As the presidential race progresses, it seems increasingly likely that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. It is disappointing that, out of all the candidates, Romney should prove to be the best choice. It is disappointing because he should not be a “choice” at all.

Rather than asserting his own positions, he has recently chosen to reverse many of his previously held views. The timing of these policy reversals is intriguing, as most of them fall within the timeline of his presidential campaign. At the moment, pandering to Republican voters seems to be Romney’s main goal.

He has changed his views on issues from immigration to LGBT equality. Here are some of the highlights:

He was once in favor of a plan forging a path to citizenship for immigrants, and now he is against one.

He was once against raising the minimum wage, and he now supports it.

He was, in the past, an advocate of gun control, and now he is against it.

He was once in agreement with the science behind global warming, and now he spends time critiquing it.

He went from endorsing stem cell research, to vowing to criminalize it.

He was in favor of universal health care coverage, and is now against it.

He used to stand firmly against the idea of signing no-new-tax pledges, until he signed one himself.

He was in favor of restrictions on campaign spending, and is now against laws that restrict it.

He changed his views on abortion from pro-choice to anti-choice.

He, in the past, praised “Don’t ask, don’t tell” as a step in the right direction of allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, and then later stated that he wouldn’t change the policy.

He once supported same-sex marriage, and is now against it.

He has reversed his positions on virtually every essential campaign issue to take on a more conservative stance. No matter what he claims to think about the issues now, it is impossible to tell what he will do if elected, because it is impossible to tell what his real positions are on anything.

So, who is Mitt Romney?

He is a man who thinks a corporation is a person and should have the same rights as every American citizen.

He is a man who made $21.6 million in 2010 when 46.2 million Americans live below the poverty line, and stated that he is “not concerned with the very poor.”

He is a man who paid 13.9% in taxes, a lower rate than most Americans, who have an income far less than he.

He is the man who earned $374,327 in speaking fees in 2011 and remarked that the income, which would “very nearly catapult most American families into the top 1 percent of the country’s earners,” was “not very much.”

And this man has the audacity to call himself one of the people.

 

Reach Senior Opinion Editor Cara Palmer here or follow her on Twitter.