Keller @ Large: Romney's Massachusetts Ties Still A Conservative Issue
BOSTON (CBS) - Remember back in 2007 or so when then-Governor Mitt Romney started traveling out of state on political business?
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Remember how he liked to crack his conservative audiences up with little jokes about how Massachusetts was so liberal, he felt like "a cattle rancher at a vegetarians convention"?
Apparently, that message took hold. But now it may be coming back to haunt Romney.
Asked what the biggest misconception about him was, Romney yesterday told an interviewer: "The biggest misconception would be that I'm a guy that comes from Massachusetts, therefore I can't be conservative."
How'd they get that idea?
But let's consider the deeper meaning of Romney's comment.
He's saying it's wrong – or rather, misconceived, which might or might not mean completely wrong – to view his conservatism with suspicion.
But consider what suspicious conservatives object to most about Romney's time as governor here: that he collaborated with Democrats on Romneycare, and that he was insufficiently aggressive on social issues.
It is true that Romney compromised to get health-care reform, and that he flipped his position on abortion. You could call that a profound betrayal, as Romney's enemies do, or signs of a real effort to get something done in an overwhelmingly Democratic government.
But I wonder if there isn't something more driving the right's suspicion of a Massachusetts pol.
Even though Romney was the first politician to really try to crack down on the Big Dig follies, I know plenty of out-of-staters who equate that fiasco with Massachusetts-style fiscal bloat and waste.
Even though he tried to end the Kennedy dynasty, I bet there's more than a few who look at Romney and see some kind of Kennedy clone in a Republican costume.
It just goes to show – you can take the pol out of Massachusetts, but you can't wash the Massachusetts off of the pol.
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.
