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Can Romney Accommodate Ron Paul’s Supporters?

Steve Kornacki discusses Romney’s problems in trying to satisfy Paul supporters: Of course, even if he has the votes to keep Paul from shaping the platform, it might be in Romney’s interest to deal with him anyway, in an effort to make himself more appealing to Paul’s army. But there are limits on what it […]

Steve Kornacki discusses Romney’s problems in trying to satisfy Paul supporters:

Of course, even if he has the votes to keep Paul from shaping the platform, it might be in Romney’s interest to deal with him anyway, in an effort to make himself more appealing to Paul’s army. But there are limits on what it would be wise for Romney to do. The key is that Romney would not give in on any major issue on which Paul’s position is at odds with the party’s base [bold mine-DL].

In this way, Romney would actually be a very strong nominee, because while many key leaders on the right aren’t wild about him, they do care deeply about (for instance) preventing Paul’s Middle East views from becoming party orthodoxy. They’d have Romney’s back in any showdown with Paul — and they’d be bitterly disappointed if Romney gave an inch. So while appeasing Paul on any of the issues that separate him from the GOP mainstream might help Romney win him over for the fall, it would also set back Romney’s efforts to energize the much broader conservative GOP base. Maybe Paul will get a tough anti-Fed plank in the platform, but when it comes to Israel, Iran, foreign policy in general, the drug war and civil liberties any platform fight wouldn’t just be between Paul and Romney — it would be between Paul and the rest of the GOP.

Romney’s predicament is that he is the antithesis of Paul, and on every issue where Paul disagrees with party orthodoxy Romney is on the other side of the argument. While Ron Paul opposes the warfare state, corporatism, and collusion between government and Wall Street, Romney has embraced all of them. Romney is the kind of Republican that Paul’s supporters see as a big part of the problem. There is no way that he can win over most Paul supporters without making some significant concessions on major issues (and perhaps not even then), but there is no reason for Paul supporters to trust Romney to make good on any concessions that he promised. At some point, being completely untrustworthy as a politician comes back to haunt you. Of course, now that Romney has reinvented himself as a party-line hawk, he could not credibly accommodate Paul’s views on these issues. Besides, as Kornacki says, Romney would pay a price by alienating hard-liners in the party, and he would probably face a revolt from within his own campaign.

Then again, perhaps Romney’s legendary flexibility could overcome these obstacles. Thomas Fleming recently proposed a way for Romney to win over Paul’s supporters:

Fiscal restraint is the easy part, but he needs to back off from the GOP’s warmongering rhetoric. Romney can praise Dr. Paul’s single-minded devotion to peace, while reciting the Latin wheeze, “Si vis pacem, bellum para.” He can praise George W. Bush as a patriotic statesman, but hint at criticisms of the bellicose neconservatives who have cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars in what now appear to be less than perfectly successful crusades.

You ask: “Would such a nuanced foreign policy conflict with Gov. Romney’s principles?” You are obviously forgetting that Romney is a politician, and politicians don’t have principles, only positions and sound-bytes designed to win elections.

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