Romney alienates voters with radicalized stances

The following article was published in the Eastern Echo - an independent newspaper of Eastern Michigan University on October 4, 2012..  The link to the publication is below, followed by the original text of the submitted article:

http://www.easternecho.com/article/2012/10/radical-social-stances-hinder-romney-campaign

Romney Alienates Voters with Radicalized Stances

by Casey Wooley

Guest Writer

Though much of the chatter around political circles is centered on the economy and President Obama's performance with it, the Romney campaign has struggled to stay on message to hammer home the President's performance in his first term. Many political pundits agree, that one of the main reasons that Governor Romney has not been able to keep the economy message going, is because of his far-right conservative stances on social issues that are affecting many voters.

Governor Romney has dramatically harmed his campaign with the general electorate by his continued radicalized stance on three high-priority social issues of our time: woman's rights, marriage equality, and immigration.

Because Romney has been running for office for six years, he has had the unfortunate predicament of having to run two primary campaigns against challengers who are more to the right than he is. And because he's had to fend off these challengers and win the votes of the Tea Party to secure the nomination, he now finds himself in a more radicalized conservative spot than he probably would prefer.

A quick glimpse at his website shouts “smaller, smarter, simpler government,” with regards to government regulation. What it doesn't cover is his stance on a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. Indeed, Romney supports a federal constitutional amendment that would define person-hood as starting at conception, according to an interview he gave with Evangelist Mike Huckabee of Fox News.

The constitutional amendment, coincidentally, would also ban the most popular form of birth-control (hormonal birth control, or “the pill”) – one that many Eastern Michigan University women may use.

Moreover, despite his response on 60 Minutes last month when he indicated that he was in favor of abortion exceptions being made in cases of protecting the mother's health, his staff issued a revised statement to NPR, that in fact Mitt Romney does not support this exception. And Paul Ryan, his running mate, makes no room in his stance on abortion, for any exception of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. Simply put, the Romney-Ryan ticket supports no instances when abortion should be legal.

Romney is just as radical on issues of marriage equality. He supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman, and believes that the current Defense of Marriage Act should be enforced. While this particular stance may not make him radical, he also stated this year that “I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” according to a May 9 article by Luke Johnson of The Huffington Post. Governor Romney does not believe that LGBT Americans are entitled to equal rights under the law as all other Americans.

Lastly, Romney's stance on immigration reform is almost laughable. Mr. Romney in fact supports a concept called “self-deportation.” This is a premise that undocumented immigrants who are here illegally should choose to go back to their home countries if we make it harder for them to find work in America. Self-deportation actually has its roots from two Mexican-American satirists who coined the phrase in 1994 attacking a then-Californian ballot initiative to prohibit illegal immigrants from using state-run hospitals. Despite the phrase being used for comedy-purposes, Romney actually offers it as a real immigration idea.

While the economy may be an important issue, these social issues have helped to shape the state of the current race and will continue to have an effect on voters' choices as early voting begins and we move into the last leg of the campaign season.