I was caught up in Romney fever for a time
 

and then when his "we should double Gitmo" statement came out, I suddenly realized something: almost nothing distinguishes Mitt from Bush.

The guys on cougarboard couldn't even tell me how Mitt differed from Bush on the issues.

If you really, really look at the facts: there is very little to suggest that Mitt is principled, and A LOT of evidence to suggest that he is not.

Sorry Mitt, I am off the bandwagon.

Congratulations! But this begs the question, is there a better bandwagon?

Sorry, but posting the same thing here as you did on Cougarboard doesn't change the fact that you are being extremely disingenuous when you claim you were caught up in Romney fever. We all know better than that.

I'm not lying. I was going to donate money to him. And then I was going to trumpet the fact that I had, and Tex and Snipe had not.

I've never voted for a democrat for President, and voted for Bush twice.

Shows you how stupid I am.

Well, I can easily see why. You were simply motivated to annoy Tex and Snipe, not by Romney himself.

No. It's called two birds with one stone. Trust me, I don't spend money to just annoy Tex and Snipe.

Jefe, on the other hand.... :)

You are kinda stupid if you think you know to whom and how much I've donated.

LOL. Nice sig line there, Tex.

Let me guess, you spend 10% of your income on charitable donations.

LOL.

I know, I know, it's very private and you can't say.

I like you Mex. You're always good for a laugh.

Thanks! I have a nice "respectful" quote from SoCalCoug too, but ran out of room.

I wasn't talking about tithing. And lest we forget, I did donate to your fallen friend's fund.

I didn't remember. Very good thing you did there.

I really can't lay claim to that man. He was all our friends, really.

Thank you, I was happy to.

I'm sorry, Mike, but I'm going to have to ask you for some more substance.

Exactly what convinces you Romney is unprincipled?

That his views conveniently change in an expedient way. What would possess a Mormon family to donate to Planned Parenthood other than political expediency?

I don't know... but that seems like something you'd do. Or homeboy or hoya... maybe you all can enlighten me.

Not me. I'm anti-abortion. I don't think there is moral justification for it.

But that is just it- you would expect me or homeboy to donate to them based on what you think we believe about abortion. But you wouldn't EVER expect a Republican nominee to donate to them, particularly one who takes such a strong stance on abortion today.

Re your sig line, Tex, how does it make you feel what you've turned this place into?

Huh? Where did that come from?

It's bizarre. When we were discussing Giuliani's donation, I actually remarked to Soonercoug, "I guarantee you Romney's never donated to Planned Parenthood." oops.

Romney is correct in his assertion that he has the right to "change his mind." However, his mind changes are rather frequent, and suspiciously conveniently-timed.

Mike, as a health care professional, who wishes some day to make a nice living, how could you ever vote Democratic?

That would be personal professional suicide.

To me, there are only two choices, Romney or Giuliani, and Romney appears slicker, so he's more likely to get into less trouble. Before 9/11 Giuliani wasn't very popular, and his policies were very pricey.

Romney is loads more intelligent than Bush and loads slicker. Romney is a Republican Clinton apparently without the baggage of slipping up or a lousy wife.

Why? Dems are more likely to increase research funding.

Didn't you hear? This is Romney's new campaign theme song:

I'm a man without conviction,
I'm a man who doesn't know
how to sell a contradiction.
You come and go, you come and go.

Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon,
you come and go, you come and go.

Wow, Seattle! I didn't know you had it in you!! :)

Slick is also a term we use to refer to used car salesmen.

No Romney and Giuliani will do that, but Dems, through socialized health care will cap how much physicians can earn. So you'd be capped at about 100K, working harder so the increases in funding could pay more administrators.

Look at every government project and a huge portion of funding goes, not into the activity itself, but administrators. I have an anecdote of a small hospital for which I work in Nevada, that had forty administrators doing the job of what the private organization uses three person, saving more than 4 million dollars in total costs per month.

You are deceived if you believe Democratic government projects are ever efficient or paying the correct people.

Principled: “manifesting objectively defined standards of rightness or morality.”

In order to remain objective one must be flexible, movable, willing to think their way through issues and have the courage to admit when they are wrong.

I'd say Mitt Romney is highly principled.

Hmm, I guess it all comes down to how we're defining pro-life and pro-choice. I've always thought the "I'm personally against abortion but support a woman's right to choose" was properly labelled a pro-choice stance. In that light, her donation is consistent with Mitt Romney's position at the time. That's not necessarily a "frequent" or "suspiciously conveniently-timed" change, is it?

The change came much later ... only a couple of years ago.

Also, as long as we're splitting hairs, it should be noted it was made by his wife rather than him, and that it was no more than $150, which the Romneys earn in about 1.72 seconds.

I'm not a Romney supporter yet, but I do see this as much ado about not much.

And what is a politician? A screw job by a whore without the happy ending.

I don't know if that's true, Archaea. NIH is at historically-low levels of funding due to this administration. I've been researching the candidates and I've seen nothing to indicate Romney or Giuliani plan to change the funding trend established by Bush.

Right now financing for everything is declining by virtue of the war. I suggest either will do a better job of extricating us from Iraq, despite tough rhetoric, and that funding will increase as funding demands relent.

Seattle is like the grade school boy or girl who teases and tourments another child everyday at recesss and doesn't know why.

We do! He has a massive man crush on Mitt, and he will vote for him.

I don't believe that anybody's budget has been slashed by this administration. There may have been lower than demanded funding increases, but only a bureucrat would consider this a funding cut.

I don't think there has been a cut. Just that there have not been increases sufficient to keep up with inflation and growing research demands.

Suffice it to say that the funding levels are at (historical?) lows. Meaning that the "pay line" for my area is at something like 10%. Meaning that only 10% of the researchers in a given cycle are being funded.

I think we are seeing and will see many researchers leave research because of this.

Budget has been flat since 2003, in spite of ever-increasing costs of conducting research. Across NIH, grant approval rate averages 20%. At the National Cancer Institute, it's less than five.

I should pull the sources and such.

I'm not on the Romney bandwagon, haven't been, and probably won't be, but I do hope that he's treated fairly on the religious front.

The obsession with flip-flopping would be amusing if it wasn't steering discussion away from more important matters. In the following quote from Emerson's essay on self-reliance, feel free to insert the name of most any politician where he says "little statesmen":

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

There is, of course, a difference between changing one's mind because of reconsidered evidence and merely playing at soothsaying. Romney seems to be doing the latter.

And his comment about doubling Gitmo? Repulsive. The logic of the concentration camp is alive and well, and it evokes it's other, the refugee camp. The panopticon is the nursemaid of the nomad, the consumer wandering through the mall, the suicide bomber, the terrorist cell.

I know of one person here at my institution where his entire career is hinging on whether his grant comes through in this cycle.

If it doesn't, he will be let go. I know of another research group that has cut back to almost no staff due to grants running out and no new grants coming in.

It's not as dire a picture for me, because the NIH is trying hard to "not lose a generation", so they are giving some advantages to first-time applicants.

What is a panopticon? Is it an autobot or a a decepticon?

I can't imagine why anyone would stoop to a personal attack on the man's religion when he leaves so much room for criticism of substance.

What works in his favor is that the other GOP candidates are no stronger. Although he certainly separated himself from the pack with his comment on Gitmo.

Yes. Libertarianism. But it's not much of a bandwagon unfortunately as we sink deeper into the world of more government rather than less.