Maybe Mitt Romney Should Read My Blog...

... or at least the NY Times article I linked to yesterday about the rapidly declining opinion people hold of the Tea Party.  From Reuters:

Romney Says He's In Sync With Tea Party

During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, steel workers asked Mitt Romney why he felt cutting government would stimulate the economy, what he intended to do to protect social security, and if he was a member of the tea party.  His response:

"I don't know that you sign a membership," he said. "What I consider myself is someone who is in sync with the Tea Party."

Mitt Romney is pretty well know for trying to read the political temperature of the room he stands in at that exact moment and shifting all his views to line up with the people around him.  This leads to a lot of comments that seem to backpedal over previous statements, or at least stances that feel completely flaccid.

In this particular case, I don't think the steel workers were hoping for a resounding "Hell yes, I'm a Tea Party member!"  Quite the opposite, in fact, based on their questions.  But Romney, who just got hammered in the Iowa straw poll, understands that despite the fact a lot of people disapprove of the Tea Party, they are enough of a unified contingent to have a king-making role.

So you have two emerging strategies for the top three GOP candidates.  Bachmann and Perry have jumped in hip-deep with the Tea Party king-making block.  Sure they aren't the majority, but their pack-like behavior guarantees someone a possible 20% or so right off the bat.  Then that someone just needs to figure out how to persuade the moderate republicans that either he or she isn't actually batshit crazy, or that he or she is capable of actually beating Obama.  Because no one likes to vote for a loser, even if it means the country as a whole loses.

Romney, on the other hand, seems to be going after the moderate GOP demographic, and maybe hoping that the country, unhappy with the current state of the union, will want to swap one brand of moderate for another.  So there's the vote for a winner appeal.  But this Iowa straw poll business probably has him a little nervous, a nervousness that we saw in the 2008 election with John McCain.

A lot of McCain fans could barely recognize the man that ran for president in 2008.  He caught the jitters so badly that he voted against banning water-boarding despite having been tortured as a POW during Vietnam.  He caught the jitters so badly that he chose Sarah Palin as a running mate, a mistake that still plagues our country to this day much to the joy of satirists and comedians and fans of bus tours everywhere.  Lexington, Concord, and Paul Revere... less amused.

So now we get to watch Romney potentially self-destruct with the same cake-and-eat-it-too game plan, which has given us some of the following gems:

Many Tea Party members don't see themselves as "in sync" with Romney, however. In Massachusetts he helped author the statewide healthcare mandate that was an inspiration for President Barack Obama's 2010 national health reforms

Obamacare and Romneycare, as they are derisively referred too, are disliked by the Tea Party as an example of government overreach. Romney has defended the state law while promising to repeal the federal version, should he be elected.

So first we get Romney standing by his decision but wanting to cave on the national-level, watered-down version of his idea.  Next up, smaller government:

Romney reiterated his view that military spending should be exempt from any attempt to balance the federal budget. Defense spending accounts for about half of discretionary U.S. federal spending.

"I am not in favor of cutting defense," he said. "Some people would like to cut that down dramatically, not me."

You can't exempt one of the most expensive things in our budget and then balance the left overs.  It's like deciding to go vegan but exempting the Craz-E Burger, a bacon-cheeseburger with a Krispy Kreme donut cut in half and slathered with butter for a bun.

Finally, he might as well just copy and paste Perry's speeches:

"Our regulation, our bureaucracy, our tax rates are so much higher than other countries," Romney said. "The right answer for America is to get government smaller."

In the end, I think I actually want Romney to win the GOP ticket because he's the only leading candidate that doesn't make me nervous about Obama losing, which could happen given the shape the country's in at the moment.  But no one likes a sycophant, and no one wants a leader who goes soft every time tough decisions come up.

It's something that holds true for both Romney, and maybe for President Obama as well.  It's okay to actually believe in something... unless you believe in science, climate change, letting boys marry each other, helping out your fellow citizens when they get sick without bankrupting them, or in saving the middle class.

We have no room for those beliefs here.