Recently, we at Campaign for America's Future launched MassKnowsMitt.com [1], where Bay Staters can share their memories living under Mitt Romney's stewardship. If you ever wondered by Romney is losing his home state by 20 points, reading these stories will tell you why.
Today, the Boston Globe editorial board jumped in, spurning its former governor [2] in favor of President Obama. The Globe didn't focus much on Mitt's dubious record while governor, but raised the question whether Massachusetts really does know the real Mitt:
...it may also be that Massachusetts didn’t know Mitt Romney very well, after all. Stuck in a party far to his right, Romney made a fateful bargain to adopt sharply conservative positions, and then start clawing back. Now, voters have no way of knowing what kind of president he’d be.
...
Identifying the real Romney on any major issue — social, economic, or foreign — is impossible. But a president this vulnerable within his party, needing to satisfy a conservative Congress, could never make good on his moderate commitments. Whichever Romney shows up, the Romney years would end up looking a lot like the Bush years.
The possibility that Massachusetts doesn't know the real Mitt speaks to the fact that Romney basically skipped town before his lone term was completed. [3]
Why bother actually following through on your ideas and showing a record of accomplishment, when you could have a line on your political resume without grappling with the challenges of actual governing?
Still, in his brief time as Governor, Romney did enough damage that these folks remember. [1] The fact is, nobody in America knows the real Mitt at all. But Massachusetts knows better than anywhere else.
Links:
[1] http://massknowsmitt.com/
[2] http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/10/28/election-endorsement-barack-obama-deserves-another-term
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/us/politics/mitt-romney-often-away-when-he-was-governor.html