Mitt Romney's Republican Party is all about using legal process to deny the most basic of political rights--the right to vote--to as many of the "moochers" as possible.
What would George Romney have said about such a party? We don't have to wonder: we know:
George Romney, Letter to Barry Goldwater, December 21, 1964:
You have requested an explanation from me…. First, as to your remark… concerning the possible realignment of the Republican and Democratic parties into "conservative" and "liberal" parties… you have indicated that… this might be "a happy thing". I disagree…. Dogmatic ideological parties tend to splinter the political and social fabric of a nation…. We should exert every effort to broaden and strengthen our Republican party… [as] an essential element of a free country….
In the newspapers I read that when you were questioned about our getting together for… my well-publicized desire for a discussion in depth, you said you had sent me a printed statement of your positions, and if I didn't understand it I could get in touch with you…. [T]he need for such a meeting had become all the more important. You were just about to take a position on the 1964 Civil Rights Act contrary to that of most elected Republicans… there were disturbing indications that your strategists proposed to make an all-out push for the Southern white segregationist vote and to attempt to exploit the so-called "white backlash" in the North….
[M]y efforts to bring about circumstances under which I could support [your] ticket continued…. I placed heavy emphasis on… a sound platform… [my] memorandum submitted to Congressman Laird…. These were not amendments that called for any compromise of your principles…. [A[ platform whose basic emphasis was on state, local, and individual rights and responsibilities but which failed to pledge state, local, and individual action in the civil rights field was clearly vulnerable to charges of inconstancy and, more important, of bowing to the segregationists in the South…. The failure of your representatives to accept these concepts left the party in an exposed and vulnerable position….
[Y]our acceptance speech… approve[d] the platform as adopted and seemed to throw down the gauntlet to those who dared suggest that it could be improved. I reviewed the reasons behind the proposed platform amendments on civil rights and extremism, only to be told by you that you had only read a few sections of the platform and did not know what amendments were being offered. I told you of a leading southern delegate's revelation that a deal had been made on the platform's civil rights language that the Michigan amendments violated.
My testimony specifically urged… that the platform pledge Federal, state, local, and individual action to promote the civil rights of all Americans… the repudiation of extremists who might attach themselves to the party….
[Y]our campaign never effectively deviated from the Southern-rural-whie orientation…. Now, Barry, I do not assert you were aware of tho strategy or the author of it. I frankly can't believe you shaped it. You didn't read the platform… you didn't know what amendments were being offered… you were obviously leaving many vital things almost entirely up to others…. [F]or these philosophical, moral, and strategic reasons, I was never able to endorse you…. [O]ur objectives cannot be realized if foundation principles of American freedom are compromised. The chief cornerstone of our freedom is divinely endowed citizenship for all equally regardless of pigmentation, creed, or race….
As to government centralization, we do share a common apprehension and concern. But then you ask me, "Where were you, George, when the chips were down and the going was hard?" Well, Barry, for a long time I've been right on the firing line…. In Michigan, I entered public life to help modernize Michigan state and local government as an essential step in slowing and reversing the constant flow of responsibility to Washington…. [T]alk about states' rights will not be an adequate substitute for state responsibility….
I am much more concerned with the party's future than its past…. The real challenge for us lies in the expansion of vote support for the Republican party in all parts of the country, urban or rural, North or South, colored or white. Without common dedication to this fundamental, our rehash of 1964 positions may become of interest only to historians of defunct political institutions… ----
