Mitt Romney Call In

This evening "conservative leaders" (I guess that includes me. ;) ) from around the state of Pennsylvania participated in a thirty minute conference call with Presidential Candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

After a brief introduction by Gary Marks, the Governor went into a brief stump speech centered around fiscal conservatism, and a theme he reitorated for the rest of the call. Federalism and states rights.

He said that "Washington is a mess" and he can turn it around. As governor, he cut programs and departments while lowering taxes. As President he'd like to see McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform repealed. He's opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants and is for securing the borders. He's pro-life and would give the ability to regulate abortion law to the states.

In terms of polling, he says a new CBS poll has him in "a wide lead" over his opponents in New Hampshire. Which stands to figure, neighbors and all.

At that point, the Q&A section began, with the first question going to Ryan Shafik of the Lincoln Institute. Ryan asked if under a Romney administration would there be any entitlement bills with the size of Medicare part D. Romney's response was to say a bill of the size and scope was "shocking" from a GOP President and a majority Republican congress. Under his administration there would be needed reforms in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Colin Hanna from Let Freedom Ring had the next question. Paraphrasing, "would you sign the hate-crimes bill as is currently sitting on the President's desk." Romney went back to federalism, saying the states can be responsible for that, and even though he's not familiar with the details of the bill he'd veto it. (That's a very good answer) He also went on to say that the federal government shouldn't be jumping in to issues with a response. Let the states deal with it, if necessary.

Governor Romney then asked Colin for his opinion, who responded that it was not necessary, does nothing and would be an infringement. Romney said that he heard it might affect what preachers can say from the pulpit.

The next question came from Joe Sterns who asked, "if you could only get one thing done as President, what would it be?"

Mitt didn't give a preference to one, but listed, perhaps in no particular order, a reining of spending; entitlement reform; moving health care to a market based system; and in the foreign policy arena, he'd like to move Islam away from their extremists. He's also like to find away to reform the education system, but says that's not a job for the federal government, but the states.

I didn't catch the name of the next questioner, who was from Newtown Square. "How can you win the Philly 'burbs?" Mitt's answer was to go to the website get signed up and volunteer... and to give what you can. $10, $20, $50 bucks. If we got Hillary or Obama we'd be in for a sharp turn to the left who would appoint judges liberal judges.

The next questioner from North Huntingdon asked about education improvements. My call dropped out, and when I got back in I caught the tail end of "more parental involvement."

Pawatercooler contributor Ben Wren got the final question in about Romneycare. "What's the conservative argument for it?" The answer started with "The Heritage Foundation helped create it." There was a well polling referendum on the ballot in Massachusetts that going to setup a state run health care system, so the legislature had to act.

He gave a brief description of how it works.

• Some research indicated that people who could afford health care did not get it knowing that they could get free services at the local hospital. Now, if you can afford it, you'll buy it, or pay the full ride come time.


• The state went to insurance companies to find out how to lower premiums, which basically boiled down to fewer mandates. Governor Romney wanted to dispose of the all, but the legislature put a bunch in anyway. In anycase, this lowered the average premium from $350 / month to about $175.


• For the poor, they pay what they can afford, still with private insurers. The state then makes up the balance. This costs less than the traditional state spending for "free care" saving the Commonwealth about $300 million per year. $1.3 billion vs $1.0 billion.

The time ran out, but I wanted to ask about his position on the fair tax or his energy policy.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear federalism. I suspect that's from bad experiences as governor and having to deal with mandates from Washington.

Prior to today, of the big three Romney was my least favorite, with Giuliani "in the lead." Given Rudy's recent social issue implosion and this conference, I'm now interested in Romney... I'm still very interested in Thompson, so I'll wait and see, but Romney I liked.

2008 Race Posted by AlexC at May 7, 2007 11:18 PM