Freedom Line Blog

Just when he thought it was safe to grab hold of the GOP presidential mantle, Mitt Romney gets the worst kind of endorsement – a thumbs-up from Jimmy Carter.

Said Carter: “I’d rather have a Democrat but I would be comfortable — I think Romney has shown in the past, in his previous years as a moderate or progressive… that he was fairly competent as a governor and also running the Olympics as you know. He’s a good solid family man and so forth, he’s gone to the extreme right wing positions on some very important issues in order to get the nomination. What he’ll do in the general election, what he’ll do as president I think is different.”

To be sure, Carter’s statement about being “comfortable” with Romney isn’t as bad as the former Democratic president’s labeling one-time Romney rival Jon Huntsman as an “attractive” candidate and “very attractive to me personally.”

However, Carter’s justification for being comfortable with Romney does reinforce the conventional wisdom that Romney’s conservatism is a veneer whereas his “moderate or progressive” past is the truer indicator of how he’ll govern as president.

To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, maybe we’ll have to elect Mitt to see how he’ll govern.

H/T: Political Wire