Mitt Romney and Saul Alinsky

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama look an awful lot a like on paper. Both have passionately fought for abortion rights. Both have sought for more gun control. Both are tax and spenders who grew big government. Both pushed for Romneycare which became Obamacare as executive office holders.

There may also be a radical leftist connection for the both of them. It seems Barack Obama may not be the only student of Saul Alinsky, who wrote Rules for Radicals. It turns out Romney too was a 60s radical that studied Alinksy.

Political commentator Dan Riehl wrote on BigGovernment.com that the “toxic-to-conservatives” Alinsky effect has its roots in the former Massachusetts governor’s father, George Romney.

“The progressive Alinsky is infamous and actually toxic on the right,” Riehl wrote. “George Romney’s endorsement of him, coupled with his acknowledged strong influence on son Mitt, will do little to assure suspicious conservatives concerned about Mitt Romney’s record as a progressive, including his introduction of Romneycare in Massachusetts.”

Political journalist and analyst Andrew Kaczynski wrote in a recent edition of the Buzzfeed that the elder Romney met with Alinsky to find a way to deal with the problem of the urban poor.

“In the wake of the devastating Detroit riots of the summer of 1967, Michigan Gov. George Romney, a liberal Republican, met the radical organizer Saul Alinsky to discuss the grievances of the urban black poor,” he explained.

Political analyst and think-tank researcher Steve Baldwin believes that Mitt Romney was definitely impacted by his father’s association with Alinsky.

“Romney’s dad was a big leader of the RINO (Republican in name only) wing of the Republican Party and hated Goldwater,” Baldwin explained. “George actually walked out of the 1964 GOP convention in protest of Goldwater’s views. He was an admirer of Alinsky.”

Riehl emphasized that the younger Romney deeply admired his father and his father’s beliefs. Riehl also indicated that any switch to conservatism for the younger Romney would be equivalent to a denial of his father.

 “This portrait (of George Romney as a social liberal) would jibe with Mitt Romney’s image as a progressive governor of Massachusetts, while suggesting any serious conversion to conservatism would not only entail a change in viewpoint but a rejection of Mitt’s father, George, someone he has regularly mentioned as a major influence while campaigning,” Riehl wrote.

So the Romney family hated Barry Goldwater, who basically was the seed for the Reagan Revolution in 1980 and the conservative revolution. Isn't that interesting as Mitt travels around America selling himself as a conservative? Perhaps that's why Mitt Romney had no shame in saying he wouldn't follow the work of Ronald Reagan before he decided to run for president. Just like George Romney dissed Barry Goldwater, young Mitt Romney dissed Ronald Reagan. Of course now that Mitt is running for president, he often sings Reagan's praises.



After all, that Romney side of the Republican part which George Romney was part of was never fond of conservatives like Reagan and Goldwater.