“First, by disavowing his health care reform effort Romney would keep himself from taking credit for a major policy accomplishment. In this economic and fiscal climate, maybe running as the candidate with the record of turning around financially troubled entities would be good enough and he won’t need health care. But Romney’s significant role in the Masscare debacle would remain a promising target for his rivals even if he repudiated it. He would simply lose his ability to run as a Republican with bipartisan health care reform credentials while, say, Tim Pawlenty would still be able to run as a blue-state budget-balancer with less liberal baggage.

“Second, and perhaps more importantly, by disavowing his own health care reform law Romney may really turn this issue into a replay of the 2008 abortion controversy: It will reinforce Romney’s image as a flip-flopper and allow his opponents to replay countless clips of Romney defending the law, even touting it as one of his credentials. Romney has probably already dug himself in on this issue and made too many pro-Masscare statements similar to his pro-choice statements on abortion. For better or worse, he owns it now and may sound ridiculous if he tries to campaign against one of his own major policy initiatives.”

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“Mitt Romney: Deemed the ‘frontrunner’ by many, Romney would get destroyed in a general election. Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop. The label destroyed John Kerry, and Romney’s propensity to change his mind makes Kerry’s switches look tame to the point of irrelevance. And did I mention that Obamacare looks like Romneycare on steroids? No chance…

“And yes, a lot can happen. But honestly, how much worse can this actually get for President Obama? The economy has been poor (whether he really has that much control over it is besides the point), unemployment is soaring, there was an attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day, the deficit is beyond absurd, his party is on the ropes and may lose many seats in both houses of Congress in the upcoming midterms….and yet, even with all of these disasters, Barack Obama would absolutely wreck eight out of the nine candidates on the Southern Leadership Conference straw poll ballot.”

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