(Washington Times) Mitt Romney won The Washington Times/CPAC Presidential Straw Poll on Saturday, and also nipped Rick Santorum as the top choice of conservatives nationwide, according to a new version of the poll conducted for the first time this year that suggests Mr. Romney retains strong support among self-identified conservatives.

Mr. Romney won 38 percent of the straw poll, which counted the votes of 3,408 activists gathered for the Conservative Political Action Conference, which ran from Thursday through Saturday at a hotel in Washington.

Mr. Santorum was second with 31 percent, Newt Gingrich was third with 15 percent and Rep. Ron Paul was fourth with 12 percent — far below his showing the last two years, when he won with 31 in 2010 and 30 percent in 2011.

One has to give credit to Team Santorum, who was considered to be pretty much out of it just a few months ago, yet came in second at CPAC. Of course, this straw poll doesn’t provide any delegates or votes during the Primary season, though it does suggest where conservatives are leaning. The big losers were Newt and Paul, according to Politico

Though his national campaign headquarters was only a few miles away, Gingrich hardly had a visible presence. Few carried around his signs or wore his stickers, a major oversight for a candidate trying to remain relevant and convince voters that he’s the conservative alternative to Romney.

Either way, the weak straw poll showing was the latest demonstration of the limits of Paul’s support among conservatives.

Paul also declined to speak at CPAC, which probably accounted for their being less Paulbots available to spam the vote. Instead of speaking to the base of the Republican party at one of the most important Conservative gatherings of the year, Paul decided to head to Maine to campaign

In Maine, Romney squeaked out a tight win over Texas Rep. Ron Paul in that state’s Republican presidential caucuses, taking 39% of the vote to Paul’s 36%. He had gone 0-for-3 in Tuesday’s contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, which all went to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

It was a good second place finish for Paul, but, neither Santorum nor Gingrich campaigned in Maine. And Paul showed again what his strategy is, and it doesn’t involve the phrase “winning the nomination”

“Just remember, the revolution is only beginning,” Paul told cheering supporters after the results were announced. “The momentum is going to continue, we’re not going away. We’re going to be in all these places where we’re going to pick up, continue to pick up the delegates, for one good reason — we have the message that America needs at this particular time.”

He has said his strategy is to compete in states like Maine, where he can be competitive, and gather up delegates while bypassing others to save time and money. Ultimately, he says, that will keep him in the race until the Republican National Convention in August.

All Paul is trying to do is be relevant and, more importantly, muck up the process. He has a total of 19 delegates so far. One gets the feeling that Paul is no longer attempting to win, just stamp his brand of crazy on the process.

Santorum is obviously the other big winner. He’s shown that he is not the “flavor of the week”, but a force to be reckoned with. Of course, there aren’t as many players left in the horse race. Rick hasn’t made the big gaffe yet, and seems to be pushing an economic message. The fact that he is a front runner is shown by media outlets going after him, like ABC’s shot about Santorum voting for Sotomayor.

One thing to remember: no candidate is perfect. They all have flaws, because….they’re politicians! Ronald Reagan would have earned the ire of today’s conservatives vis a vis his amnesty for illegal aliens. What it typically comes down to with politics is “which one best represents the values and positions of our party? Which one is most electable?” The object is to make Obama a one term president. He’s done quite enough damage to America. Do you want 4 more years of reducing America’s prestige, economic stagnation, class warfare, implementing ObamaCare and rules that are implemented at the will of the head of HHS (remember, ObamaCare gave that person enormous power to pretty much do whateverthehell they want). Do you want Obama to be around to pick the next few Supreme Court judges? There’s a good chance Ginsberg will retire in the next year or two (liberals are begging her to retire now, so Obama can pick now). Perhaps one or two others. Which would be better? A Republican picking, or Obama picking?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Rick Santorum could be headed for a big day in today’s contests in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Missouri looks like a probable win for Santorum. He’s at 45% there to 32% for Mitt Romney and 19% for Paul. Minnesota provides an opportunity for a win as well. Currently he has a small advantage with 33% to 24% for Romney, 22% for Newt Gingrich, and 20% for Ron Paul. And Santorum should get a second place finish in Colorado, where Romney appears to be the likely winner. The standings there are Romney at 37%, Santorum at 27%, Gingrich at 21%, and Paul at 13%.

Santorum’s personal popularity is the main reason for his sudden reemergence as a relevant player in the GOP race. In all 3 of these states his favorability is over 70%- 74/17 in Minnesota, 72/17 in Missouri, and 71/19 in Colorado. He’s far better liked than his main opponents- Romney’s favorability is 47-60% in those states and Gingrich’s is 47-48%. While Romney and Gingrich have hammered each other in recents weeks Santorum’s been largely left alone and he’s benefiting from that now.

There are three groups Santorum’s winning in all three of these states: Tea Partiers, Evangelicals, and those describing themselves as ‘very conservative.’

He is also coming out of the shadows with more than jabs. He is coming with convincing arguments that can stick:

“Gov. Romney is dead wrong on the issue of the day and he should not be the nominee of the party,” Santorum said in a hotel ballroom across the street from the hospital, adding the issue of health care is “central to our country, central to this race specifically why Gov. Romney is absolutely incapable of making the case against Obamacare successfully.”…
“The problem is, we have a candidate who is running and seen by the media as the prohibitive favorite, who is the worst possible person in the field to put up on this most fundamental issue in this campaign, and that is Gov. Romney,” Santorum said. “The plan he put together in Massachusetts is in fact ‘ObamaCare’ on the state level.”…
Santorum said the two plans have similar levels, using terms like “gold, silver, and bronze,” and in possibly his most aggressive attack he said they both use “government panels to dictate quality and cost containment,” and for the second day in a row brought up the controversial term “death panels.”
The candidate told the crowd the vulnerable could be at risk under the administration’s plan and are at risk under Romney’s plan because the government could “ultimately decide to ration care.”

Several bloggers are now getting behind Santorum and the momentum has arrived for it to be his turn. He should watch out. So far he has been fairly safe from the Romney attack machine the liberal media because they thought he had no chance. That is all about to change soon. I’m not sure he has what it takes or if he is the best choice, but I do think we will see a game changer tonight.

Meanwhile, I think Gingrich is truly and passionately planning to stay in and hopes for a Southern sweep later on. Don’t count him out yet either. Also, Mitt Romney is definitely not a foregone conclusion as the nominee.

(Politico) President Barack Obama — in an act of hypocrisy or necessity, depending on the beholder — has reversed course and is now blessing the efforts of a sputtering super PAC, Priorities USA Action, organized to fight GOP dark-money attacks.

Pure hypocrisy, and, what the hell is “dark-money attacks”? Looks like Glenn Thrush is offering up stealth raaaaacism.

On Monday morning, Obama reviled the “negative” tone of the super PACs, a dominant fundraising source in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. But by the evening, word leaked to POLITICO that Obama had offered his support for Priorities USA Action, which thus far has raised a fraction of what GOP-backed groups have raked in.

Obama’s top campaign staff and even some Cabinet members will appear at super PAC events. The president himself will not address super PAC donors, although there’s nothing to legally prohibit the president, first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden from expressing their support for the group — as GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has done for his own pet super PAC.

But, Mitt has never complained about Super PACs, especially since Team Obama has talked about raising $1 billion for the 2012 election as a stated goal.

Over at the re-coronation website of Mr. 1%, they are officially rationalizing the need for Super PACs for Obama, where

We will not play by two sets of rules

Interesting. Syria plays by a different set of rules. So does North Korea, Al Qaeda, and Iran. Canada has different rules, as does England, France, and Greece. Does this mean we should play by those rules because they do?

The (Citizens United) decision has accelerated a dangerous trend toward a political system increasingly dominated by big-money interests with disproportionate power to spend freely to influence our elections and our government.

Jim Messina writes that this is a “dangerous trend”, so, instead of the POTUS leading and refusing to take their money and help, having railed against them for over a year now, he’s going to capitulate and become part of that “dangerous trend”. The rest is rationalizing the need for Obama to dump his year long whines against Super PACs, because they have “accepted the reality of the law as it currently stands” and it’s “consistent with the law.”

Meanwhile, other Super PACs established for the sole purpose of defeating the President—along with “nonprofits” that also aren’t required to disclose the sources of their funding—have raised more than $50 million. In the aggregate, these groups are expected to spend half a billion dollars, above and beyond what the Republican nominee and party are expected to commit to try to defeat the President.

Well, yeah, that’s the point of an election: defeating the other campaign.

With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.

This from the guy who wants to raise a billion dollars. The guy who disabled the credit card verification system during the 2008 election. The guy who has the backing of super rich guys like George Soros and Peter Lewis. The guy who has the backing of all the unions. Hollywood. The teachers. Lawyers. 90% of the news media. All the people sitting on welfare being taken care of by the Central Government. The companies which he has purchased. Sounds like unilateral disarmament, eh?

This is Barack Obama in a nutshell: no principles.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

One of the things that many Romney supporters are using to explain away their decision to ignore Romney’s many flip flops is Ronald Reagan’s one-time support for abortion and his signing of the Therapeutic Abortion Act as governor of California in 1967. But this comparison is a non sequitur. Reagan’s support of that abortion bill and his subsequent turn against it is less like a flip flop than Romney’s about face on the issue. In fact, a review of the two men’s record on abortion makes Romney look worse for the effort, not at all “just like Reagan.”

The first thing to realize about Reagan’s 1967 signing of the California abortion bill was that the whole national debate on abortion was, if you will, in its infancy. It was then not much of a national issue. The arguments for and against abortion had not crystallized into the well-worn positions we now know so well. After all, Roe v Wade wasn’t to catapult the issue to national prominence until 1973.

When this bill came before him in 1967, Reagan was admittedly unsure of what to do with the thing. He dithered for a long time before finally signing the bill because he simply had never given much thought to the issue. He quickly regretted placing his signature on the bill and firmly decided that hence forth he would be pro-life. He never supported an outright pro-abortion measure again.

Ronald Reagan had only been six months into his governorship when he finally signed the bill and his inexperience in the Governor’s office was something else that he said caused him to act without enough due deliberation. He was also shocked at the unintended consequences of the bill. The provision of “health of the mother” was so liberally interpreted by California doctors that the rate of abortions soared. Reagan Biographer Lou Cannon once noted that even the Democrat sponsor of the bill was surprised at how liberally doctors employed the provision to justify abortions.

This experience finally caused Reagan to choose life and eschew abortion. His final decision on pro-life issues was succinct. “If there is a question as to whether there is life or death, the doubt should be resolved in favor of life,” he said.

So, what can we learn of Reagan’s stance on abortion? While it is true that he once supported a major abortion bill, it was without zeal and was not with a fully thought-out philosophical position on the matter. As it happened, once he took full measure of the issue he stood for life and never much wavered afterwards.

One thing we cannot say about Ronald Reagan is that he campaigned in favor of abortion. The truth is he never claimed full-throated support of abortion and, despite signing the Therapeutic Abortion Act, once he made up his mind about the issue he didn’t fade back and forth. So, it is a bit precious for Romney supporters to act as if Reagan flip flopped on an issue that he had barely even considered before 1967. Few people in the whole country even had abortion issues on their radar back then.

On the other hand, Romney’s record on abortion and his miraculous “growth” on the issue smacks of politics instead of ideology. Some reports even claim that Romney purposefully chose the pro-abortion stance in order to win in Massachusetts.

You see, unlike Reagan, Mitt Romney had for years campaigned forcefully in support of abortion. Both during his 1994 Senate campaign against Teddy Kennedy and as Governor of the State of Massachusetts Romney stood up for abortion.

Far from non-committal, Romney’s position on abortion was strong. In 1994, for instance, a spokesman for the then Senate candidate announced that Mitt’s stance in favor of abortion had grown “firmer” as he studied the issue. Again this is unlike Reagan.

During a senate debate in 1994, Romney said, “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. … I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.”

By 2002 when he was running for Governor of the Bay State, Mitt was still a pro-abortion guy. Romney then said, “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose, and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard. I will not change any provisions of Massachusetts’ pro-choice laws.”

In a gubernatorial debate Mitt said, “I do not take the position of a pro-life candidate.”

Yet only a few years later as he geared up for his first run at the White House, Mitt was suddenly pro-life. He had an epiphany, he claimed. It was the issue of human cloning that caused the shift, he said. “It hit me very hard that we had so cheapened the value of human life in a Roe v. Wade environment that it was important to stand for the dignity of human life.”

Newly christened a pro-life candidate Mitt then sallied forth to vie for the GOP nomination for President — an endeavor in which few pro-abortion candidates are welcome. One can easily assume this epiphany to be a political calculation as opposed to an honest changing of his mind.

Of course it is perfectly logical to assume that someone can legitimately change positions on something after serious reflection. There is nothing inherently hypocritical about changing one’s mind. And we cannot say what is in Mitt Romney’s heart to be sure. But we don’t need to read his heart to understand that his shift on abortion is nothing like Reagan’s.

First and most importantly, Mitt Romney’s entire political life was led in an era when the issue of abortion was a main political battle. Unlike Reagan, Mitt Romney did not come to age politically in a day when abortion was little known. Positions had hardened long before Mitt Romney was in any political position to affect policy on the matter.

Secondly, Mitt campaigned for decades fully in favor of abortion. This is also unlike Reagan who tepidly supported abortion but once and then only before he had given much thought to the issue.

The facts are indisputable. There was no major flip flop on abortion for Ronald Reagan. His record shows a man that, once he fully decided where he stood on the issue, never again wavered. Romney’s record, though, shows a flip flop easily portrayed as a cynical political ploy to get elected, one that came after decades of strongly campaigning for the opposite.

In the final analysis, all we can say is that, at least on the abortion issue, Mitt Romney is nothing like Ronald Reagan.

In an interview with CNN Wednesday morning that should have been a Florida victory lap, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made a fumble that could give rivals an attack ad sound bite.

Asked about his economic plan, Romney said repeatedly that he was not concerned with very poor Americans, but was focused instead on helping the middle class.
Romney explained that he was confident that food stamps, housing vouchers, Medicaid and other assistance would keep the poor afloat — he pledged to fix holes in that safety net “if it needs repair.” He repeated past statements that his main focus is the middle class because those people, in his opinion, have been hardest hit by the recession (President Obama also has focused many of his efforts on the middle class).
But Romney’s awkward phrasing could give fuel to critics who argue that he does not empathize with the poorest Americans.

So, we shouldn’t worry about the poor because we have a welfare state that keeps them on a crutch (or “a float”). I understand that his focus is on the middle class and that he believes these were the people hurt the most by the financial situation in America, but is the underlying philosophy here to just “fix holes” in the “safety net” or should we be trying to fix the entitlement mentality that helped pull us into this debt? This should be red meat for Newt who worked to reform welfare. Some are defending this as being taken out of context, and it very easily could be…but the underlying philosophy to keep the poor “a float” in their dependency on the government sounded pretty clear.

Mark Steyn says it well:

Romney’s is a benevolent patrician’s view of society: The poor are incorrigible, but let’s add a couple more groats to their food stamps and housing vouchers, and they’ll stay quiet. Aside from the fact that that kind of thinking has led the western world to near terminal insolvency, for a candidate whose platitudinous balderdash of a stump speech purports to believe in the most Americanly American America that any American has ever Americanized over, it’s as dismal a vision of permanent trans-generational poverty as any Marxist community organizer with a cozy sinecure on the Acorn board would come up with.

After half-a-century of evidence, what sort of “conservative” offers the poor the Even Greater Society? I don’t know how “electable” Mitt is, but, even if he is, the greater danger, given the emptiness of his campaign to date, is that he’ll be elected with no real mandate for the course correction the Brokest Nation in History urgently needs.

Susan Duclos:

The goal should be getting everyone to the point where they don’t need a “safety net”, where they are working, earning enough to support their families.

If the GOP establishment gets their way, conservatives will have yet another Food Stamp presidential candidate by the name of Mitt Romney.

Jobs for everyone, especially the very poor should be the focus.

If you put this gaffe in context with his other gaffes like “Corporations are people”, “I’m also unemployed”, “Its fine to talk about wealth redistribution in quiet rooms”, and his $10,000.00 bet at one debate it paints a picture of an elite, selfish, out of touch candidate. He needs to call in damage control.

Update: Mitt is trying to backtrack by repeating what he said. It isn’t about context it is about the underlying philosophy. By the way, the safety net is not just there for the poor. It is there for the rich and middle class as well.

He said something similar last month:

I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine. The very poor have a safety net, they’re taken care of. But the people in the middle, the hard-working Americans, are the people who need a break, and that is why I focused my tax cut right there.

Read that carefully and in full context. He wants to focus on those that are hurting the most and he concludes that the middle class is hurting more than the poor by concluding that the middle class is hurting the most. This is kind of absurd if you think about it. Furthermore by not worrying about the poor and rich but instead the middle class whom he calls “the hard-working Americans”, he is implying that the poor are not hardworking?

Michelle Malkin:

The message shouldn’t be “Let Them Eat Food Stamps.”

The message shouldn’t be that he’ll “fix” any holes in the safety net.

It’s supposed to be: Get them off food stamps, provide them with real educational choice, reform the culture of dependency, and get government out of the way so that businesses and entrepreneurs can thrive — and increase economic opportunities for everyone.

Johah Goldberg asks…what is wrong with this guy?

Pundit and Pundette:

“My real point is that a conservative candidate would talk about increasing opportunity for the very poor, about lessening the need for food stamps and housing vouchers by reducing government and invigorating the economy, rather than touting the awesomeness of our massive, dependency-inducing welfare state and suggesting it might need some beefing up.

“But Romney’s no conservative. So this is to be expected. ”

John McCormack of Weekly Standard:

“Romney’s remark isn’t merely tone-deaf, it’s also un-conservative. The standard conservative argument is that a conservative economic agenda will help everyone. For the poor, that means getting as many as possible back on their feet and working rather than languishing as wards of the welfare state.”

Asked later on his plane to elaborate on the remark, Mr. Romney said, “I’ve said throughout the campaign my focus, my concern, my energy is going to be devoted to helping middle-income people, all right?” he said.

“We have a safety net for the poor in the country, and if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that,” he added. “And if there are people that are falling through the cracks, I want to fix that.”

My point exactly, just better said.

Jim Robinson:

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi who’s fighting to repeal ObamaCare appeared on Greta, tonight, defending RomneyCare. She says Romney’s health care plan is not the same as ObamaCare and, in fact, Romney’s plan reduces costs. She goes on to say that Romney wants all states to impose similar laws (including mandates) and that she and is all for it.

She went on to explain that she’s going to be on Romney’s Health Care Advisory Team when he’s president!

What this means is that while Romney may say he wants to repeal ObamaCare, he actually agrees with it. He believes that RomneyCare, ie, ObamaCare is a model health care plan and all states should impose similar plans.

RomneyCare and ObamaCare are the same thing. The only difference is that Romney’s was imposed at the state level where Obama’s was imposed nationally.

RomneyCare = ObamaCare = taxpayer funded abortion = death panels = socialism = government force = fascism = tyranny!!

So Romney and his co-conspirators in the GOP establishment are now planning a National Healthcare Task Force to impose top-down government run national healthcare on all 50 states!!

We all know what Reagan said about government by a group of elites and that socialism would be imposed on America through socialized health care. Well, welcome to the Socialist States Of America if Romney is elected.

If the GOP does this then the hell with them!!

“We’re not going to do repeal. You’re not going to repeal Obamacare… It’s not a total repeal… You will not repeal the act in its entirety, but you will see major changes, particularly if there is a Republican president… You can’t whole-cloth throw it out. But you can substantially change what’s been done.”

Erick Erickson:

If a Republican gets into the White House and does not sweat blood trying to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, I predict the end of the Republican Party legitimately. It won’t be worth fighting for if the party itself does not think it worth fighting for its voters.

Ed Morrissey:

I’d call this bad messaging, and Romney should address it sooner rather than later if he wants to defuse it before Thursday’s debate.

If this is the route Romney wants to take then he might want to say it more quietly because it will go over like a led balloon to the general public whose votes he needs. Erick also notes that his advisors are suggesting Romney support a $2 gas tax, a VAT, and open talks with the Taliban. None of these ideas will be very popular ones. Open talks with the Taliban, however, will probably get the support of Ron Paul and his followers.

And Romney goes the smart route and distances himself from the statement.

Meanwhile, Romney wishes he knew what Nancy Pelosi supposedly has on Newt. Of course.

Apparently, Mitt Romney and his surrogates want you to know that you should not vote your conscience or your principles this primary election. You should vote for Mitt Romney, instead. That is the message from Romney surrogate State Senator Gary Lambert in New Hampshire, anyway.

“This is not about picking your favorite, it’s not about picking someone you like. It’s not about picking someone even with your own beliefs and principles. This is about picking a person that can beat Barack Obama, period,” Lambert said at the Nashua New Hampshire Republican City Committee meeting on Friday.

We shouldn’t be voting for candidates with whom we agree on the issues? We shouldn’t be picking our “favorite”? What about principle? What about important policy issues? Aw, fergit it all. Never mind Romney’s long liberal political record. Never mind his near daily flip flops on the issues. Never mind his disdain for Reagan and the Tea Party movement. Never mind his claim that he’ really a “progressive” politician. Just vote Mitt, you dolts!

So, what exactly do we need all these messy darn elections for in the first place, then? If big chiefs like Lambert have already decided for us who is the guy why do we need to bother voting at all, eh? We have the big thinkers and genius politicos like Lambert to do the thinking for us, after all. We should just sit back and let the elites like Lambert run our lives for us because, heck, we all is jess tooo stoopit ta do it fer r-selves.

New Hampshire State Senator Gary Lambert is the kind of east coast, establishment, Rockefeller Republican that rank and file Republicans hate, and for good reason. He is an arrogant cuss that imagines you should shut up and do what he says. And he says shut up and vote for Mitt.

Lambert, who recently announced he will not be running for reelection, did not help Mitt Romney’s reputation at all here. Romney is desperate to reach rank-and-file voters but this is not helping him do that. Romney has softened his button-down image by appearing frequently without a suit jacket, he’s allowed his usually well coiffed hair to get mussed, and he’s tried to appear more like an every man. But his reputation as the candidate being forced on the GOP by establishment minders has not been erased. Lambert brought it all roaring right back to the fore with his poorly worded attempt to come to Romney’s support.

CNS News got the scoop:

Gary Lambert is the worst example of the sort of arrogant GOP elites. These are the kind of people that the Party would be well advised to keep in the background, far, far away from microphones. Better yet, let’s just not elect these sort of ignoratti to office in the first place.

Romney did it again. On Fox News he linked Romneycare to conservative principles, an outrageous act in the eyes of any conservative. But hold the boat, people, because Romney didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is a conservative policy. And therein lies the weasel words that Romney has used to describe the Massachusetts healthcare plan he was so proud to pass when he was the Governor of the state.

To the video…

Transcript:

I’m happy to stand by the things I believe. I’m not going to change my positions by virtue of being in a presidential campaign. What we did was right for the people of Massachusetts. The plan is still favored there by 3:1 and it is fundamentally a conservative principle because the people take personal responsibility rather than turning to the government for free care.

Now, let’s look at what Romney said here. He didn’t exactly say that Romneycare itself is “fundamentally conservative.” He said the concept that people should take responsibility for their own healthcare is a fundamentally conservative idea.

Such as it is, he’s right. That IS a fundamentally conservative idea.

But as Romney has repeatedly done since he signed that disastrous, socialist, far from conservative piece of legislation, he has weasel worded his description of that law. As he’s done before, in this clip he illicitly linked conservative principles to Romneycare by focusing at a micro level on the single idea that we should take care of our own healthcare and linking that real conservative principle to his actions as if conservative principles are the guiding forces behind Romneycare. The problem with Romney’s characterization of the issue is that his legislation is fundamentally not conservative. It is big government, socialist, authoritarian nonsense. It’s not conservative at all. Romney tries to [sell] us that one tiny conservative idea buried under miles of socialist ideas as misdirection for the ills that Romneycare forces on the people of the Bay State.

Romney also tries an additional rhetorical trick by focusing on Tenth Amendment ideals, saying that his effort in Mass. was a “state only” effort, one that he would not recommend for every state. Romney correctly notes that one of our founding principles is that the states should be free to experiment with policy and implement what voters want free of interference by the federal government — a Tenth Amendment ideal. But what Romney is doing here is slyly trying to cloak his monumentally non-conservative healthcare law in the conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment as if Romneycare is conservative when it isn’t conservative in any way at all.

It would be like using a cop’s position as an officer of the law as cover for his breaking, entering, and stealing from a citizen’s home, like saying it is OK simply because he’s a police man. Just because this mythical cop is an officer of the law does not mean his actions are legitimate. In a like way, just because we have a conservative idea of the Tenth Amendment this does not mean that a Romneycare law implemented under the principle of that Amendment is a conservative idea or even an advisable policy, for that matter.

We should also point out that even as this particular issue is the only item he’s not fully flip flopped on — much to the consternation of conservatives everywhere, Romney has flip flopped on whether or not he thinks Romneycare is as good for the nation as it was for Massachusetts. Not long ago Romney was saying that he felt Romneycare was a model for the nation. Now, all of a sudden, he says he never said that, he says that Romneycare was only good for Massachusetts (even though it clearly isn’t) and that he would not recommend it for the nation.

In any case, the point here is that Romney makes it impossible to logically sustain the idea that Obamacare is bad and should be repealed when there isn’t anything substantively different between Romneycare — which he constantly defends and says is great — and Obamacare. The core issue that Republicans and many independents would rally to vote for Romney over is nullified by his constant defense of Romneycare.

This is the main reason why Romney cannot beat Obama in 2012.