “reliability” and “consistency”, terms which are not really associated to Romney, unfortunately.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I don’t have a dog in the fight for 2012, as I am not supporting anyone for a while because I need the three year break after putting in a long years worth of work last go around, but I can point you to probably 100+ instances in which I pointed out Fred Thompson doing exactly such during the 2007-08 campaign on our front pages. Just click over on the Fred Thompson categories and read the ones regularly posted by yours truly.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
3. I think that’s why these posts from Mark are important. Romney has been unjustly labeled as a man without core principles, but the truth is that he is a highly principled man and has no more flip-flops than anyone else.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
But I have to hand it to you Mark for being clever. You have pinpointed Romney’s greatest weakness (the issue of trust, or being a “flip-flop”) and have spun an argument to make it his greatest strength.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
If Romney had no core or convictions, he would have renounced his Mormonism and joined a more popular new age Christian Mega
Church just in time for Iowa.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I like the way Romney doesn’t apologize for his faith and how he went out of his way to defend all Religious Americans in his
“Faith in America” speech. There was a lot of criticism hurled at him for doing that but he didn’t back down. That must have
made the secularists and atheists furious!
September 29th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I’ve been a long time Thompson and Romney fan. I was a Sanford supporter until the hiking incident. I appreciate Pawlenty’s potential as well. However, when people like WiseGuy sit in front of their screens and try to rehash the Romney-flipflop argument over and over again, I want to vomit. Like Romney or not, the man is not a flipflopper any more than the next guy. If a man (including a politician) is not allowed to change his positions on a matter, than how can he be called a man? If he is not able to rebrand himself from time to time to pull in more voters (as every politician does) how can he hope to win an election? What’s remarkable is that WiseGuy completely overlooks the fact that Romney was running in blue-as-blue-gets Massachusetts. Anyone wanting to win anything as a Republican would have to run more moderately. The man wanted to change things for the better in his state, which he did. How can you fault him this? Better to have run as a moderate and then governed as a conservative than running as a republican and governing as a democrat like Huckabee did in several instances. The flipflopper label is old and tired, just like the Obama birth certificate. Let it die in peace.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
9. “hiking incident”.
BTW – I completely agree on everything you said.
Huck promised to not raise taxes during his last election campaign for governor. It took only a few weeks for him to break that promise. He was a pretty conservative governor in his first years, but after he was reelected the last time, he took an immediate left turn.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
#6.WiseGuy:“But I have to hand it to you Mark for being clever. You have pinpointed Romney’s greatest weakness (the issue of trust, or being a “flip-flop”) and have spun an argument to make it his greatest strength.”
And what make you so certain that you aren’t taking his greatest strength (his insistence on doing what he thinks is right no matter what people say or think) and spinning it into a weakness?
September 29th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Wiseguy,
Besides, this thread was supposed to be about the good in candidates other than Romney. People who have integrity. Surely you know of some signs of integrity in other candidates?
September 29th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Thank-you to Tommy Boy.#1, Jonathan.#2, and especially Tommy Oliver.#4. Yes Fred did have a great deal of integrity. I remember in one of the debates when the moderator-lady asked the candidates to do something silly. Fred flat-out refused. That really impressed me.
Thanks.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I admire Alan Keyes’ tenacity in demanding that Obama produce his birth certificate.
I kid, I kid.
I was reminded, during one of the primary debates, of John McCain’s essential decency when Giuliani and Romney started pandering hard on illegal immigration and McCain shook his head, sadly, and said, “Remember, these are God’s children, too.” I was immediately assured that this was a man with the thoughtfulness and humanity to run the country.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Remember McCain on torture? Didn’t leave any wiggle room. He said it, he meant it.
September 30th, 2009 at 12:18 am
#3
Wiseguy,
Not so wise to “spin” Romney’s record when it comes to changing beliefs. The only position you stated that Mitt actually had a dramatic shift is on abortion. Ronald Reagan was considers a man of integrity after being for abortion.
Nothing wrong with having your eyes opened ad choosing the right. It is the extremists who choose to label Mitt as a Flip Flopper and inconsistent as well as lacking integrity. If you take an honest approach at what he really is, instead of allowing yourself to be a victim of what the media wants you to know (they helped paint him in this light) then you’ll see something different.
September 30th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Well it is so gratifying to have it articulated for me – Romney is his own person. For those that argue that he’s not, who’s pulling the strings, then? Maybe Ann. No one else.
September 30th, 2009 at 4:19 am
McCain on the surge was 100% right when Mitt, Timmy and Huck were weak (as I would have been).
September 30th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Romney on some domestic issues definitely shines, he knows there’s a line on what things are valid to criticize and other times folks are just making much ado about nothing.
I’d say the candidate that epitomizes it best is McCain, and it’s certainly what I love best about him. On immigration, on torture, McCain’s strong belief is obvious. McCain also is the leader most responsible for our current success in Iraq, as he was the one moving the Republicans in line in Congress to give President Bush’s surge strategy a chance. Plenty of folks that think themselves much more purely conservative than McCain did hardly anything in comparison.
I don’t know if anyone recalls it, but Rudy at one rally chastised a supporter for suggesting that Democrats are unpatriotic and didn’t care enough to defend America.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:03 am
McCain and Rudy shows integrity in some ways, but not so much in their private lives.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:03 am
show*
September 30th, 2009 at 9:35 am
#9 Well said. I suppose we’ll be hearing about Romney changing his religion to Hinduism any day now.
September 30th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
MPC.#19:“I’d say the candidate that epitomizes it best is McCain”
Yes, John McCain did show a great deal of integrity in standing up for what he thought was right. My only really beef with him on this topic is that he wasn’t above twisting Mitt Romney’s comments about timetables into political fodder. That was very dishonest of him, and he lost a lot of points with me because of it.
September 30th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
#24, During the same weekend, he also twisted Mitt’s economic record while governor claiming he had raised taxes by over 800 million dollars, and making it sound as if his economic record was abysmal.
Furthermore, if one can’t keep their marriage vowels, how can we hold this person up as one of high integrity without at least noting that he was not in those instances?
September 30th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
23,
I didn’t think it was necessarily right, but given Romney’s habit in ’08 of casting all his opponents as conservative sellouts when he himself had been far from perfect as far as orthodoxy goes, I can’t deny that it felt good to see McCain finally uppercut him one on a matter where McCain’s put himself on the line time and again.
Remember we don’t look for saints when we elect a President – we look for fighters. Americans accept that our leaders, even the best of men, are not perfect. And in the political arena, it’s the fighters, those that we expect goodness, even admirable acts, but not perfection from that we’ll elect. Saints are just set up for a big takedown the minute they get in.
September 30th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
IlliniGuy,
Yes, I had forgotten the bit about Mitt’s economic record. That was indeed a very shabby time for McCain.
While he did cheat on his first wife, as far as I know he has been completely faithful to his second wife since their 1980 marriage. I am not going to hold acts of stupidity committed nearly three decades ago against him.
September 30th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
#25.MPC,
The 2008 Campaign is behind us. Mitt and John have obviously made up and are letting bygones be bygones. Let us do the same.
September 30th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I think it was only the circumstances of the year that pitted Romney against McCain like that, I’m looking forward to a change in the winds in the future myself.
And while Romney’s still not my favorite politician, don’t get me wrong in that I do very much respect him