For those right wingers who are beginning to complain about Romney ...

... not being conservative enough, consider these points made by Ronald Brownstein ("His Original Sin"): (emp add)

Of all Romney’s primary-season decisions, the most damaging was his choice to repel the challenges from Perry and Gingrich by attacking them from the right—and using immigration as his cudgel. That process led Romney to embrace a succession of edgy, conservative positions anathema to many Hispanics, including denouncing Texas for providing in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants; praising Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law; and, above all, promising to make life so difficult for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants that they would “self-deport.”
...
a second early decision has greatly compounded that challenge. Through the primaries, Romney embraced an unreservedly conservative social agenda (such as defunding Planned Parenthood and allowing employers to deny contraception coverage in health insurance plans), especially after Santorum emerged as his principal rival.
...
His decision, when the nomination was almost sealed, to embrace a 20 percent cut in marginal tax rates ...
...
Romney also fatefully dismissed criticism from other Republicans about his experience at Bain Capital as an attack on free enterprise rather than develop a more specific response to the allegations about his business record.

A tough stance on immigration, limited concern for womens rights, and extreme capitalism are all part of the right-wing policy mix. It's what Romney is out there selling (although with a lighter touch most recently). The charge that Romney will lose because he wasn't conservative enough is not credible.

It's true that some of Romney's positions emerged as a tactical response to challengers (Perry, Gingrich, Santorum), but that hardly matters. He took those positions and made them his own and the face of his campaign.  Oh yeah, and then there's the selection of Paul Ryan this summer.


posted by Quiddity at 9/29/2012 03:34:00 AM