What does 'Severely Conservative" Mean? Ask Mitt!

Must admit that we have now heard it all -- Mitt Romney called himself  "severely conservative" as Massachusetts Governor.  If he was "severely conservative" then I have pigs flying by my window as I type.  What a bunch of nonsense out of a Governor who was responsible for the step child of Obamacare known as Romneycare.  This is not conservative not even a little.

Thought this gem from Limbaugh was hilarious:

 Update: Rush Limbaugh: “I have never heard anybody say, ‘I’m severely conservative. No, I’ve never heard anybody SAY it.”

If Romney thought this was going to reassure conservatives that he is a conservative, it was a massive fail.  Almost felt like he was making fun of conservatives.  His record and the way he ran for Massachusetts Governor speaks otherwise.  A conservative is not going to elected the Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 -- not going to happen no matter what Romney spins as he ran to the left of the Democrat.  That right there tells you he will take whatever position he needs to take to pander for votes.

Most conservative sites are not impressed with the latest words from the faux conservative.  If you have to keep reminding us that you are a conservative and now a 'severely conservative' then chances are you are not anything close.  Don't his supporters like Coulter get tired of turning into pretzels defending Romney?  If Romney is an example of a conservative, then I must be so far right I am going to fall the edge of the earth.

If it was cool to be moderate or liberal in the GOP, then Romney would be moderate or liberal in his speeches -- he is whatever is needed to get votes and now more and more conservatives are waking up thanks to the Internet that he is not a conservative and never was.  

A Severe Conservative Speaks at CPAC
No, I'm not talking about the John Birch Society.
Posted by Erick Erickson (Diary)
Friday, February 10th at 3:16PM EST

Mitt Romney got a warm reception at CPAC, standing ovations . . . the works. He did nothing to calm fears that he is not one of us. In fact, he might have made it worse today. 

He ad-libbed one particular portion of his speech that just may give away the game for him with the CPAC crowd. He threw in this line:

“I fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but I was a severely conservative Republican governor.” 

What the heck is a severe conservative? The man who likes to fire people should probably fire Miriam-Webster, in addition to whoever came up with his strategy for Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. 

A severe conservative? It sounds more like a critique of conservatives from the left than that of a conservative himself. In fact, if you want to read only one thing on Mitt Romney’s views of conservatives, I actually think Chris Orr of The New Republic captures the situation best. 

Orr writes on Quentin Tarantion’s view of Superman as discussed in the movie Kill Bill 2.

Superman was born Superman. It’s Clark Kent that is the invented alias, the pose, the “costume.” And in the way Superman plays Kent–weak, self-doubting, cowardly–we see his critique of the human race. 

It occurred to me that the same is true of Romney’s desperate, if never terribly persuasive, impersonation of a conservative Republican. That persona–angry, simple-minded, xenophobic, jingoistic–is exactly what Romney (who is himself cultured, content, and cosmopolitan) imagines the average GOP voter to be. 

I think that is perhaps one of the most accurate reads on Romney today and why so many of us think he is not what he claims to be. 

Just randomly, on the actual issue of Superman, Jim Pethokoukis is correct that Quentin Tarantino got Superman wrong. I think what he means is that Mitt Romney is actually Bruce Wayne, a shallow playboy super rich businessman. (Kidding)