Mike Connifey – 6/10/12

This page was last updated on June 11, 2012.

Romney changes stories; Mike Connifey; Beaver County Times; June 10, 2012.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Mitt Romney recently said class size doesn’t matter when it comes to the education of our children. As a former teacher and school board member, I take issue with this.”

[RWC] Mr. Connifey failed to note he’s also a former chairman of the legislative committee for the Blackhawk School District affiliate (BEA) of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a teacher labor union.

“It’s just common sense that the smaller the class size, the more attention a teacher can provide to each of his/her students. What would any parent prefer for his/her child: a class of 30 students or a class of 20 students? This is just one more issue that points to how out of touch Romney is with the American people.”

[RWC] As a former student, I find teacher quality is a better guide. While doing some “spring cleaning” recently, I ran across the roster of my first grade (1958) classroom at St. Titus in Aliquippa. There were in excess of 50 students on that list, and when we graduated eight years later we were slightly ahead of our public-school peers with smaller class sizes.

I don’t know anything about Mr. Connifey, but does anyone care to speculate on his answer to the following question? “What would any parent prefer for his/her child:” a school forced on them or one chosen by them? I hope I’m wrong.

While we’re talking about “out of touch,” President Obama recently told us “the private sector is doing fine.”

“Romney was a liberal when he was governor of Massachusetts. Yet, he refers to himself as a ‘severely conservative governor.’ How can any Republican trust him when he lies like this? Romney was a pro-choice governor of Massachusetts and now claims to be pro-life.”

[RWC] I didn’t know what a “severely conservative Republican governor” was when Mr. Romney said it at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and I still don’t. Mr. Romney isn’t exactly my ideal Republican candidate (He/she probably doesn’t exist.), but he’s certainly no “liberal” and is orders of magnitude better than Mr. Obama.

According to Wikipedia and The Boston Globe, Mr. Romney changed to his pro-life position while still governor of Massachusetts in 2005 and “subsequently vetoed a bill on pro-life grounds that would expand access to emergency contraception in hospitals and pharmacies (the veto was overridden by the legislature).” Did Mr. Connifey lie to us, or did he simply pass along a talking point without verifying it? Anyway, I thought changing positions – as Mr. Obama claimed he did with same-sex “marriage” – was a sign of “evolving” and a good thing. Did that change? <g>

“So which is it, Mitt? Will you change your story again should you become president?”

[RWC] I could be mistaken, but I suspect Mr. Connifey is another lefty telling Republicans how to evaluate their candidate. It won’t be long until we start getting letters from Republican impersonators and other lefties claiming some of their Republican friends “are crossing party lines for the first time to vote for Barack Obama.”