{"id":983,"date":"2022-07-22T11:45:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T15:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2021\/?page_id=983"},"modified":"2022-07-22T11:45:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T15:45:33","slug":"gail-collins-i-was-wrong-about-mitt-romney","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2021\/gail-collins-i-was-wrong-about-mitt-romney\/","title":{"rendered":"Gail Collins, “I was wrong about Mitt Romney”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Credit<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Sean Dong<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\"Gail<\/a><\/div>\n
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By\u00a0<\/span>Gail Collins<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Opinion Columnist<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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I\u2019ve been thinking about columns I\u2019ve come to regret over the years. Hmm, lots of potential there. But let me go back to Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n

When Romney was running for president, I tried to see how many times I could find a way to mention that the candidate once\u00a0drove to Canada with a dog named Seamus strapped to the roof of his car<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The result was sort of epic. People wound up counting and I used the story more than 80 times. Which was \u2026 kind of a lot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In my defense, I was supposed to be writing diverting columns about the 2012 presidential race, which featured Romney versus then-incumbent Barack Obama. Romney had gotten national attention as the Massachusetts moderate who pushed through a breakthrough state\u00a0public health care plan<\/a>\u00a0that became a prelude to Obamacare, but he suddenly lost interest in that kind of thing and began\u00a0referring to himself<\/a>\u00a0as \u201ca severely conservative Republican governor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n