Blog von fugaL

Romney Recap

I’d like to clarify somewhat on my previous post, mostly as a response to my brother’s comment thereon.

I thought long and hard about making that post in the first place. I read comments that said Romney answered the best he could without becoming entrapped. I read comments on disgust with the “fake smile” on his face the whole time. Mainly the comments defending him where the well constructed ones. The ones against were mainly personal attacks. This nearly led me to drop the issue and give Romney the benefit of the doubt.

I thought about it further however, and did some research on the controversy of medical marijuana. Here’s one quote:

Along with California, nine states have passed laws permitting marijuana use by patients with a doctor’s approval: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Arizona also has a similar law, but no formal program in place to administer prescription pot.

So that’s 10 or 11 states that legalize marijuana for medical use, depending on how you count. So really at the base of this controversy is whether the Federal Government will trump the state laws and arrest users in those states (and their doctors).

This controversy is fundamental to the question in the soundbite. He’s essentially asking, “will my state’s law apply or will your law?”

Romney answers that he’s not for the legalization of marijuana, but that doesn’t answer his question. Is Romney going to encourage states to not pass such laws or is he going to trample the state’s laws with federal laws? Now here it gets sticky. As Hans said in his comment, the president would merely execute the laws, not make them, but the fact is a president has an enormous amount of influence over what laws do or do not get passed. In any case, here’s a couple possible answers Romney could have given.

• I will uphold the law, if the law says you will be arrested then that’s what I uphold.
• I believe that marijuana should not be used in any circumstance and I would support any legislation that would make it illegal on the federal level.
• I will stand behind state laws, though I would like to see all states make marijuana illegal.

Any one of those answers fits within his broad “I am against the legalization of marijuana” statement. Read them closely, however, and they have more than subtle differences. So which one does he really mean? That’s what I want Romney to own up to, and that’s what the man in the wheelchair was trying to get at.