Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday mocked GOP candidate Mitt Romney as the "campaigner in confusion," accusing the GOP nominee of changing his positions on foreign policy during the final presidential debate.
"I was stunned by a candidate who came and shifted almost all his positions," Kerry said on CNN's "Starting Point." "The Republican base ought to be outraged today."
President Obama's surrogates on Tuesday hammered Romney, claiming that during Monday night's debate on foreign policy, the Republican challenger mimicked many of Obama’s own foreign-policy positions in an attempt to sway centrist voters.
Kerry said that despite the fact that Romney has harshly criticized Obama on how he's handled countries in turmoil, including Syria and Libya, during the debate the GOP nominee seemed to agree that a prospective Romney administration would handle recent conflicts the same way the president did.
Kerry charged Romney with reversing "every position [he] had two weeks before the election."
"You can't trust a candidate for the [presidency of the] United States if you don't know what he really believes," he said.
But the Romney campaign dismissed those charges on Tuesday.
“There are some things where we do agree,” said Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an interview. “We agree with the decision to go after Osama bin Laden. We agree with the continuation of the Bush drone policy. Those are things where we agree. Where we disagree is in the president’s poor handling of the Iranian situation.”
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) also defended Romney in a separate interview on CNN, saying, “I thought when Gov. Romney [agreed with Obama], it was refreshing to a lot of undecided voters who are tired of the attacks back and forth and the politics.
"Look, when Gov. Romney thought the president was right, he said so," said Portman, a prominent Romney surrogate who also role-played Obama in the GOP candidate’s debate preparation. "He also made it clear, by the way, that although he supported the drone attacks [and] supported going after bin Laden, that that was not sufficient. And that’s when he said we cannot kill our way out of these problems. We need to provide a vision and strategy for the future that deals with the underlying problems here of Islamic extremism and the spread of it.”
Kerry helped Obama prepare for all three presidential debates by playing Romney in debate practice.
On Monday night, following the debate, Kerry tweeted that he required an "exorcism" to get rid of Romney after mimicking the former Massachusetts governor for weeks.
