Greg Sargent reports that Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor and recent conservative, threw a 1992 fundraiser for Doug Anderson, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Utah.
The Anderson campaign worker, Tim Hill, told Election Central that he worked for the Anderson campaign as an organizer in the northern part of the state. He said that he recalled overhearing Anderson and a top adviser discussing the fundraiser fairly early in the campaign.
“It was a small fundraiser in Boston,” Hill told Election Central, adding that he couldn’t recall any specifics about it. The executive director of the Utah Democratic Party, Todd Taylor, confirmed that he remembered Hill working on the Anderson campaign.
[...]
As it happens, Romney was apparently aware at the time of the potential political implications of throwing the fundraiser. Hill says that Romney was worried about helping Anderson because he knew it could create problems for him later.
“There was some talk that Mitt wasn’t doing as much as he could be doing,” Hill told us. “Mitt was worried about looking at his future and was worried about pissing off Republicans.” [emphasis added]
Now, it would be foolish to believe Hill’s story without a grain of salt given the hearsay cirumstances of the details, such as the more damaging “pissing off Republicans” quote. But it reinforces the liberal past that will give Republicans another point to attack on.
Kevin Madden, routinely called upon to defend Romney’s non-conservative past, minimized the significance of the fundraiser. Sargent begs to differ:
The new information about the fundraiser is arguably far more significant than the donations, because it shows that Romney didn’t just give Anderson a check — which could be dismissed as a small favor for a friend — but actively moved to help put a Democrat in the Senate.
Romney spokesman Madden dismissed the idea that the fundraiser was significant as a clue to his political leanings at the time. “I would tell you that relationships back in 1992, whether they were personal or political, don’t really have a reflection on where somebody is in 2007,” Madden said. [emphasis added]
By the same logic Madden applies, what reassurance would conservatives have that a Romney candidacy in 2007 is a reflection of what a Romney presidency would be in 2010, or 2012?
The answer is simple: None.
Conservatives, skeptical of Romney’s awakening to Reagan-style Republicanism within the last several years, are looking for Ronald Reagan, circa 1984, not 1944.
2 Responses to “Romney Threw ‘92 Fundraiser for Democrat”
Something to say?
There’s the rub. That’s it. That’s the reason no conservative will support Romney.
Left by Matt Browner Hamlin
January 31, 2007 at 8:58am