MItt Romney’s appearance on This Week will likely be viewed as one of the fundamental mistakes in the campaign. Not only has he had a problem with his statements on why he voted for Paul Tsongas. He is going to have another problem on taxes. In talking about taxes and the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, he said:
"But you can read the pledge, if you will," Romney said in his "This Week" interview, "and you can see that it’s drawn very narrowly. It’s not drawn very broadly. It talks about raising the highest marginal income tax rate. It does not talk about all forms of revenue for the government."
And so Romney already tries to finesse his position on taxes. So you see, Romney starts on the far left of the Republican Party when he calls the ATR Tax Pledge "government by gimmickry". Then he signs it. Then he soft sells his position. Furthermore, he will likely continue to try to sell his position as having never raised taxes even though he raised fees and taxes substantially:
“Rather than forcing the Legislature to close the budget gap through spending cuts alone, Romney raised some $500 million in fees.
“Romney raised corporate taxes by an estimated $210 million and only backed down under pressure from pushing for even higher taxes on business.
Romney’s "Mitt-flopping" will morph into "Multiple Choice Mitt" and, perhaps, into simply problems with the truth.
