Nicholas D. Kristof on Mitt Romney

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The reassuring thing about Mitt Romney is that for most of his life he probably wouldn’t have voted for today’s Mitt Romney.

This is a man who registered as a Republican only in preparation for his 1994 Senate campaign against Edward Kennedy; previously, Romney had registered as an independent. As recently as 2002, in his successful run for governor of Massachusetts, he described himself this way: “People recognize that I am not a partisan Republican, that I’m someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.”

That was accurate, and Romney became an excellent, moderate and pragmatic governor of Massachusetts. But then, in 2005, he apparently began to fancy himself as Republican presidential timber and started veering to the right in what we can all pray was a cynical, unprincipled pander.

This does, at least, furnish opportunities for political humor. “Mitt Romney will face his fiercest ideological opponent,” Conan O’Brien has suggested. “Himself from four years ago.”

Jay Leno offered: “Well, the presidential race is getting interesting. In an effort to clear up his reputation as a flip-flopper, Mitt Romney will give a speech on health care. And then, right afterward, he’ll give a five-minute rebuttal.”

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