On Challenging RomneyCare

Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal's lead staff editorial discussed the need for Mitt Romney to reconcile various statements and actions of his regarding Massachusetts' RomneyCare, ObamaCare, and what he would do if elected president.

Specifically, the editorial observed,

"Mr. Romney has every right to cling to theories that were flawed in conception and have proven false in practice, though the rest of the GOP field has the responsibility to challenge his canned answers. The mental contortions that his health-care record requires need to be dissected- the way Mr. Obama will do if Mr. Romney is the nominee- to give GOP voters a chance to weigh the political liabilities that his candidacy might pose in 2012.

Or, if he is the nominee and if he is elected, to drive him to reject the Romney-Care model in favor of patient-centered, market-driven health-care reform. Mr. Romney laid out such a plan in Ann Arbor in May, even as he now evinces an unaffordable faith that government must pay to reduce the uninsured rate."

A few lines on, the piece waggishly notes that Romney supports a market-based health-care system "everywhere except Massachusetts."

All joking or sarcasm aside, I'm pleased that a major media outlet has finally, explicitly noted Romney's tortured, conflicted positions on this topic over the past decade and calls for him to make a clarifying explanation of his current beliefs. As well as the reasons why he's changed his mind, if so, or, if not, why not.

But I disagree with the Journal editorial staff that other GOP candidates should be challenging "his canned answers."

Isn't that what the media are for? To hold candidates accountable for their positions- past or, if now different, present?

I'd prefer other GOP candidates to stick to their own campaigns and positions. If they want to highlight their differences with Romney's ideas- if they can figure out what those are- and why theirs are better, fine.

But it seems a breach of Reagan's 11th Commandment for other candidates to just open fire on Mitt. This is precisely the sort of thing about which Brett Baier should be grilling Mitt in his "Center Seat" segment.

If the major media, either in interviews, so-called debates or other formats, can't do this, for what are they any good in this campaign season?

Romney's Glass Jaw

I was somewhat shocked and mystified to read in Friday's Wall Street Journal that Mitt Romney is skipping the Iowa straw poll. Of course his handlers pitched it as skipping all straw polls, but the story recalled Mitt's loss to Mike Hickabee in Iowa in 2007. And his fear that a 2011 loss would possibly derail his current lead among GOP candidates.

To paraphrase the Journal's William McGurn, this isn't what we need in the GOP presidential candidate race. We need a bare-knuckled brawl on principles, ideas and philosophies.

Instead, Mitt is trying to run out the clock before the primary season has even begun. Yes, we all know he hopes to win in friendly, neighboring New Hampshire. But after skipping the South Carolina debate, and now Iowa's straw poll, Mitt's beginning to look like Rudy in 2007- wait until some safe later primaries and hope for the best.

So it was mystifying to me that this weekend's Wall Street Journal column by the increasingly-irrelevant Peggy Noonan extolled Mitt's virtues and his "good week."

Most off the mark, I believe, was Noonan's belief that Romneycare actually makes Mitt invulnerable to Wonderboy's attacks. Is she kidding?

Romney is now a living flip-flop on health care. He pushed for a law he now criticizes. He wants to repeal one version of his plan- Obamacare- while bemoaning his own version.

This is strength?

No, it's more of Mitt's bifurcated, self-justifying solipsistic nonsense.

I don't endorse Romney. I don't think he's the GOP's best hope to attract crucial independent voters. But it doesn't bode well for the GOP race when the alleged front-runner is too afraid of loss to even show up in Iowa this summer.

If Mitt is so afraid of his lower-polling Republican competitors, how's he going to handle going up against a sitting president, no matter how weakened?

Sean Hannity Tosses Softballs to Mitt Romney On Healthcare

I caught Mitt Romney's appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News program last week on the evening of the day he formally announced his presidential candidacy. To say I was disappointed is an understatement.

Hannity behaved shamefully. What he did was toss some softball questions at Romney concerning the former Massachusetts governor's failed health care plan. The plan is eating up increasing percentages of the state's budget. Last I read, it had grown by something like 15 percentage points over prior spending. The state is resorting to a care pricing and rationing board to try to limit cost growth.

Meanwhile, Hannity asked Romney generically about the plan. Romney responded, to paraphrase his key points,

'It wasn't the perfect plan, but it was the best we were going to get. I know what I'd change, if anyone wants to ask me. Obama should have asked me what to do differently before he passed Obamacare.....We included a mandate for coverage because what we had was some people who could afford care coming into emergency rooms to get free treatment and expecting the state to pay for it. We said, 'oh no, you're not going to do that.'......So really the mandate is a conservative tenet to enforce individual responsibility.'

Say what?????

Does anyone really believe that last statement? It's not credible at all. I don't think anyone seriously thinks Massachusetss' health care cost problems were caused by wealthy Boston Brahmins skipping down to the local public hospital to hit the ER for long term care, do you?

But Hannity, having lost Gingrich as his conservative presidential touchstone, is apparently clinging to Mitt now.

Here's what I wish he would have asked Romney:

"Governor, Massachusetts has experienced tremendous cost overruns far beyond your projections when you signed Romneycare. How do you explain that?

The current president is going to use Romneycare against you to blunt any attacks on Obamacare. What can you possibly say to refute his attacks?

Do you really expect conservatives and independents to believe that your signing a health care bill with an individual mandate allows you to stand as a conservative?

Why isn't the true conservative approach to drop a mandate, and simply say, 'no coverage, no care. Period?"

Hannity's shameful allowance of Romney to evade tough questions about his Romneycare doesn't do any good for Romney or the GOP. What better place for Romney to come to grips with the inevitable campaign-killing questions about the failed Massachusetts system than a friendly conservative program on Fox News?

If you ask me, Romney displayed the shallow slickness that cost him the nomination in 2008. Hasn't he learned anything? Hopefully we voters will remember what he learned then and dump Romney this time, too.

The GOP Presidential Field

The Wall Street Journal pulled no punches in its criticism of Mitt Romney in its May 12 lead staff editorial. With a title like Obama's Running Mate, you knew it wouldn't be kind. Romney replied with a letter to the editor a day later, the details of which caused me to wonder if the two were even referring to some of the same data. For example, the Journal claimed that RomneyCare is soaking up 40% of the Massachusetts state budget, while Romney alleged it's less than 5%.

Meanwhile, the aging and progressively less-relevant one-time Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan devoted her weekend Journal column to discussing Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. Then veered off into a largely unrelated tangent concerning presidents or candidates who cheat on their wives now, rather than in the past.

However, with the recent South Carolina GOP candidates debate now recent history, it's probably time for the first of a running series of my personal views on and handicapping of the GOP presidential race.

As of last night, possibly on his Fox News program, Mike Huckabee formally announced he won't seek the nomination. Gingrich, earlier in the week, announced he will.

Thus we have, at this point, the following:

Declared: Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Jon Hunstman

Undeclared: Mitch Daniels, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman

Not Running: Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie

The way I choose to classify these candidates is along these lines:

Who is electable?
Who do I prefer?

Who is electable? This is, for me, the more important question. When Bill Clinton was president, it was hard to claim he was really screwing things up. Gifted with a recovering economy, thanks to George H.W. Bush, Clinton didn't have to do much to get re-elected. Even his affairs weren't enough to sink him.

This time, though, we have a president who has actually messed up every single thing he's touched. I don't count the killing of Bin Laden, because that was a one-off mission that Wonderboy didn't actually "touch," but on which he simply gave the go-ahead. In economics, health care, the budget/deficit and foreign policy, the First Rookie has failed miserably.

Thus, for any sensible conservative, whether Republican or not, the most important task is to nominate a GOP candidate who has the best chance of winning, and isn't Obama, because literally anyone will be better than our incumbent.

That means the Republican who is most appealing to independent voters should be nominated, in order to earn as many of that 40% block of voters as possible.

Karl Rove does a great job analyzing the details of the election. He recently wrote a column in the Journal identifying which states are the key few in the electoral college to win the election. That's certainly one way to analyze 2012.

Another is to consider this. McCain ran a terrible campaign, nearly every black voted for Wonderboy, as did millions of upscale Yuppy whites who felt guilty about the country's segregationist past. Even so, Obama only won by 6 percentage points.

A younger, less grumpy, appealing GOP candidate should be able to sweep Obama out with some ease. Many of the wealthier whites now realize their mistake and won't repeat it. Independents who worry about ObamaCare and the deficit should be easy to pick up, too.

So, if I had omniscience, I'd simply choose the GOP candidate for whom the most independents would vote. Short of that, I'd use the latest Rasmussen poll with those results.

Since I don't have those numbers at hand, and it's still early, here are my personal view of who is electable in the general election.

Electable: Gingrich, Daniels

Unelectable: Ron Paul, Hunstman, Johnson, Cain, Bachman, Santorum, Palin, Romney

Here are my reasons for the latter group's unelectability.

Ron Paul- Too cranky and quirky. Too little executive experience. Good ideas and values, but just out of step on too many fronts. Too libertarian to grab the center of the independents.

Johnson, Santorum- Too little name recognition and too narrow a base of appeal.

Palin- Too shallow, too little time as governor and she left the job. Too quirky and undisciplined to remain trustworthy by independents. Too much of an outsider for most Republicans.

Romney- RomneyCare. And he has nothing new to offer since the last time he lost.

Bachman- Too little experience. Just too shallow on experience at this point in her life to run successfully against a sitting president.

So that leaves Ginrich and Daniels.

When I read the story regarding Daniels' wife in the Wall Street Journal, my first reaction was that he is unelectable. And I sort of think he is, but, if that personal detail can be overcome, he's got the right ideological and experiential credentials. But it's just bizarre that his wife left him and their four daughters in Indiana, divorced him, married someone in California for two years, divorced him, moved back and remarried Daniels. And neither will talk about it.

Very weird.

Gingrich, if he could avoid primaries and debates, would probably win a general election against Wonderboy. The debates would be great, and Newt would eat the president alive because he's smarter and more knowledgeable, plus he held the only Congressional post of national rank and importance- Speaker of the House.

Of course, Newt's fondness for the ethanol lobby, his large ego, and his appalling treatment of two ex-wives, on whom he cheated while married to them, isn't going to inspire confidence and trust in his actual personal values.

My personal preference? Probably Newt Gingrich, followed by Mitch Daniels. Herman Cain, by virtue of his candor and business experience, would be third.

I think Gingrich would actually be a pretty effective president for at least one term. It would be the completion of his House agenda of nearly 20 years ago.

Daniels is also pretty appealing to me. He has so many of the ideal credentials, but that divorce by his wife seems odd. And his offer to table social issues is misguided and may spell an unrealistic view of the genuine federal-level problems which intertwine spending and social programs.

But, in the final analysis, we only need someone who won't be Wonderboy for just four years. After that, other Republicans will emerge, perhaps other problems, too.

With all their warts and weaknesses, either Gingrich or Daniels could likely last for four years while doing a good job on the budget, reforming badly-designed entitlement programs, and repairing foreign policy.

RomneyCare Plunges Ever Deeper Into Trouble In Massachusetts

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal had an article detailing the continuing woes of Massachusetts' RomneyCare.

Now, a new bill is being proposed to require unions to toss their members into the system. And a rationing board is being proposed, while medical insurance costs continue to spiral out of control- even higher than several economists estimate it would have without all the interference.

In short, as the article explains, the entire state's health care sector has become a giant, state-sized Medicare disaster.

So it's chilling to me that Ann Coulter proclaimed Romney the probable and desirable GOP presidential candidate for 2012, if Chris Christie won't run.

Well, I live in New Jersey, so I see and hear Christie more than most. He isn't finished here, doesn't feel he's actually accomplished what he set out to do, and, frankly, isn't ready for the presidency. And says so.

Romney, on the other hand, is no Ronald Reagan. He lost the 2008 nomination race badly. RomneyCare will continue to dog him. And, frankly, despite how glib, intelligent and presidential he can appear, he still scares me to death as the GOP version of Jimmy Carter. A former governor who is, by and large, a technocrat.

Let's hope a Midwestern governor, perhaps Pawlenty or Daniels, chooses to run.

All The GOP Contenders

Last week, on one of the Fox News programs, probably Bill O'Reilly's Factor, there was a partial handicapping of GOP presidential contenders. In this weekend's Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote her own ode to GOP presidential wannabes, citing this holiday weekend as decision time for many of them.

Both feted Mitt Romney as the one Republican who is clearly running- again.

God save us!

Romney is responsible for one of the worst state-run health care schemes in America. He had an outrageously high dollar/vote ratio in the last GOP presidential primary season.

Though visually impressive, Romney comes across as too glib, postured and wonkish when mixing it up with other candidates. I still recall someone asking him about some international incident. His response was that he'd first turn to his counsel for legal clarifications. It was a very safe, consulting-style reaction. And not at all comforting.

Then there's the worrying example earlier this month of ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman going down in very expensive flames out in the California gubernatorial race. This should remind us all, and Romney, again, that vast fortunes and CEO experience doesn't guarantee electoral success. Yes, I know Romney was governor in Massachusetts, but his healthcare mistake, at least for me, overshadows the rest of his tenure there.

In fact, in the same vein that I always found McCain's foolish co-sponsorship of McCain-Feingold to mark him as dangerously Progressive and stupid, I find Romney's backing of RomneyCare to be a similarly important marker for being untrustworthy and lacking in truly conservative principles.

If you want to unseat Wonderboy, I'd put my money on Giuliani, Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty or Mitch Daniels way before I'd ever consider Romney.

MassachusettsCare & Mitt Romney's Presidential Aspirations

Last week, in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Joseph Rago gave a devastating accounting of Mitt Romney's Massachusetts care.

It seems that current governor Deval Patrick, without consulting his own state's insurance commissioner, went ahead and vetoed rate increases necessary to preserve the firms' financial integrity.

Thanks to that move, with which said commissioner disagreed, "the five major state insurers have so far collectively lost $116 million due to the rate cap."

Robert Dynan, the insurance commissioner, was quoted as stating, in a letter to his staff, that,

"This action was taken against my objections and without including me in the conversation....and that "there most likely will be a train wreck (or perhaps several train wrecks)." "

The Journal piece also notes, near its conclusion,

"Meanwhile, Richard Moore, a state senator from Uxbridge and an architect of the 2006 plan, has introduced a new bill that will make physician participation in government health programs a condition of medical licensure. This would essentially convert all Massachusetts doctors into public employees."

Makes you want to rush right out, sell your home, quit your job and move to the Bay State, doesn't it?

So as Patrick attempts to control the price of every scintilla of activity or good in the state's medical system, you have to wonder what the effect of this disaster will be on ol' Mitt's aspirations for 2012.

Personally, I think he's toast. Back in 2008, he was merely stuffy and arch. A bit too polished. But he sounded good.

Now, he has this albatross around his neck. Nevermind what Republicans will think- its the independents that will sink him, should his party be foolish enough to nominate him to run for President.

Nobody with a brain will let Romney go near the White House with this monstrosity in his governing past.

Where's Mitt Romney?

Funny, isn't it, that Mitt Romney is absent from the scene in the biggest Senate race in Massachusetts since Bill Weld challenged John Kerry?

Why do you suppose that is? Romney was a two-term governor of the Bay State, yet Scott Brown hasn't, to my knowledge, invited Mitt onto a podium with him.

Curt Schilling is obviously a welcome endorsement. But not the former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate.

It's got to be due to Brown's salient issue, health care. Romney is responsible for having gullibly signed the current Massachusetts socialized health care bill into law. And what a mess it's become.

You have to believe that Brown doesn't want Romney to come near him this week. If anything, Brown might invite Romney to a rally and send him, instead, to one of Martha Coakley's.

The fact that a heretofore unknown Republican state senator is about to win a Senate seat in Massachusetts does seem to reflect the state's voters' anger with spending, their own health care, and, probably, as Bill Weld said recently, other local issues.

In any case, I find it odd that Romney has been so absent during this surprising campaign. He hasn't even appeared on the usual Fox News programs with Neil Cavuto or Sean Hannity.

Very telling, is it not?

I'd say this whole debacle also signals that you've seen the last of Mitt as a GOP presidential contender- ever.

After New Hampshire

Well, here's my obligatory post-New Hampshire primary post.

For me, the salient moment of the New Hampshire campaign had to be Hillary's "tears on demand" faux-emotional moment in the Q&A session.

I think Glenn Beck's take on that moment was correct- Hillary, if being truly emotional, was bemoaning the 'falling back' of her and Bill's crusade to remake America in their liberal image. Not for the country 'falling back.' That would involve too much genuine caring for the welfare of others, rather than Hillary's more simple brand of blind ambition to rule.

Fox News had a commentator who opined,

"The Clintons don't have an unplanned bone in their collective bodies,"

or words very close to that effect.

Hillary accomplished two things with her faux-crying act. First, she dared people to criticize her for finally appearing to show emotion. This alone bought her nearly hours of free analysis time and endless replays of the clip, shown here on YouTube.



Second, she evidently duped a large number of Granite state voters, allegedly including many single women, into now believing she really does have genuine emotions.

Crazy? Yeah, like the proverbial fox. Imagine Obama Bim Baden outmaneuvered by something as old as a woman's tears.

Well, that's politics for you.

Meanwhile, Edwards and Richardson sank even lower.

Hillary's win, coming as it did after a solid day of erroneous predictions of Obama's anticipated double-digit trampling of the Ice Queen, was all the more attention-getting. If Hillary had been predicted to win, it would have been largely a yawner. As it was, the result seemed that much more remarkable.

Still, as one Sean Hannity pointed out, Hillary winning the state by only a few points margin, seen from a pre-Iowa perspective, is like losing twice in a row.

To his credit, though, Hannity's co-host, Alan Colmes, complained that if Hillary won, critics say it wasn't by enough. If she lost, they pile on her for losing. She can't win either way.

And that's true. That's what generally happens to frontrunners. Romney and Giuliani have experienced that on the Republican side.

I listened to Obama's defeat speech, with the idea that one should get better acquainted with the enemy. Boy, is he scary, too. Like Edwards. He positively oozes this faux-unity theme, when you know, below a shallow surface, he's going to bludgeon the beJezzus out of American business if he ever gets into the Oval Office.

All he really has going for him is two things- he's relatively youthful and energetic, and he's black. As I wrote here,

"The same is true for Obama. He has nothing remotely resembling the experience one would like to see in a President. Again, the Journal article made it seem as if a vote against, or not for, Obama, is a racist vote.

But that's not true. It totally overlooks Obama's nearly-total absence of any legitimate experience which would prepare him to lead this country. He's had only two years in the Senate- which is composed of largely do-nothing legislators. Prior to that, he served in the Illinois state legislature, and was an aide to former Illinois Senator Paul Simon. The guy with the braying voice and funny bow ties.

You wonder if Obama knows how to do anything- anything at all.

As with Hillary, I'm not against Obama because he's black. I don't think he's qualified a qualified person, no conditionality, to be President.

To reject Obama is not to reject minority candidates. Only that minority candidate. Jesse Jackson wasn't elected, either. And not because he is black. He was totally ill prepared to be President- and still is."

Let's be honest- if Obama wasn't black, his campaign wouldn't be happening at all. Back in the spring of last year, very senior Hawaiian Senator Dan Inouye bemoaned the fact that Obama hadn't even made it through one term in the Senate yet. He voiced the opinion that the very junior Illinois Senator had no business even contemplating running for President.

Nobody would seriously entertain any other similarly-inexperienced, two-year Senator running for President. Kennedy had seen combat in WWII and served several terms as a US Representative before running as a sitting Senator. And, as a Senator, he had received a fair amount of public exposure by participating in hearings on organized crime.

Obama is just a very young, naive, fresh-faced windbag in the tradition of Senatorial windbags from Illinois- Simon, Percy, and Durbin, to name a few.

On the Republican side, Romney is now being jumped on by the media as nearly finished. I think the reality is closer to his simply now being in a competitive foot race with McCain for the next month.

With luck, Hickabee will simply run out of gas and money. McCain probably will receive a lot of funding after last night's showing. And Giuliani has his big shot as the primaries come to the larger states.

One comment I found thought-provoking last night on Fox was that New Hampshire is no longer the Republican bellwether it once was. Many of its governmental positions have gone blue since the Reagan and Sunnunu days. It's not the tight-fisted, conservative bastion of old. Thus, the pundit's view was that results out of both Iowa and New Hampshire are more telling for Democrats than for Republicans.

On a final note, I find myself torn over McCain. Lately, he seems to have 'gotten religion' on conservative fiscal policies. And he talks a good game about his character. Plus, he did a good job supporting successful evolution of tactics and strategy in Iraq, which has led to its successful progress during 2007.

As I wrote here last March, though, McCain in many ways reminds me of Bob Dole. And not in a good way. He seems to have an enduring sense of entitlement regarding the Presidency. As with Dole, he's horse-traded his way through the Senate, making him suspect at leading change through that chamber. McCain is, without question, a veteran combat aviator and brave man. He's undergone far more suffering for his country than anyone could ever ask.

That doesn't mean he deserves to lead us as President.

I remain deeply distrustful of McCain for one very large reason. As co-author of McCain-Feingold, the campaign finance 'reform' bill, he has shown himself to be a naive idiot. And willing to gut the First Amendment free speech provisions in the name of incumbent protection.

That anyone would think more 'campaign finance reform legislation' can ever do more than hopelessly complicate an already unworkable situation shows they lack the fundamental brainpower, common sense and perspective to lead this nation as President.

All McCain's bill did was try to rob voters of their right to speak freely about candidates, on their own, and provide new ways for the always-smart campaign managers to outmaneuver the latest legal nonsense that poses as campaign finance 'law.'

This low-water mark of McCain's legislative career, dating from almost a decade ago, troubled me then. And still does.

On to Michigan and the south!

Kudlow's Interview with Mitt Romney

I happened to catch Larry Kudlow's interview with Mitt Romney on CNBC last week. Romney was very impressive.

He identifies Hillary Clinton as the economic numb skull that she is. His actual words were something to this effect,

'Based upon her comments and statements, she doesn't have any idea how our economy works. I do.'

Romney then continued to cite his impressive business experience, plus rescuing the Salt Lake City Olympics, and governing Massachusetts.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with his easy, quick manner and explanation of economic and business concepts. Not that I am unimpressed or disappointed with President Bush. I'm not.

However, knowing Romney's history of co-founding Bain Capital, it's evident this guy really knows the business environment. And how macroeconomic policies on matters such as taxation will affect our nation's economic performance and overall well-being.

Further, I've read about his modified 'universal' healthcare prescription for the nation. It's quite different from what he compromised to install in Massachusetts.

Initially, the state plan had me very worried about Romney's commitment to conservative, free market principles on healthcare. Since his national plan takes into account his ability, as President, to effect changes he could not as a state governor, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

While I have doubts about his inevitable electability, I believe I would prefer Romney to Giuliani, were that the choice I had.