Democratic tracker American Bridge is accusing Mitt Romney of flip flopping on the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” program, posting video of him lavishing praise on the program and then denying any association with it on Thursday.
Some context: Rick Perry went after Romney in the debate over his support for President Obama’s education program, which encourages states to enact reforms as part of a competition for federal aid. Romney denied backing the program, but did go on to say he agreed with plenty of what Education Secretary Arne Duncan is doing, so it wasn’t a complete reversal. Here’s his full response to Perry in the debate:
ROMNEY: I’m not sure exactly what he’s saying. I don’t support any particular program that he’s describing. I think that the president — I think the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is doing a good thing by saying, you know what, we should insist that teachers get evaluated and that schools have the opportunity to see which teachers exceeding and which ones are failing and that teachers that are not successful are removed from the classroom. Those ideas by Secretary Duncan, that is a lot better than what the president did which is cutting off school choice in the Washington, D.C. schools. So let’s give us a full chance to talk about it.
The underlying issue is that the White House’s philosophy of accountability is actually pretty popular with Republican wonks and a lot of the major policy debates going on right now in education aren’t particularly partisan. Duncan even sides with people like Romney on issues like reducing class size, a union favorite that he claims isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But it gives Perry yet another chance to portray Romney and Obama as best buds, which is a key part of his broader strategy, so expect to see this come up plenty of times again.
