Robot glitch
by digby
Everyone’s citing Romney’s Massachusetts requirement for emergency contraception as evidence of incoherence in now condemning the birth control decision, but what about this?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Governor Romney, do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception? Or is that trumped by a constitutional right to privacy?
ROMNEY: George, this is an unusual topic that you’re raising. States have a right to ban contraception? I can’t imagine a state banning contraception. I can’t imagine the circumstances where a state would want to do so, and if I were a governor of a state or…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the Supreme Court has ruled —
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: … or a — or a legislature of a state — I would totally and completely oppose any effort to ban contraception. So you’re asking — given the fact that there’s no state that wants to do so, and I don’t know of any candidate that wants to do so, you’re asking could it constitutionally be done? We can ask our constitutionalist here.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m sure Congressman Paul…
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: OK, come on — come on back…
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: … asking you, do you believe that states have that right or not?
ROMNEY: George, I — I don’t know whether a state has a right to ban contraception. No state wants to. I mean, the idea of you putting forward things that states might want to do that no — no state wants to do and asking me whether they could do it or not is kind of a silly thing, I think.
(APPLAUSE)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hold on a second. Governor, you went to Harvard Law School. You know very well this is based on…
ROMNEY: Has the Supreme Court — has the Supreme Court decided that states do not have the right to provide contraception? I…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, they have. In 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut.
ROMNEY: The — I believe in the — that the law of the land is as spoken by the Supreme Court, and that if we disagree with the Supreme Court — and occasionally I do — then we have a process under the Constitution to change that decision. And it’s — it’s known as the amendment process.
And — and where we have — for instance, right now we’re having issues that relate to same-sex marriage. My view is, we should have a federal amendment of the Constitution defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. But I know of — of no reason to talk about contraception in this regard.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’ve got the Supreme Court decision finding a right to privacy in the Constitution.
ROMNEY: I don’t believe they decided that correctly. In my view, Roe v. Wade was improperly decided. It was based upon that same principle. And in my view, if we had justices like Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia, and more justices like that, they might well decide to return this issue to states as opposed to saying it’s in the federal Constitution.
And by the way, if the people say it should be in the federal Constitution, then instead of having unelected judges stuff it in there when it’s not there, we should allow the people to express their own views through amendment and add it to the Constitution. But this idea that justice…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But should that be done in this case?
ROMNEY: Pardon?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Should that be done in this case?
ROMNEY: Should this be done in the case — this case to allow states to ban contraception? No. States don’t want to ban contraception. So why would we try and put it in the Constitution?
With regards to gay marriage, I’ve told you, that’s when I would amend the Constitution. Contraception, it’s working just fine, just leave it alone.
He got laughs at that last line, but his whole demeanor was one of someone who thought it was cracked to even bring up the subject. “Why are we talking about birth control?”
I wrote this the morning after the debate:
[Romney] really proved last night that he isn’t in touch with the religious right base with his answer on birth control. He acted like it was insane to assume that anyone anywhere would like to ban it and didn’t seem to understand the connection between Griswold and Roe. And that’s just wrong. There’s a whole bunch of social conservatives for whom this is a priority of the first order and his dismissive attitude has to grate. Many of them believe that the pill is an “abortifacient” and believe it should be banned. Still other believe, as Rick Santorum does, that sex must always be procreative and not just “for pleasure.”
Now, it’s true that the vast majority of Americans don’t agree with this and use birth control without any thoughts to these issues, but Mitt’s still trying to get the votes of the GOP base and I would think that was seen as a slap in the face — a disregard of their very serious beliefs on this issue.
Maybe it won’t matter, but church goers are the foot soldiers in any Republican election. He may have to distance himself from them to appeal to the middle, but it’s odd for him to blatantly insult them in a GOP primary debate. Frankly, from what I saw, it was a genuine lack of understanding about this, not a political calculation. He’s just not tuned into his base. Which explains why they can’t stand him.
Granted, Romney was in New Hampshire, where the GOP base may be less socially conservative, but he behaved as if this question came completely out of left field. Maybe he’s a better actor than I thought, but he seemed genuinely confused as to why it was even being discussed.
I guess it doesn’t really matter. Romney’s fully on the bandwagon now. But I still think it’s yet another insight into the void where his soul should be.
Update: Adele Stan has written a terrific article on this, giving the whole history and highlighting the interesting, but little known, fact that it was the thrice married Gingrich who really ramped this up in the Florida campaign.
*That would be the newly minted Catholic, Newt Gingrich:
One of those women, Anne Manning, became romantically involved with Gingrich during his ’76 campaign. The curly-haired young Englishwoman, then married to another professor at West Georgia, Tim Chowns, was an avid volunteer in Newt’s Carrollton office. “I did have a relationship with him,” she discloses for the first time, “but when it suited him, he would totally blow you off.”
In the spring of 1977, she was in Washington to attend a census-bureaus workshop when Gingrich took her to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. He met her back at her modest hotel room. “We had oral sex,” she says. “He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, “I never slept with her.” Indeed, before Gingrich left that evening, she says, he threatened her: “If you ever tell anybody about this, I’ll say you’re lying.”
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