Over the course of his campaign for president, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has often been accused of changing his personal opinions based on what's most politically expedient. His position on campaign finance reform is no different.

National Campaigns Director David Donnelly, who tangled with Romney during his efforts to bring Clean Elections to Massachusetts, had the following op-ed published Wednesday in the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa.

What is Romney's real position on campaign finance reform?
By: David Donnelly
Published December 26, 2007

Speaking in Cedar Rapids recently, former U.S. senator and current Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson criticized one of his Republican opponents, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, for supporting public financing of elections. But Thompson’s mistaken. In fact, saying Romney’s a reformer is like saying Iowa is balmy in December.

Here’s the background.

In 2002, when Romney was running for governor in Massachusetts, the state legislature was found by state courts to have violated its own Constitution by refusing to fund a voter-passed law for public financing with spending limits. The overwhelming Democratic legislature, led by an autocratic house speaker, had thwarted the people’s will. Their stonewalling on the measure, called the Clean Elections Law, had dominated state political coverage since its 1998 passage by a 2-1 margin.

Every major party candidate for governor in the Bay State that year, all four Democrats and Republican Romney, campaigned to be on the side of voters on the issue. The Democrats — even the sitting Senate president — ran against the legislature’s record and pledged to do as two previous Republican governors had done: veto any repeal of Clean Elections.

Romney wouldn’t take that pledge.

I know because I asked him.

Instead, he claimed he would defend the voterapproved law by passing his own proposal, one that Thompson recently pointed to as evidence that Romney supports public financing.

I’d say to Thompson today what I said about it back then: hogwash.

Romney’s idea was scoffed at in Massachusetts because he literally suggested that the state tax political donations to incumbents at a rate of 10 percent to establish funding that challengers could tap into in order to run against incumbents. Aside from the clear constitutional issues that this raises, think about the practical and mathematical considerations. Imagine the fundraising calls if Romney had run for re-election in 2006 under his bizarre idea: “Hi, I’m calling from the Romney campaign.

Every $1,000 you and your spouse give today means $900 for us and $100 for our opponent.” Do the math: the proposal would never allow challengers to run on a level playing field.

That’s why Romney’s position on reform is not real public financing.

True full public financing of elections — like those laws working well in Maine, Arizona and elsewhere — expands political speech by allowing people without access to wealth the ability to run on a level playing field.

People running who aren’t wealthy? No wonder Romney opposed that.

Look at Romney’s record.

In 1994, he embraced spending limits and a ban on political action committee donations because his opponent could raise more money and was receiving more money from PACs.

In 2002, Romney said he supported the state Clean Elections Law in Massachusetts but proposed changes that would eviscerate it. Then, in 2003, he signed a repeal of the law the very next year. Now he’s against all reform because that plays well among the big-money donors in the Republican Party.

Iowans are very good at paying attention to these changing details in a candidate’s record. Money is exploding in politics and we, as a nation, ought to do something about it.

A bipartisan bill called the Fair Elections Now Act has been introduced in the U.S.

Senate by Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Arlen Specter, RPa., that would provide full public financing to qualified candidates who agreed to spending limits and to take no private money. It’s a system that works in the states and will work at the federal level.

Iowa voters ought to look at the presidential hopefuls of both parties through the lens of who will fight for and sign that bill.

Romney's position on reform is whatever makes sense for Romney.