Romney not only GOP contender to shift opinions on issues

An article in today's Boston Globe points out that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the preferred presidential candidate of such Missouri public officials as Governor Matt Blunt, Speaker of the House Rod Jetton and Sen. Gary Nodler, is not the only one who has shifted his position on major issues.

Of course, up to this point, Romney is the only one who has been tagged with the dreaded "flip-flop" label. This assessment was made of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

Giuliani, who led New York City as a tough-talking, socially liberal Republican, has distanced himself from several past positions as he's tried to transform himself into a palatable choice for conservatives in early primary states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

He's abandoned his past calls for strict gun control. He now speaks favorably of a flat tax, an idea he disdained a decade ago. And he's moved to the right on abortion, an issue that once made him an acceptable candidate to abortion rights advocates.

Arizona Senator John McCain was not left out of the article:

As for McCain, who has long prided himself on his straight-talking, take-it-or-leave-it style, he, too, has veered from some of his past positions.

He has changed his mind on President Bush's tax cuts -- he had voted against them and opposed making them permanent; now he says they should be made permanent, and that not doing so would be a tax hike. He now calls himself a supporter of ethanol, the corn-based fuel important to Iowans, despite blasting federal subsidies for it in the past as "highway robbery." And he's taken a slightly tougher line on illegal immigration.