Power

Romney’s Abortion Stance — Whichever Way The Polls Blow

Mitt Romney's abortion stance is more about what polls well for office at the time than anything else, a new book reveals.

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How do you know if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be running as a pro-choice or anti-choice candidate?  Check a poll and see what is more popular at the moment, and you’ll have your answer.

According to a new book by Ronald Scott, Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics, Romney has often used polls to decide what his stance will be in any given race.

Via Huffington Post:

When he challenged Ted Kennedy in the 1994 U.S. Senate race, Mitt Romney used polling data to determine that he would run as a pro-choice candidate while remaining personally pro-life, according to a new book by Boston journalist Ronald Scott.

The Washington Examiner revealed the moment in Scott’s book:

According to Scott, Romney revealed that polling from Richard Wirthlin, Ronald Reagan’s former pollster whom Romney had hired for the ’94 campaign, showed it would be impossible for a pro-life candidate to win statewide office in Massachusetts. In light of that, Romney decided to run as a pro-choice candidate, pledging to support Roe v. Wade, while remaining personally pro-life.

Will Romney loosen his new, rigid stance once he gets to the general election?  I guess that all depends on what his pollsters tell him.