CBS’s Schieffer Pushes Romney to Move ‘Toward the Center,’ Urges Him to Say ‘I’m a Moderate’

For the second week in a row, on Sunday morning CBS’s Bob Schiefer identified Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s problem as not that’s he’s been too timid in laying out an alternative to President Obama but, in the tired media mantra of many election cycles, that he’s too conservative. He pressed guest Newt Gingrich: “Do you think that Mitt Romney’s got to move a little bit more toward the center here as we come toward the election?”

Last Sunday, in discussing Romney’s challenge in connecting with voters, Schieffer wondered: “Does any of this go back to the fact that what if, in the beginning” he “had said, ‘Look, I’m a moderate. You know, I know we have conservatives in this party and I know we have the Tea Party, but the fact is I’m a moderate...’”

On this morning’s Face the Nation, September 30, Gingrich rejected the premise: “No, I think Mitt Romney has to move to clarity in drawing the contrast between the two futures...”

From September 23, to a panel which included Peggy Noonan, who cut him off:

Does any of this go back to the fact that what if, in the beginning, Peggy -- what if Mitt Romney had said, “Look, I'm a moderate. You know, I know we have conservatives in this party and I know we have the Tea Party, but the fact is I’m a moderate. I was a moderate governor. Haley Barbour is not going to get elected Governor of Massachusetts anymore than I would be elected Governor of Mississippi.”

It seems to me that, that somehow Mitt Romney has been pushed beyond a point where I wonder if he really is sometimes, and certainly if you go back and look at his record, you have to-