The Romney Flip Flop Is Back!

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Three months after Mitt Romney said Washington experience does not translate into economic wisdom, the former Republican presidential contender was on television Tuesday touting the economic credentials of John McCain in part on the strength of his congressional tenure.

The change comes as Romney tries to boost his former rival’s chances of winning the White House — and after he acknowledged he would be interested in serving on the GOP ticket if McCain asked…

“I can tell you that for a person who’s spent over 25 years in Washington, D.C., working on economic policies from the days of (Ronald) Reagan and throughout the current time, Sen. McCain is very well aware of the spending programs in Washington, which ones need to be cut back, which ones need to be grown. He understands also how to relieve the pressure on the American taxpayer,” Romney told CNN just hours before McCain delivered an economic address in Pittsburgh…

“This is an individual who, well, if you take Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s experience and multiply it by 10, you still haven’t caught up with Sen. McCain when it comes to experience on the economy,” he said.

Yet questioning McCain’s economic credentials was the centerpiece of Romney’s recent Florida primary campaign. It continued through their Feb. 5 Super Tuesday showdown, which McCain won and forced Romney from the race.

For example, on Jan. 25 in Pensacola, Fla., Romney mocked McCain for equating his Senate tenure and committee chairmanship with Romney’s prior work in the private sector as a venture capitalist and outside the Beltway as governor of Massachusetts.

“Now he’s engaging in ‘Washington talk,'” Romney said of McCain, jabbing as the senator’s self-professed “straight-talk” manta. “‘Washington talk’ says that somehow, because you’ve been in Washington, and you’ve been on a committee, that you somehow know about how the jobs of this country have been created.”

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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