Mitt Romney totally not like George Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Please don't grow up to be a right-wing douchebag, Mitt. Please.

From the Times:

A longtime aide to George W. Romney issued a harshly worded critique of Mitt Romney, accusing him of shifting political positions in "erratic and startling ways" and failing to live up to the distinguished record of his father, the former governor of Michigan.

Walter De Vries, who worked for the senior Mr. Romney throughout the 1960s, wrote that Mitt Romney's bid for the White House was "a far cry from the kind of campaign and conduct, as a public servant, I saw during the seven years I worked in George Romney's campaigns and served him as governor."

"While it seems that Mitt would say and do anything to close a deal – or an election," he wrote, "George Romney's strength as a politician and public officeholder was his ability and determination to develop and hold consistent policy positions over his life."

It's a fair question to ask whether George would vote for Mitt. Of course he likely would, given that Mitt's his son, but let's pretend they're not related. Would he?

For the reasons outlined by De Vries, but more because of Mitt's plutocratic extremism, because of Mitt's shameless pandering to the right-wing Republican base, and because of the extreme rightward shift of the Republican Party generally, I would suspect not.