The Romney team knows that to win enough delegates for the GOP nomination their man has to convince conservative primary and caucus voters that he’s not the Big Government, tax-spend-and-regulate Republican his past record indicates; he’s the candidate for tax reduction, spending reduction, regulation reduction, and energy production. Unleashing our energy resources is crucial to his promise of "Jobs, jobs, jobs."
However, observers at both conservative and liberal websites are pointing to indicators that, if elected, Romney is likely to flip back to the green side.
Brad Johnson at the left-wing ThinkProgess.org wrote on March 6:
Mitt Romney’s top donor is Environmental Defense Fund board member Julian H. Robertson Jr., who has given $1.3 million to the Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future even though Romney has viciously attacked the climate cap-and-trade policies EDF supports. A spokesperson for the hedge-fund billionaire said that Robertson is confident Romney is lying to the public when he campaigns against climate action as the “Soros agenda,” and will “do the right thing” if elected.
Johnson quotes Robertson’s spokesman as saying: “In terms of the environment and climate-change controls, which [Julian Robertson] does believe is one of the most important issues the country and the world faces, he has confidence that Romney, once he’s in there, will do the right thing.”
Johnson continues:
Robertson has been a long-time supporter of Romney, saying he’s “the smartest guy I’ve ever seen” in 2007. Robertson vigorously supported Obama’s cap-and-trade bill in 2009, because of the “danger of global warming."
Over at Politico.com, Darren Samuelsohn writes (“Green donors bet on Mitt Romney flip-flop”):
Romney and his super PAC have taken millions from funders with strong green streaks — despite the fact that the former Massachusetts governor has run to the right in the primary, proclaiming doubts about global-warming science and trashing President Barack Obama’s greenhouse gas emissions policies.
The Politico article cites the $1.25-million donation to Romney’s PAC, but also names other notable green donors:
Other green-minded financial backers may not be giving as much as Robertson, but they still share the view that climate-change science and a solid environmental agenda wouldn’t be a lost cause if Romney won the White House.
“My feeling is that on these issues that people learn,” said former Gov. Thomas Kean (R-N.J.), who maxed out last fall to Romney with a $2,500 check….
“Rob Sisson, president of the Republicans for Environmental Protection, said he’s scraping together personal funds to write a check to the Romney campaign,” Politico reported.
The Samuelsohn article continues:
Among the other green Romney donors is Texas businessman and philanthropist Trammell S. Crow, founder of Earth Day Dallas and winner of the Republicans for Environmental Protection’s Green Elephant Award in 2007. Crow and his family have given $71,000 this cycle to Republicans, including $15,000 to the Republican National Committee and $5,000 to Romney, according to donation data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
“I am voting for Mitt Romney and I believe in global warming,” Crow said in a statement to POLITICO.
Over at the conservative American Spectator, Peter Ferrara wrote (March 7, “Romney's Developing Sellout on Global Warming”):
But those conservatives and Tea Party patriots overlooking Romney's Romneycare apostasy to still vote for him in the primaries are setting themselves up to be gravely disappointed again on this issue. As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney appointed to state office Obama science czar John Holdren, a wacky far out leftist, and Obama EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy, who is writing and implementing all of the Obama restrictions on power plants.
Among the advisors to the Romney campaign on these issues today is James Connaughton, formerly head of the Bush White House Council of Environmental Quality, and a long time ardent supporter of cap and trade. Another is Jeff Holmstead, Bush EPA Air Chief who promoted global warming hysteria, and an interstate clean air rule providing the precedent for Obama's job and economy destroying Cross State Air Pollution Rule. Still another is Edward Krenick, another former Bush EPA supporter of cap and trade. No wonder highly active global warming skeptic James Taylor says that Romney's people on global warming are as bad as Obama's people.
John Holdren?! The same John Holdren who has been such a lightning rod for the Obama administration for his radical population control advocacy and other extremist enviro-proposals? (See here and here.) Yes, one and the same. What next? Bill Ayers, Van Jones, and Jeremiah Wright as new Romney czars for green energy, green jobs and green theology? Don’t be surprised; stranger things have happened.
There are yet other indicators that Romney could (and very likely would) flip back to the green side, if he should wrest the White House from Obama. Romney’s top economic advisers are R. Glenn Hubbard and Gregory Mankiw. Hubbard supports a carbon cap-and-trade regime favored not only by Al Gore but by Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street insiders that stand to make billions of dollars off such a regime. Mankiw is an ardent Keynesian and defender of Ben Bernanke, the Fed and “quantitative easing”; he also favors a carbon tax. Another top adviser is former Republican Congressman Vin Weber, another cap-and-trade advocate. Hubbard and Weber are both members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which has been one of the most important political power centers promoting the global warming mania and the draconian global political “solutions” that we are told we must accept to avoid dire planetary catastrophes.
As The New American has previously reported (Romney’s Advisors Are Leftist Elites), Romney has brought a very large contingent of globalists from the CFR roster onto his board of advisors, including Michael Hayden, Paula Dobriansky, Christopher Burnham, Eliot Cohen, Kim Holmes, Mitchell Reiss, Dov Zakheim, Kerry Healey, John Lehman, and Robert Kagan.
Conservative Republicans who vote for Romney will have no excuse for claiming betrayal after the inauguration when Mitt reverts to form; they've been amply warned.
Photo: AP Images
Related articles:
Despite Climategate, Romney Still Believes in Manmade Global Warming
