It is campaign season, voters are used to, and in fact expect, to a certain degree, for candidates to exaggerate, to make campaign speeches specific to the state they are in, to personalize their theme to connect to the voters of that state.What voters do not expect is outright lies.
Last night, Newt Gingrich said to Mitt Romney (via CNN transcript) "In '92 he was donating to the Democrats for Congress and voted for Paul Tsongas in the Democratic primary."
In response, Mitt Romney said "Just a -- just a short clarification. I -- I've never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot. And -- and in my state of Massachusetts, you could register as an independent and go vote in which -- either primary happens to be very interesting. And any chance I got to vote against Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy, I took. And so I -- I'm...
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: ...I have voted -- I have always voted for a Republican any time there was a Republican on the ballot. With regards to the Speaker's involvement in the Reagan years, he can speak for himself. The Reagan Diaries and the other histories that were written at that time can lay that out as well. I -- I -- I think, I think what he said speaks for itself and I'm proud of the things I was able to accomplish."
There were two primaries that year, a Democratic one and a Republican one and Romney did, and admitted, to voting in the Democratic primary for Paul Tsongas in 1992.
His reasoning for doing so changed over the years.
Two years later, when he announced he would seek the Republican Senate nomination to challenge Ted Kennedy, Romney told the Boston Globe about his vote for Tsongas.
"Romney confirmed he voted for former U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas in the state's 1992 Democratic presidential primary, saying he did so both because Tsongas was from Massachusetts and because he favored his ideas over those of Bill Clinton," the Globe reported on Feb. 4, 1994. "He added he had been sure the GOP would renominate George Bush, for whom he voted in the fall election."
By 2007, in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Romney admitted it again but gave another explanation for his vote. (Via ABC News)
"In Massachusetts, if you register as an independent, you can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary," said Romney, who until he made an unsuccessful run for Senate in 1994 had spent his adult life as a registered independent. "When there was no real contest in the Republican primary, I’d vote in the Democrat primary, vote for the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for the Republican."
In last night's debate when Romney said "I've never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot," he lied.
There was a Republican on the ballot, the Republican primary ballot, which Romney consciously chose not to vote in.
This type of behavior is what I spoke about earlier. Blaming others, claiming he isn't "aware" of what his own campaign is doing and outright lies.
Mitt Romney is still reminding me of Barack Obama.
If I wanted another Barack Obama in the White House, I would go ahead and register as a Democrat and vote for him.
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