Embarrassingly Weak Research At The Times

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the Times writes about a strong woman in Mitt Romney's life:

Political Lessons, From a Mother’s Losing Run

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Mitt Romney was 22 when his father came to him and his siblings in search of political advice in December 1969. George Romney, the former Michigan governor, was mulling the electoral prospects of another Romney: his wife, Lenore.

A onetime Hollywood starlet who quit acting to get married, Lenore Romney had few political credentials. But she had been a popular first lady, and her husband was tied up in Washington as President Richard M. Nixon’s new housing secretary. Top Michigan Republicans were wooing her to run for a United States Senate seat.

“The children laughed about it,” Elly Peterson, a Romney confidante and party strategist, later wrote in a private memoir. “Then Mitt, first, and gradually the others, began to change their minds. They finally decided she should go with it.”

Today Mitt Romney is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, facing a tough primary battle here in the state where he grew up. His Michigan campaign brochures and commercials are studded with black-and-white images of him with his father, a businessman-turned-politician he once called “the real deal.”

But a look at the lesser-known Romney, Lenore, suggests that in style, temperament and outlook, Mitt Romney is very much his mother’s son.

Well, fine.  But her passage on abortion is absurdly light:

On one issue — abortion — Mr. Romney has explicitly cited his mother’s views as the basis for his own. During his 1994 race against Mr. Kennedy, and again in 2002 when he ran for governor of Massachusetts, he told voters that his mother personally opposed abortion but had taken “a very bold and courageous stand” in arguing that “a woman should have her own right to choose.” He said he felt the same way.

Longtime Michigan Republicans and political analysts, however, do not remember Lenore Romney making that argument, and what she truly believed is unclear. Abortion was legal in Michigan only to save the life of the mother; the Romney-Hart race played out three years before the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and abortion was not an issue.

“Nobody was talking about it,” Mr. Ballenger said.

Internal documents from the Lenore Romney campaign, archived at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, do hint that her aides were urging her to speak out in favor of expanding access to abortion. In one nebulously worded research memorandum, they concluded it was “more important to lessen the physical and mental dangers” than to “attempt legislated morality.” But in 1972, two years after she lost, Mrs. Romney made her personal opposition clear, much as Mitt Romney eventually did after he was elected governor.

“I am not for destroying life,” she told an interviewer then, describing her response when the question came up during speeches on college campuses. “And then I ask them, if later, they would want to kill all the old or abandoned people in the world.”

That's it?  Will Saletan of Slate had much more, including this obviously important family tragedy:

Romney’s family had its first, fatal brush with abortion in 1963. Romney was 16. His father was the governor of Michigan. Mitt’s sister was married to a young man with a 21-year-old sister who was pregnant. The pregnant young woman, Ann Keenan, desperately wanted an abortion. But abortion was illegal in Michigan. So Keenan tried an illegal abortion. She bled to death. (For more on Keenan’s death and other important episodes, see this short bibliography of the best reporting on Romney’s abortion history.)

It’s unclear what Mitt Romney knew about this tragedy at the time. (Romney, his advisers, and his press office did not respond to emails, phone calls, or written questions for this article.) Though he would later recall Keenan as a “dear, close family relative that was very close to me,” the cause of Ann Keenan’s death was hidden from her friends, and Romney’s later descriptions of the episode leave open the possibility that he learned about the abortion later. But Romney’s mother, Lenore Romney, apparently knew the truth. It affected what she preached within the family and what she espoused as an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan in 1970.

Like other moderates of her day, Lenore Romney didn’t believe in an absolute right to choose. During her campaign, she remarked, “I’m so tired of hearing the argument that a woman should have the final word on what happens to her own body. This is a life.” But Mrs. Romney did think current abortion laws were too restrictive. Her platform said: “I support and recognize the need for more liberal abortion rights while reaffirming the legal and medical measures needed to protect the unborn and pregnant woman.”

Surely that merits a mention.

Comments

[jimmyk]

But Mrs. Romney did think current abortion laws were too restrictive. Her platform said: “I support and recognize the need for more liberal abortion rights while reaffirming the legal and medical measures needed to protect the unborn and pregnant woman.”

I learn from this self-contradictory sentence that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

[Ignatz]

Here's the best idea since about 1913;
Republican House bill would strip jobs "mandate" from the Fed. The idea that the Fed should try to maintain full employment or has the slightest ability to do so has caused no small amount of distress ever since the morons in congress placed it on the Fed in the first place.

[NK]

TomM-- many thanks for this post. Saletan's reporting about LenoreR is very important (and of course the NYT again proves itself worthless-- or worse.) Saletan does however betray a liberal conceit that "moderates of her day" didn't believe in absolutely unrestricted abortion. In fact of course, the vast majority of Americans for 40 years since Roe do NOT support unrestricted abortion-- that is the extremist ideology of a few, and the gross financial greed of PP. But I must disagree with the harsh criticism of the Romneys by JimmyK. To not support an absolute ban on abortion is not an illegitimate political opinion. Elective abortion is always immoral, but is it an immorality that should be criminalized? That is a legitimate political question. I don't know my opinion on that -- why? I've refused to form an opinion because the 7 old men in Roe prevent me from voting on the issue. Until Roe is overturned, we can never have the political debate that was stolen from us by 7 old men on the supreme court. I think Lenore Romney sounds like she was a decent thoughtful woman. If JimmyK is correct that Mitt didn't fall far from her tree, I would take that as a compliment.

[hit and run]

On my drive home from work last night, a drive that takes me by the airport, there were several police cars parked along the road or in the median with their lights flashing. Mildly curious, when I got home I . . . did nothing. mrs hit and run stopped by a little while ago so I could take her to lunch and mentioned many,many more police cars along the roads (her words were, "I didn't know Greensboro had this many police!*).

Well, that got me to look it up.

Good news! Biden and wife Dr! Jill are in town today. Literally.

They're promoting community colleges.

----------------
*Her next words were, "Now would be a helluva time to go knock over a liquor store."

[NK]

Ig-- thanks for that link. The 1978 Dem/Carter full employment mandate for the Fed was the crowning disaster of Arthur Burns tenure as Fed Chairman. Burns left in January 1978, but he was a loose money Keynesian, and he and Nixon were the worst Dollar debasers until 'Bam and Bernanke. Burns actually followed this law before it was even passed. get rid of the the full employment act-- the Fed is s monetarist tool that should protect the Dollar's value-- creating conditions for economic growth and full-employment is the job of the POTUS and Congress. Get rid of the law, reduce the insane spending and deficit, and I would even support Bernanke to stay under those conditions.

[jimmyk]

But I must disagree with the harsh criticism of the Romneys by JimmyK. To not support an absolute ban on abortion is not an illegitimate political opinion.

NK, I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I just found her statement trying to have it both ways, or at the very least vague and lacking in specifics. Of course there is room for a view between two extremes. I just don't think one makes that case by a making what seems like supporting both extremes at once. Granted she said "more liberal," not just "liberal," but it still seemed squishy to me. Maybe somewhere else she was more specific.

[Clarice]

Hit, I don't believe Claire actually said that.

[Frau Schnappsladen]

Clarice, can you think how arresting it is to have a man in a dress enter your liquor store with a chain saw in hand?

[Frau Schnappsladen]

Can someone other than Chief Feather Head tell me why Rush Limbaugh is sliming Romney so heavily these days?

[Jack is Back!]

Clarice,

You're right - she didn't - but she and Hit did go to the Biden speech and rumor has it they caught Hit falling asleep:)

[Clarice]

Yipes, frau.

As for Rush, he picks on any R candidate who he thinks is making mistakes.

[Rick Ballard]

Frau,

I believe he ran 'Mene, mene tekel upharsin' through Babelfish and MittBrand came backs as the answer.

[NK]

JimmyK-- "squishy". well I guess weighing the absolute truth that all life is sacred against real world considerations such as whose life? the child's? the woman? who wants an elective abortion but is forced to a dangerous black market abortion? which children can be condemned? children free will conceived but unwanted?, but children conceived from rape or incest -- through no fault of their own obviously-- can be condemned? I guess you can call these and many profound questions like them squishy. I don't know what I would do with my vote; like I said before, Harry Blackmun and his crew of old men said I have no vote. I know that elective abortion for freely conceived children is immoral; is it criminal? that I don't know. Is abortion unaceptable today because contraceptives are widely available, as opposed to pre- Griswald? I don't know. Apparently Lenore R did think about these things pre-Roe, and she was no absolutetist either way. I think that's proof of her decency and thoughtfulness.

[SWarren]

McCain's entire 2008 Romney oppo research book has been posted online

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-book-on-mitt-romney-here-is-john-mccains-ent

[SWarren]

And folks here in Michigan are laughing at this video of Mitt. I think this blogger's take is pretty accurate. Mitt comes across as kind of a manic plastic man.

http://www.huliq.com/12092/video-shows-romneybot-near-implosion-loving-trees-lakes-and-cars

[Frau Schnappsladen]

SWarren, your link also shows a man snoozing at VP Gravitas's speech. That can't be hit. Joe must have the power to put multitudes to sleep.

[jimmyk]

C'mon NK, I expect better of you. I didn't call the questions squishy, I called her position squishy. Even the linked article noted the lack of specifics. I don't find it particularly courageous to nod to two opposites not even provide a hint as to where you come down in between. YMMV. I have no doubt of her decency.

[Frau Schnappsladen]

Sheesh! Was Harry Truman Mr.Charisma? Did Silent Cal inspire the college crowd? Let's just elect Martin Sheen and get on with what's left of life. Let's laugh at each Rep. candidate and destroy all dignity. Any one of our "clowns" can help slow down the train wreck..but don't laugh at Prez. Kool.

[Frau Schnappsladen]

My computer has been taken over by squaredance. You betcha.

[hit and run]

Clarice:
I don't believe Claire actually said that.

To properly assure you as to the degree to which mrs hit and run most certainly did say that, I would like to quote the locally located vice president...literally!

JiB:
rumor has it they caught Hit falling asleep:)

Well,they wouldn't let me wear my OMG-ABO hat to the speech. I guess I showed them.

[Frau Schnappsladen]

"As for Rush, he picks on any R candidate who he thinks is making mistakes."

Calling one of our candidates a liar is a bit more than picking on him. That sound bite is useful for the dark side of the force.

[maryrose]

Frau:
I totally agree!
Rush and Hannity are crying the blues because their candidates, Newt and Santorum are not going to make the cut.

[Sara]

SWarren: Yeah, they are laughing so hard, they've laughed him right back in the lead in the polls over lyin' TrickyRicky.