Demos launch attack on Romney

Mitt Romney's chances of becoming John McCain's vice presidential running mate are strong enough that the Democratic National Committee launched a full-scale attack on him Thursday.

It introduced a Web site section to knock him and sponsored a nationwide conference call for reporters to listen as Romney was verbally flogged by politicians from Massachusetts and Michigan — two of the three states that Romney has called home. The other state, of course, is Utah, but no politicians from it joined the attack initially but did later in the day.

"He is the most intellectually inconsistent politician in the history of politics," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said of former Massachusetts Gov. Romney. "I have never seen anyone so completely without any commitment to any particular principle and so willing to say whatever he thinks will help him win the next election."

Frank said Romney positioned himself even to the left of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., on such things as gay rights when they ran against each other in 1994, but then Romney switched positions.

"He went back to Utah with the Olympics and apparently flirted with possibly doing something politically there, so he moved to the right," he said. Frank said Romney moved to the left again when he ran successfully for governor. And then he moved to the right again when he ran for president.

"He's not a flip-flopper on abortion. He's a flip-flop-flip-flop. As a matter of fact, his gyrations on abortion really are of Olympic status," said Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman John E. Walsh.

He added, "I don't think it's possible for anyone, whatever your position on the right to life or the right to choose, to be comfortable with Mitt Romney's positions."

Dave Woodward, a commissioner in Oakland County, Mich., Romney's home county, said Romney made a fortune by "actually helping accelerate the outsourcing of good-paying jobs" abroad. "It scares me to death to think of the type of leadership we're going to have in Washington if this is the option out there."

A few hours after the initial conference call, Utah Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Holland also criticized Romney.

He said in a press release, "Democrats in Michigan and Massachusetts offered perspective on Mitt Romney that is rarely published in Utah. Based on his well-documented policy shifts, failure as a presidential candidate, business track record and brief public service that produced a trail of unemployed workers, it's clear there is another story of Romney."

Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for Romney, said in response to the attacks, "It shouldn't surprise anyone that bitterly divisive Democrats don't have anything good to say about Republicans."

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