Flip-Flopping all the Way to the White House

It may be a required political skill, but no one feigns enthusiasm for a rubber chicken dinner like Mitt Romney.

On this Thursday night at a banquet hall in Agawam, he is going to put that ability to full use. Romney is here to give a speech to the Pioneer Valley chapter of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL), which is holding its annual Mother’s Day dinner. But before the speechifying, there’s the feeding. And as bow-tied waiters put plates of chicken française in front of the 650 or so people who’ve turned out for the event, Romney, sitting on the dais underneath a giant banner proclaiming “A Baby Is a Mother’s Rose to God,” launches into a routine of gustatory glee. Although seemingly everyone else around him, including his wife, Ann, is picking at their plate, Romney digs into his meal as if he hasn’t been fed in weeks. Eating quickly, but not so quickly as to give the impression that he isn’t enjoying each and every morsel, he smiles or rolls his eyes after each bite. Finally, about halfway through his meal, he turns to Ann and pronounces his verdict in such an ostentatious manner that no lip reader could miss it. Delicious!

Romney has good reason to be such a gracious guest. It wasn’t long ago that he and the state’s largest anti-abortion group had a less than cordial relationship, a situation that had the potential to create a Swift boat–load of complications for his future political plans. But that was before Romney shifted his stance on abortion—and before his private foundation gave $15,000 to MCFL, and his wife volunteered to cochair the group’s $1 million capital campaign. As Romney’s opinions have evolved, so have the group’s. Indeed, on this night, the MCFL has seen fit to bestow on Romney a “political leadership award.” Suitably grateful, Romney isn’t just complimenting the food. He’s offering a loud “amen” after the benediction, and concluding the Pledge of Allegiance the way the pro-life crowd prefers: “With liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.”

And then there’s his speech. Although Romney typically gives his campaign stump speeches without notes, he’s leaving nothing to chance tonight. Relying on a teleprompter and religiously hewing to the text scrolling in front of him, Romney gives his audience the red meat it wants. He declares his support for abstinence education and his opposition to bilingual education. He expresses his outrage that one elementary school teacher started reading to second-graders a book called King and King, “about a prince who marries a prince!” And, in the ultimate ingratiating gesture, he offers up his own recent conversion as a testament to them. Looking out over the hundreds of pro-life activists, he solemnly proclaims, “I’m evidence that your work, that your relentless campaign to promote the sanctity of human life, bears fruit.”

It’s enough to make you gag—which, of course, is what many people in this state are doing. Having elected Romney as a pro-choice, pro-gay, moderate Republican governor only to watch him morph into a pro-life, anti-gay, right-wing presidential candidate who makes their state the butt of his jokes, these critics now wonder how anyone anywhere can take him seriously. In a political era in which authenticity is valued almost above all else, Romney is, in the words of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, a “thoroughly counterfeit man.” And yet while such a perception should be the kiss of death for a presidential candidate—as it was for a certain Massachusetts poll three years ago—that hasn’t been the case thus far with Romney, whose makeover has been so successful, it has some political observers deeming him the frontrunner to win the GOP nomination.