A new anti-Mitt Romney website launched last week, with a massive open letter, dozens of signatures, and a slew of charges against the presumed front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2012.
The letter attacks Romney’s conservative record as a businessman, fiscal issues, gay marriage, abortion, and a host of other issues.
“It is my site and I did write the letter,” Steve Baldwin, former California legislator and current President of Baldwin Research and Consulting, told The Daily Caller.
Baldwin said he’s been collecting “files” on Mitt Romney for about a decade, dating back to his days in the California legislature. It was around that time, Baldwin said, that lawmakers began introducing gay-rights bills in the legislature. What tipped Baldwin off, he said, was the fact that gay-rights activists from Massachusetts were going to California to testify.
When Romney ran for president in 2008, Baldwin said he “knew he wasn’t a conservative,” and accused the candidate of “flip-flopping since his alleged conversion” to social conservatism.
“He’s been on every side of every issue,” Baldwin told TheDC. (Rudy to decide on 2012 soon)
The website alleges that Romney increased taxes for businesses and corporations and proposed a myriad of other sales tax proposals while governor. It also accuses Romney of flipping on a “no new taxes” pledge and favoring corporate welfare when he decided to run for president.
On social issues, the site accuses Romney of changing positions on “every foundational issue of importance to conservatives,” from gay marriage to abortion, to gun control, to amnesty for illegal immigrants.
As governor, Romney issued 167 marriage licenses to gay couples, Baldwin said.
Baldwin’s lengthy letter was a response to another letter circulated by noted evangelical leader Mark DeMoss urging Christians to support Romney.
The “Romney Exposed” website, which Baldwin said only touches on about one-tenth of the “research I have on this guy,” only lists 22 signers, including former senate candidate Joe Miller of Alaska. But Baldwin said there are really between 40 and 50.
Baldwin also told TheDC, he’s not working for any other candidate, though he does like Michele Bachman, Herman Cain and Rick Perry. (MICHELE BACHMANN: What ‘constitutional conservatism’ means to me)
“I take [Romney] very seriously,” Baldwin told TheDC, citing his fundraising abilities. “Anyone who writes him off is doing so at their own peril.”
The Romney campaign did not return requests for comment.
