What We Love: Mitt ‘N Match

As the GOP presidential campaign heats up, with expected frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum duking it out to be on top, the HRC has come up with Mitt ‘N Match, a funny way to get serious about the former Massachusetts governor’s varied opinions on LGBT issues over the years. As he panders to hardcore conservatives during the campaign nowadays, HRC actually digs up a few inconsistencies between what he’s saying today (gays are bad) compared to how he legislated in the past (hey, to each his own).

In fact, Romney has flip flopped so many times on everything from being out in the military to workplace discrimination, that Mitt ‘N Match puts it into perspective by dressing and redressing the man who wants to oust Obama from the White House (magical underpants not included).

In 1994, Romney famously declared, “I’ll be better than Ted [Kennedy] for gay rights,” while trying to unsuccessfully capture Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts. And in a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans of Massachusetts, Romney vowed to sponsor a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), called the open service of gays and lesbians in the military a shared goal, and said preventing discrimination against gays and lesbians must be a “mainstream concern.”

But by 2007, we hardly recognize the guy. “’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ has worked well,” he revealed to ABC News. “Now is not the time for a change in that regard, and I don’t have a policy posture as to allowing gays in the military to serve there openly.”

And ENDA? He changed his mind over workplace discrimination, too. Romney told the National Review: “My experience over the past several years as a governor has convinced me that ENDA would be an overly broad law that would open a litigation floodgate and unfairly penalize employers at the hands of activist judges.”

Romney may not be making quite the incendiary anti-gay statements that Santorum has been using to advance his campaign, but his failure to stand by issues that were once important to his leadership role is just as telling. Laughs (and wardrobe malfunctions) aside, a guy who changes his mind this often – and to such extreme – casts serious doubts on who he may decide to pander to if he would ever actually make it to Pennsylvania Avenue.

In this case, clothing really does make the man. See for yourself by playing Mitt ‘N Match here.