Keller @ Large: Romney Learning From Past Political Missteps
BOSTON (CBS) - It's unfortunate, but true: when you engage in politics at just about any level these days, you can expect to take your share of sharp elbows over everything from your positions on the issues to the way you style your hair.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
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Mitt Romney is a big boy, and no one should even consider shedding a tear over the razzing he takes, even if it does at times seem magnified by the fat target he presents, being so much wealthier, smarter, and better looking than the rest of us, and not all that shy about letting us know it.
But the most politically toxic thing that anyone has ever said about Mitt Romney is the charge that still plagues him even as he draws ever closer to the GOP nomination for president – that he is a flip-flopper who will say whatever he thinks you want to hear in order to get what he wants. While that charge has been overdone at times – as we see with President Obama, campaign promises are often made to be broken – Romney has brought it on himself with some egregious flip-flops, most notably a backflip on abortion rights that was a nakedly-political calculation.
But that was years ago, and yesterday at a campaign stop in Portsmouth, NH, I saw evidence that Romney is learning to control the pandering impulse.
In front of a crowd of supporters who had just finished telling me how crucial the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is to the local economy, I asked Romney if he would promise to defend the base if and when it is threatened in the next round of military base closures, which is expected to happen during the next four years. His response: "I can promise I'll do the very best I can for the entire nation."
Granted, he moved away from me quicker than a Wes Welker cutback. But Romney could have ignored the fact that the base-closure process is designed to keep presidents and members of Congress from protecting their home region facilities, and pandered to the voters on hand.
For Mitt Romney, the fact that he didn't is progress. We'll see if he can keep it up.
And we'll wonder – how on earth does a 64-year-old man keep his hair looking like that?
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
