Romney certainly has veered from right to center throughout his campaign, even putting a toe now and then on the left. EJ Dionne writes in the Washington Post writes that, thanks to Romney, the tea party movement has lost this campaign, leaving the rest of us with something between a gobsmack and a giggle -- depending on whether Romney actually wins this thing.
If conservatism were winning, does anyone doubt that Romney would be running as a conservative? Yet unlike Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, Romney is offering an echo, not a choice. His strategy at the end is to try to sneak into the White House on a chorus of me-too’s.
The right is going along because its partisans know Romney has no other option. This, too, is an acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition that the grand ideological experiment heralded by the rise of the tea party has gained no traction. It also means that conservatives don’t believe that Romney really believes the moderate mush he’s putting forward now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the conservatives are forgiving Romney because they think he is lying, what should the rest of us think? ...WaPo
The fact is, it looks as though Romney's switching around may win him the prize. The right is caving.
Power over principle -- it's the American way.
It turns out that there was no profound ideological conversion of the country two years ago. We remain the same moderate and practical country we have long been. In 2010, voters were upset about the economy, Democrats were demobilized, and President Obama wasn’t yet ready to fight. All the conservatives have left now is economic unease. So they don’t care what Romney says. They are happy to march under a false flag if that is the price of capturing power. ...WaPo
