Introducing the pre-flip-flop:
Another Romney adviser said the governor would spend just enough time on social issues to dispatch Santorum and then move on.
“He’s going to pivot back,” the adviser said. “He’s not going to go far from the core set of Romney issues, which is economic turnaround, recovery, jobs.”
Abortion, the adviser said, “has a special resonance within the Republican primary. We need to run the nominating contest with an eye toward the general election. We’re going to win or lose the general election on the economic subset of issues.”
So, this guy is basically telling general election voters to ignore every crazy thing Mitt Romney is saying now—he's just trying to woo Santorum supporters. He doesn't really believe it. Meanwhile,
different Romney advisers tell social conservatives not to believe what he said when he was on the trail in Massachusetts—that he was just lying to win there.
I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen a campaign use "he's lying" as an argument in their candidate's favor. They must think it's brilliant, and perhaps used in a targeted fashion, it would be. The problem is, when you tell both sides that you're a liar, pretty soon the one thing people believe about what you say is that they can't believe anything that you say.
