Romney is ‘center to center left,’ says GOP freshman Rep. West

The freshman Republican doesn’t see the GOP front-runner as a conservative.

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Freshman Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said this week that he sees Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney not as a conservative on the right, but as someone who is “center to center left.”

“Let’s be very honest,” West told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “He did govern a blue state in Massachusetts, so I think that how he presented himself as a New England Republican is probably different from what a person would see as a Republican or definitely a conservative when you come down into the Bible Belt, the Southeast and maybe even the Midwest.”

Still, West left open the possibility that Romney would govern more from the right should he win the GOP nomination and defeat President Obama.

“The guy, he governed a certain way in Massachusetts,” West said. “And I think that everyone believes in redemption. So you can come back and recreate yourself, and how he would govern the United States of America would probably be a lot different.”

Romney won the Iowa GOP caucuses by just eight votes over Rick Santorum, and is expected to easily win the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday.

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