Part 2
Massachusetts Conservatives Express Their Views on Mitt Romney

Most Agree Mitt's Better On Fiscal Issues than Social Issues

Part 1: Massachusetts Conservatives Express Their Views on Mitt Romney Sidebar: New Chairman Works for Healey's Husband

By Ed Oliver
February 2003 Print Edition

MassNews spoke with 18 citizens, a cross section of Massachusetts conservatives, last month to get their early take on Governor Mitt Romney. Fiscal conserv-atives are mostly optimistic about Rom-ney's ability to manage the current budget deficit, although they don't seem to expect a radical departure from big government. Social conservatives want Romney to look up from the spreadsheets at other issues, but most seem resigned to four more years of inattention to family values at best, and pro-active championing of a liberal social agenda at worst. Those who want a resurgent Republican Party expressed hope that Romney will work to rebuild the party by helping to recruit and support good candidates.
		Conservatives are concerned whether Gov. Romney will change the State House to live up to their expectations or will turn out to be another Gov. Weld who decimated the Republican Party.

DON FEDER Former Boston Herald Columnist; Political Consultant My expectations are low. Even before the campaign, Romney impressed me as being a typical Weld Republican, which is to say not much of a Republican at all. I also think that like his Republican predecessors, particularly Weld and Cellucci, the Governorship for Romney is a stepping-stone. At least that is the impression I have. I don't think Romney wants to be Governor of Massachusetts any more than Weld did, especially in Weld's second term. I think Romney views it as a stepping-stone for higher office. He'd like to serve in the Senate.

Even more than that, I think he'd like to be part of the Bush cabinet in Bush's second administration, or if something, God forbid, were to happen to Dick Cheney, Romney certainly wouldn't mind moving into the Vice-Presidency.

My expectations are low that he will be able to fix the fiscal mess, given the fact that I am not sure how tough Romney is. Romney has given no indication thus far of having anything approaching an iron will, which I think a Republican Governor would need to handle the legislature. Of course the legislature is a big problem. There aren't even enough Republicans to sustain a veto. And in the past, Republicans in the legislature have often voted against the Governor when it is a matter of overriding the Governor's veto.

Most of the Republicans in the legislature also really aren't Republicans-they're RINO's-Republicans In Name Only. It's a rather daunting task for anyone.

I hope, by the way, that Romney surprises me. I hope that Romney proves me wrong. He does have something that his Republican predecessors lacked, and that is business experience. Weld was a lawyer before he got into politics. Cellucci and Swift are products of the state legislature. Romney breaks that mold. He's a businessman. He ran for Senate in 1994 but never held political office. Romney knows what it is to meet a payroll. He understands how to manage a business, and despite all the folderol coming from the Democrats about, "Oh, this is different, you can't compare running the state to managing a business," it is like managing a business. And the fact that Romney has that type of executive, slash, managerial experience, I think could stand him in good stead. He understands the bottom line. He knows that a budget has to be balanced, that income and outgo have to be in balance.

Obviously Romney is much better on fiscal issues than he is on social issues. On social issues, he ran as a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights gubernatorial candidate. The only exception that Romney made is that he won't support gay marriage. It's quite possible that Romney would support something like domestic partnerships, the type of ersatz gay marriage that they have in Vermont. On social issues, I think Romney gives every indication of being awful.
Now, again, Romney may surprise me. If Romney has national ambitions, then it would make sense for him to swing to the right somewhat. Obviously he had to run to the left on social issues, or at least he thinks he had to run to the left on social issues to be elected Governor of Massachusetts. On the other hand, if he has ambitions for the national party, he's not going to be anyone's running mate as a pro-abortion candidate. Even his current position on gay rights isn't going to fly in the national Republican Party, and I think Romney understands that. So if he does have national ambitions, it now makes sense for him to swing right on social policy. So, again, I might be surprised.

Obviously the budget is first priority. He simply has to insist on budget cuts. If the legislature isn't willing to give him the authority, then he should say, "Fine, then you deal with it.' And when they try to raise taxes, veto the tax increases. Instead of allowing them to put his feet to the fire, he should put their feet to the fire.

One of the big obstacles is we have a one party state in Massachusetts. Now this is something, again, that his three Republican predecessors never tried to address. Weld and Cellucci had absolutely no interest in building the Republican Party. They could care less about the Republican party. It was always, "What's in it for me? How can I position myself to go on to something better?" Whether better is a cabinet position, ambassadorship or what. If Romney really wants to surprise the pundits, one of the things he is going to concentrate on in the next year is recruiting good Republican candidates to run for the state legislature.

Now this would hopefully put the fear of God in the Democrats in the legislature who are vulnerable. In the overwhelming majority of legislative races last year, the incumbent ran unopposed. And as I'm sure you know, in the majority of those districts the incumbents are Democrats. If Romney started not in 2004, but started right now, today, recruiting candidates to run against incumbents, not just in the districts where incumbents are vulnerable, but all over the state, I think that would do a lot to shake up the state legislature.

As it is, there are no penalties coming from the right. Why did the Massachusetts state legi-slature go along with Birmingham in terms of not calling the Constitutional Convention? Be-cause they knew they would never be held to task for it. Even when MCM got the SJC to issue a decision saying this is illegal and unconstitutional, the legislature looked at that and said, "Big frigging deal, who cares? What are they going to do to us? They'll do nothing." Most of the state legislators don't care about the Constitution. On the other hand, if Romney recruited decent candidates to run for the legislature next year, I think that would shake them up.

Mark Charalambous
Fatherhood Coalition, Co-founder and Spokesman
While we are hopeful that in the long run Mitt will turn out to be a good Governor for the Commonwealth as a whole with respect to the state's financial and economic woes, the state's non-custodial fathers in Massachusetts have no reason to be optimistic.
Mitt has not responded to any of our overtures for a dialogue, neither during the campaign nor since taking office.

He is apparently continuing the pattern of his Republican predecessors in viewing fathers rights as some kind of subset of womens issues. We have been told that he is putting our issues in Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey's domain-which is bad news for us since Healey is a victim/feminism partisan who claims some kind of authority/expertise in domestic violence. This is bad news not just for non-custodial fathers, but for all males.

While the Fatherhood Coalition was very pleased that Romney triumphed Over Democratic candidate Shannon O'Brien, despite her leading in the polls up until the election, fathers need to remember that it was under the Republican Gubernatorial leadership of Weld and Cellucci that the feminist War on Fatherhood made its greatest advances in Massachusetts.

Romney's refusal to respond to our overtures indicates to me that he intends to follow in Weld and Cellucci's footsteps. He has so far ignored our concerns about the anti-father bias in the courts and the domestic violence, child abuse, and child support regimes that are crucifying fathers in the name of protecting women and providing for children. He has instead gone so far as to appoint Judith Beals, the discredited former spokesman for Jane Doe, to his transition team.

What Romney needs to hear from someone is that his onerous task of trimming government spending to close the $2 billion budget gap need not be perceived as a tradeoff between solvency and shared sacrifice. Some of the programs allocated in the state budget are actually extremely harmful.

The so-called "victim-witness" programs that are budgeted for district attorneys and elsewhere are wreaking havoc throughout the Commonwealth as women are encouraged and emboldened to fabricate allegations of domestic abuse, rape and child abuse. All the cottage industries that have sprung up around the child abuse, domestic violence, child abuse and child support extortion rackets: visitation centers, battered women's shelters, victim-witness advocates, rape crisis centers, etc., despite their honorable claims, are in actuality a menace to the good people of the Commonwealth as well as a financial drain. De-funding them will be a blessing.

RON CREWS President, Mass. Family Institute First of all, Mr. Romney did not run on a purely conservative platform, so I don't have high expectations for a strong conservative agenda. However, it is my hope that he will be fiscally conservative and keep taxes from being raised, which would be a blessing to families in this state, and I would hope that he would use his business skills to find ways to cut the budget so that possibly we could even see a tax reduction in this state. Secondly, I hope that he will look at how our money is being spent in the area of sex education. The recent incident of the two students

engaging in oral sex on a school bus is just a symptom of what I believe is a real problem of poorly spent money in the area of sex education. I am hoping he'll be able to take a look at that and at the curriculum that is being used and see if we can get back to an abstinence based, sex education program. Further we have some federal money that is designated for abstinence-based education, and I want to be sure that money is being used for what it is supposed to be used for by the federal guidelines.

It is also my hope that Governor Romney will be able to develop a working relationship with the Democratic controlled legislature. I want this state to succeed, and in order for that to happen, we've got to have leaders who are willing to work together and talk to each other. I have hopes that Governor Romney and Speaker Finneran in particular will be men who lay aside party differences to seek what is the good of the state. I don't know Senator Travaglini that well to be able to make any comments, but it is my hope that he will work with the Governor.

In terms of how to measure his performance, I think we'll see over the coming months whether he is able to come up with a budget with the legislature that will not increase our tax burden in this state. I think that will be a primary measure of whether he is able to do what he has offered himself to be during the campaign- a businessman knowing how to tighten the belt and run a budget.

Special interest groups will lobby strongly for their pet programs which may not be the best use of state tax dollars. So, that will be a major obstacle the Governor will have to overcome, how to deal with these very high profile, loud voices crying, "Don't take away our funding."
I would give Gov. Romney a good grade thus far in terms of his, for instance, saying he is going to look into the contracts that were issued by the outgoing Governor. Are those really the best use of the money? He has said that he wants to know about any relatives of state employees on the state payroll. Those are wise decisions and I commend him for those.

SARAH MCVAY PAWLICK President, Mass. Citizens for Marriage Gov. Romney still does not appear to realize he would not have won the election without the Protection of Marriage Amendment. First, Tom Birmingham shot himself in the foot by violating the law, not allowing a vote and, as a consequence, suffering huge negatives among voters.

As a result, Romney's opponent was a less experienced foe who blundered big-time because she also got into the subject and advocated gay marriage. Romney was afraid to make the violation of the law into a huge Democratic scandal but he lucked out because both Democrats stumbled worse than he did. I am an eternal optimist and hope that Romney will get some intestinal fortitude and stand up for the conservative, family values that the polls show are there in large numbers - if he will only tap into them.

DICK HERSUM
President, Association of Massachusetts Republican Town,
City and Ward Chairmen (AMRC)
We are fortunate to have someone of Governor Romney's intellect and caliber and proven ability in the office. He obviously will have to work with a state Senate and House of Representatives that is so heavily Democratic that he can't even get a roll call unless some Democrats are with him. So to get a legislative program through means that he will have to be very persuasive with the Democratic opposition.

We know he has appointed some people and is getting his supporting staff around him, and he's brought on some experienced people like Beth Myers, Bonnie Boyle and Eric Fehrnstrom and so forth, people who kind of know their way around the State House, so that should be very helpful to him.

Obviously, in the short term he has to resolve the state deficit problems and make some very difficult choices in terms of funding and so forth. I see the budget deficit as kind of a short term problem. A lot of it depends on the economy getting rolling again. Given that as a background I think he will do a superb job in that office.

On the other hand, from a party standpoint, I think and hope that he will work hard to try to increase the number of registered Republicans in the party and work with the grass roots organizations to organize and collect particularly senators and representatives in two years. I think that is what needs to be done in the state, and while the percentage of registered Democrats has declined, I think it is down to something like 36 percent, the Republicans who have been around 13 or 14 percent have stayed about the same.

So many people have been energized and joined in his campaign to get him elected. If he can reach out and convince these people to become active in the Republican party and the city and town committees, that will be a big plus for the citizens of Massachusetts.

We need to elect Republicans to all kinds of minor offices and so forth; but particularly for his administration, he needs to have more support in the legislature. There are only six Senators, it's absurd, and something like twenty-six Representatives. He can't get anything through if they don't choose to do it. Tommy Finneran is a fairly conservative Democrat so he could be helpful if he wants to be.

Bill Weld was basically a libertarian. Weld didn't really do anything to build the party and neither did Paul Cellucci. They attended functions and went to fundraisers for candidates and so forth, but Romney has an opportunity, because of his popularity, to reach out to the Republican activists and help to build the party if he chooses. I think he has to do it personally and not delegate it to others, by the way.

For the long term interests of the citizens of Massachusetts, you would like to have a two- party system, which we don't have today. Sure, we controlled the executive branch for something like fourteen years, but in terms of the legislature, we haven't been a factor.

CJ DOYLE
Executive Director, Catholic Action League of Mass.
I think we could say that in terms of moral issues, Romney will be as neo-pagan as Bill Weld and Jane Swift, and on homosexual issues will be slightly to the left of Paul Cellucci and Michael Dukakis.

First, I would remind Governor Romney that there remains genuine and widespread public outrage over the abuse of the Democratic process in the Protection of Marriage Amendment.
I would also tell him that domestic partner legislation is a special interest, single constituency issue that does not enjoy broad public support., and its support in the legislature is a mile wide and an inch deep.

The third thing I would mention is, when even the head of the state AFL-CIO admits that Shannon O'Brien's position on abortion may have cost her the election, it should inform the new Governor that a pro-abortion political position isn't as popular as some in the media would suggest that it is.

JIM WALLACE
Legislative Agent, Gun Owners Action League
I'm the lobbyist up there at the State House, and everybody I talk to has a different outlook on Mitt Romney. It is a whole new world out there right now in political circles. For better or for worse, so far he is pretty much keeping to his word that he's going to change the way government is done. He's bringing in people from outside of the normal realm to put in cabinet positions and other appointments. I don't know if that is good or bad yet. We'll have to find out how these people deal in political circles that they are not used to dealing in. Business and government is very much different unfortunately. So, his promise to bring in business people to run government like a business may or may not work. It's unproven yet; we'll find out.

Obviously, our priority is certainly to fix the worst of the Massachusetts gun laws. Un-fortunately the only real way to do that is to scrap them all and start from scratch because they are so confusing and just off the wall that the average person has no idea how to follow them anymore.

It's incredible. I don't know if you've seen the report that we put out a couple of months ago about the [low] number of gun licenses that have been reissued since 1998. That's just absurd. Obviously we would love it if he actually looked into that, because that is one of the major problems we are going to face in the very near future.

I don't know what we can realistically expect from Romney. I don't think guns are an issue to him one way or the other. In my opinion, it is going to depend on what his people that he puts in place tell him. You know, "With the problems that we've got, this is what I think we need to do."

I think that is going to be across the board, not just gun issues. He's putting people in place that can advise him, just like he would in business. Those are the people who will start telling him, "Okay, this is what we need to fix. This is what's good. This is what isn't good." Right now, it's a blank canvas, and we'll see what he comes up with.

It's probably a brand new experiment that can maybe be compared in a different way to what Jesse Ventura did in Minnesota. The first thing they laughed about him was they said, "Well, lets see this guy try to make two thousand appointments over the next thirty days." He laughed back and said, "There's nothing in the law that says I have to make those appointments." Then they didn't laugh anymore. So, it's really a whole new experiment in government and we all just have to sit back and see how it works.

Two things coming up this year: First, we need to do something about those gun licenses. We need to find out why the agency dropped the ball so bad. What's really going on with the numbers of licenses? How many people want to lawfully own guns in Massachusetts but aren't being allowed to because they don't know about the laws?

The second thing we need to do, which we still feel is unconstitutional, is to take away the ex post facto part of the '98 gun laws, meaning that if you had a firearms license prior to '98 and you didn't do anything else wrong since then, you should still retain your license. Because what they are doing now after '98, as you probably know, they can go back as far as they want in your history, even if you had a license, and remove it from you.

The biggest problem we ran into last year was the fact that Senate President Birmingham was running for Governor. We did get a bill out of the House, but it was not going to happen in the Senate. All the bills have been filed for this year, we're just waiting for bill numbers.

I'm always optimistic because it can't get much worse here in Massachusetts. I really haven't talked to the administration at all because they just haven't-they're not sure how they are going to set things up. I mean, they have people in place, but it takes them a while to feel things out. During the campaign we didn't have much communication with Romney. He talked with us but he didn't want to fill out the questionnaire. So like I said, I don't believe guns are an issue one way or the other to him, but I think he's going to take the advice of his people on those issues.

MARIE STURGIS Executive Director, Mass. Citizens for Life Number one on the list of the Governor's priorities should be the promotion of strong families and a profound respect for human life. We know that abortion isn't the answer to the ills of society. It's not a positive solution. It is an act of violence, and violence begets further violence. We know nothing happens in a vacuum. The Governor should be pushing for abstinence programs in the schools. He should be pushing for passage of MCFL's own bill, "The Woman's Right to Know," which provides women with all kinds of information concerning pregnancy and abortion and her options.

The Governor should be pushing for abstinence programs in the schools. He should be pushing for passage of MCFL's own bill, "The Woman's Right to Know," which provides women with all kinds of information concerning pregnancy and abortion and her options. This would be an aid to help a woman in a crisis, so that she's fully informed in terms of fetal development, adoption, alternatives and so forth. I think the Governor should support all legislation that stabilizes family life.

I think one of his obstacles will be a push from Planned Parenthood for their bill that promotes so-called health education in schools. Part of the bill addresses reproduction and sexuality. When Planned Parenthood talks about reproduction and sexuality, every parent should cringe because they are really open to young people having sex. Then young people end up getting pregnant and then young people are pushed into having abortions. I'm reserved, leaning toward pessimistic. If he kowtows to that, we will get more of the same that the Swift administration has doled out, if you will.

The Governor should not forget: The demise of Shannon O'Brien was caused by parents who did not advocate abortion for their teenage daughters through the lowering of the age of consent.