***UPDATE III***
Romney was asked in an interview whether he supported the Blunt-Rubio amendment (PDF) that, according to the bill purpose, seeks to amend ObamaCare to protect the right of conscience:
PURPOSE: To amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to protect rights of conscience with regard to requirements for coverage of specific items and services.
You can click the link above and read the bill (it’s not that long) but it does pretty much what the purpose indicates.
But what I’m seeing on twitter is people suggesting that questioner mischaracterized the Blunt-Rubio amendment, which he did, and that Romney responded accordingly by suggesting he didn’t support the mischaracterized bill. First, here’s the clip:
The way I hear it is that I don’t think it really matters what the interviewer said. The way Romney answered, “I’m not for the bill”, sounded like he was already familiar with the bill. He answered in almost a flip kinda way as if he just wanted to distance himself from the bill and any discussion that would go down the ‘contraception’ road. If he had not been familiar with the bill, and again I don’t think it would have matter what the interviewer said, I would have expected him to answer with the typical “I haven’t read the bill yet so I can’t say if I support it or not”.
But he didn’t. And based on this interview Romney is against the bill. Truthfully, I think it has less to do with conscience and more to do with positioning, that he’s taken this position based on a calculation as to how the bill will be characterized in the media. He clearly doesn’t want to be sucked into this ‘contraception’ debate the left has created and if he just says that he doesn’t support the bill, he can avoid the needling questions of why he would support a bill “banning contraception”.
But that’s just what I think based on this interview. I’d love for someone to ask him why he doesn’t support it so we can get that on the record because honestly, it’s a good bill and he should be willing to defend it and the right of conscience.
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UPDATE: Romney’s campaign has already issued a statement on this affirming his support for the bill, according Big Journalism. So it appears Romney has already flip-flopped on this issue, all within a day, perhaps even within hours. Wow! He’s getting faster at flip-flopping!
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UPDATE II: Here is Ed Morrissey’s explanation after talking to a Romney aide who was in the room at the time of the interview:
Just spoke to a contact on the Romney campaign, who was present when this exchange occurred. He stressed to me that framing it as a question about “banning” contraception made Romney think that the reporter was referencing something on the state level, not the Blunt amendment in the Senate — which doesn’t have anything to do with banning contraception. When you do as many interviews as these candidates do a day, miscommunications occur. At any rate, Romney has been consistent about scoffing at the idea that anyone seriously wants to ban contraception (recall the way he shut down George Stephanopoulos in the New Hampshire debate), and that his support for the Blunt amendment is not a “flip flop,” as some are alleging on Twitter, but his consistent position all along.
So you can decide what you think at this point. If nothing else, Romney clearly botched this himself and we can look forward to more of this if he wins the nomination.
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UPDATE III: Brit Hume said on twitter what I was saying above and more (and much more succinctly):
@ByronYork I thought Romney skipped past the question, to seize a chance to stick it to Santorum on contraception. Not a considered answer.