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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Political positions of Mitt Romney article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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Stimulus section: Charge?

In 2011, Romney reversed himself and repeated the charge after denying that he had ever said that Obama's actions had made the recession worse.

There is no previous mention of any charge in this section, so this sentence can't be parsed, as written. I suspect the charge referred to has been removed in a previous edit. So I have changed this sentence to simply read as follows.

In 2011, Romney reversed himself and denied that he had ever said that Obama's actions had made the recession worse.

Has it reached the point where "Opposition to President Obama" has become a major political position for Romney? If so, wouldn't it merit a section of its own? AvocadosTheorem (talk) 20:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Along the idea that Mitch McConnell said that the GOP's priority is defeating Obama in 2012. That is definitely a political position don't you think? AvocadosTheorem (talk) 21:09, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

How much GM stock is Obama personally holding?

The current version reads like Obama is personally profiting off an investment he made in GM stock. Hcobb (talk) 01:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

False info

I have read through much of this... And I found this article misleading and bias. I have compared this to Mitt Romney's page and multiple others, and it seems WAY off.
One section, Abortion. It says he hasn't made any pledges and seems to show him as indecisive and pro-choice. All of which is false.
http://mittromneycentral.com/on-the-issues/abortion-stem-cell-research/

It also says he supports Planned Parenthod, even though the previous articles and the following article claims him to want to de-fund them.
http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Romney/Issues.php

The article claims Romney doesn't want to cut spending, but to raise taxes.
http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/09/here-how-i-will-control-federal-spending
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/Governor/Massachusetts/Mitt_Romney/Views/Debt,_Deficit,_Spending,_and_the_Size_of_Government/

This article seems to try and make him seem bad, even using ideas of his that simply don't exist. Please revise this article using his actual views and political positions.
http://mittromneycentral.com/on-the-issues/
http://www.mittromney.com/issues/values
http://www.mittromney.com/
http://www.aboutmittromney.com/abortion.htm

After reviewing citiations for the article, I found the most common ones being The New York Times and The Boston Globe. They are both owned by the New York Times Company, which are famous for being libral and one-sided, especially against Romney.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2009/10/21/liberal-bias-is-killing-the-new-york-times/
http://www.mrc.org/timeswatch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/The_New_York_Times#Political_persuasion_overall where even their Public Editor Daniel Okrent wrote that they had a libral bias

For the most part, a lot of Romney's political views are misrepresented and disagree with what his site and he himself claim his views are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CDFC:D5B0:FD58:D068:89D5:9AF (talk) 05:06, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that he's flip-flopped a lot and is now vague on a lot of stuff. c.f. "I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose." Also, what is this "libral"? Hcobb (talk) 09:13, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

2602:306, this article describes Romney's positions on issues over time. So if he had one position in 1994, another in 2002, another in 2005, and then another in 2007 to now, this article will describe each of them. All positions and statements should be clearly dated, so if you see some that aren't, that is a change that needs to be made. As for bias, pretty much every one of Romney's opponents in the 2008 and 2012 Republican primary contests have criticized him for positions shifts and flip-flopping, so it's not just a figment of the Librul Media Conspiracy's imagination. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Since Mitt has held every position on every issue, this article has grown to unreasonable size. So is it time to split off History of the political positions of Mitt Romney yet? Hcobb (talk) 15:05, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. Best to have his positions side by side. Cwobeel (talk) 14:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. We can't pick and choose which versions to report. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 07:36, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

What's relevant and what's not

Check the title of the article: Political positions of Mitt Romney.

This should tell you what is relevant here are the political positions of Mitt Romney, no? So for example, material like this: "Romney's multiple policy stances on the Afghanistan war have been called "unclear and confusing." which are not the political positions of Mitt Romney, don't belong. Similarly, material like this: "In January 2008, a comprehensive analysis by the National Taxpayers Union found that Romney's presidential campaign proposals would increase the federal budget by $19.5 billion." is off-topic. It's not a political position of Mitt Romney's. It's somebody else's political position.

In response to a recent edit summary... Does this add a POV? No, it subtracts POV. And it adds Mitt Romney's POV. Because that's, you know, the subject of the article. Plus it should make it pretty simple to figure out what goes here and what doesn't. We can avoid a lot of back-and-forth haggling over edits this way. Belchfire (talk) 05:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

In both of your examples, we have well-cited third parties who talk about... Mitt Romney's political positions. We can't give our own opinions, but we can and should include how the NTU and various senators describe his positions. Hiding these views adds POV, since we're censoring his critics. I won't do that. 24.45.42.125 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Were they reporting Romney's positions? Or editorializing? Huge difference. Belchfire (talk) 07:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to the talk page. Thank you for joining us. Unfortunately, the point you bring up has already been refuted. Please read the article cited and you will see that they are reporting Romney's position, specifically its lack of clarity. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 07:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I guess you didn't notice that I started this section. Anywho, the point you just missed is that sourcing isn't the issue here. The point is that you are inserting off-topic material in the article. Belchfire (talk) 08:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't even begin to make sense, much less pass the sniff test. Look at the lede from the cited article:

"Republican candidate Mitt Romney's policy on the future of U.S.-led war in Afghanistan war is unclear and confusing, complicating attempts to either support or criticize it during the campaign, according to leading senators from both parties."

How can you even pretend for a moment that this isn't relevant to his political positions? Who are you kidding?! 24.45.42.125 (talk) 08:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not Mitt Romney's political position. Belchfire (talk) 08:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

See, now you're just lying. It's a direct statement about his political position. The fact that senators from either side of the aisle find themselves unable to pin his position down is extremely relevant. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 08:38, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

So you're saying Mitt Romney's position is that his policy on Afghanistan is unclear and confusing? Try to grok this: that's not Romney's position; that's somebody's opinion about Romney's position.

And by the way, do try to observe WP:CIVILITY. Belchfire (talk) 08:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Give me an argument that's not laughable, and I'll stop laughing. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 08:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Afghanistan, the text does not reflect the source. Graham is OK with listening to the commanders, Kyl basically declined to comment, and Levin, a Dem, doesn't know what it is. The source is not saying that the policy is "confusing", the source is saying the 3 senetors don't know what it is. The addition must be removed per WP:BLP. – Lionel 06:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record, I want to mention that you changed your mind on this after reading the top of the article, which is why you reverted yourself. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 07:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the NTU, I have a huge issue using a report the bulk of which was probably compiled in 2007--5 years ago--and released in 2008...during the last election. – Lionel 07:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree. More recent reports (http://www.ntu.org/ntuf/425study-of-gop-candidates.html) do not support this claim. Clearly, Mitt's flip-flopped since 2008. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 07:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the NTU stuff anymore. Guess it's already gone. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 08:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The general approach of these articles should be just to list the political figure's positions, with the date of each clearly stated. If the political figure said A not B in 2005, B not A in 2008, and A and B in 2011, then the reader will be able to determine that the positions are contradictory over time. Including third-party opinions about the positions is rarely useful. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:44, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree in general, but we have an odd case here in that nobody seems to know what his position is even now. The most we can report is this. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 02:18, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Romney's Afghanistan views, as understood by senators.

There have been a few attempts to remove this section, most recently by Arzel. I'd like to head off an edit war by giving them a chance to explain their reasoning here and seek consensus. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 23:55, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The best way to head off an edit war is to not start one. You're starting a new section when the section just above this one is discussing the very same issue. Be patient and wait for consensus, please. Belchfire (talk) 01:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm giving you a chance to address the issue. Please do so. If you don't, then I guess you have no genuine objections. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 02:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I've made this crystal clear - the article should be confined to opinions attributable to Romney or his campaign. It's in the section above this one. So far, you seem to be the only editor who disagrees or who has trouble grasping that.

Right now the section on Afghanistan is almost entirely unsourced, so clearly it needs work. But obviously, the material that is there most likely came from somewhere, so trying to say "nobody knows his position" is laughable. Belchfire (talk) 02:29, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't explain why you're trying to remove a statement about what his political views are. It's not that the senators agree or disagree with his views, but that they are unable to determine his views in the first place, and that's highly notable. Now, if you can do better than these senators, complete with strong citations, feel free to add to this, but don't remove what's there. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 02:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Why can't we stick with what he's actually said, which is that he is against the timeline and that he agrees with the timeline? Hcobb (talk) 03:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It comes down to clear writing. If you want readers to understand something, you start off with an introductory summary that shows the overall shape. For example, the LGBT section begins, "Prior to Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, he had a varied history regarding LGBT rights in the United States."

As it stands, without the sentence about his Afghanistan views, the reader is not going to get an accurate understanding of Romney's views, which means we will have failed. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 03:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course, while we waste our time talking about this and coming to a consensus, Belch has already edit-warred to get his way. Some things never change. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 04:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Call it what you must, but fixing a section that was mostly without cites and straightening out a bunch of drive-by, single-sentence edits into something that reads coherently isn't quite "edit warring" to my mind. You might also notice that I kept the Foreign Policy Magazine source, but I've used the part of it that actually talks about Romney's position. Belchfire (talk) 04:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I call it what it is. I sat back and let you make the changes because it's the best way to figure out what you actually want, given that you won't talk candidly here. Apparently, you'd like to group Afghanistan under terrorism, which would be a logical error, and you'd also like to remove significant well-cited material on Romney's views about the war in Afghanistan.

Neither of these changes helped the article, so I took the liberty of undoing them. I did keep your neutral copyedits, of course. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

What is in there now is far too wordy and we don't need long quotes. If his positions change over time, just present them in chrono order and it will be clear enough that they may be confusing. Doubtless more research can be done. We can't have any editorializing on all these many issues. By the way, I went to Obama's article and there's hardly anything in there at all, so just to make Misplaced Pages look NPOV we should have sections that cover most of the same issues and none of them of WP:Undue length. CarolMooreDC 03:09, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I actually had it pared to a more coherent statement of Romney's views earlier, but a disruptive editor un-did the improvements. I think the version I had in place prior to reversion was a much more accurate, more neutral and more reasonably sized statement of Romney's position. I'll let most of it sit for now while other editors take a look, but the first line in the current version is off-topic and goes against consensus, so I'm pulling it out now. Belchfire (talk) 03:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I think mine was better because I first researched earlier unsourced quote and it came from his general comments about Bush's wars not specifically Afghanistan. We can leave The Cable in as just telling us what is on his website which is what he said earlier. I'm no Romney fan, but I think the issue is this is all he's gonna say and if the Senators don't know it or want more, it's not our job to print what other people say about him cause that could take 1000 pages. CarolMooreDC 03:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. If we include what everybody has ever "said about" Romney's positions, we (1) wind up with an article that is ridiculously huge and (2) we are straying way off the topic. I can come up with rock-solid, reliable sources that show somebody said Barack Obama is a Marxist, a Muslim, a Kenyan, or a circus clown... but nobody in their right mind is going to either put those things in an article called Political positions of Barack Obama, nor would other editors sit still for it. It's all about pushing a POV, whether the guilty parties admit it or not. Belchfire (talk) 03:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

By the way... you can pretty much rest assured the section will look different than it does now by this time tomorrow or the next day. Belchfire (talk) 03:55, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Trimming too much

There were some recent edits that, as a whole, trimmed too much nuance and endangered NPOV. I didn't want to do a full reversion, but I did wind up restoring paragraphs and even two whole sections. In the future, we need to be more careful about trimming; it's not just the fat that's being lost. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 07:28, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

ViriiK just reverted everything I did, complaining that I should have made these changes sooner. I don't see this as even slightly valid. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 08:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you have a consensus to re-add this information? What part are you objecting to that you believe has been hastily removed? ViriiK (talk) 08:19, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any explanation for why this material was removed or why we should keep it out of the article? Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 08:28, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

They are listed in the history which Belchfire documented every one of those changes. Again are there any changes in particular that you object to? ViriiK (talk) 08:50, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I see; you're avoiding my question and being counterproductive. I'm going to bring in more eyes. Expect a genuine notice on your talk page. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 08:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

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