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Mitt Romney — Both Accomplice and Victim?

Fareed Zakaria is half-right when he says: Why won’t Romney, an intelligent man, fluent in economics, explain his economic policy? Because any sensible answer would cause a firestorm in his party. … Romney has tried to run a campaign while not running afoul of his party’s strictures. As a result, he has twisted himself into […]

Fareed Zakaria is half-right when he says:

Why won’t Romney, an intelligent man, fluent in economics, explain his economic policy? Because any sensible answer would cause a firestorm in his party. … Romney has tried to run a campaign while not running afoul of his party’s strictures. As a result, he has twisted himself into a pretzel, avoiding specifics and refusing to provide serious plans for the most important issues of the day. He’s in a straitjacket that even Peggy Noonan’s rhetoric cannot get him out of.

Does Mitt Romney, deep down in places he doesn’t talk about at cocktail parties (or posh fundraising dinners), concede that new revenues will likely be part of any major budget agreement between the two parties? That universal care in a private insurance system is impossible without compulsory participation? That Paul Ryan’s caps on federal spending are a polite fiction?

Maybe.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because, contra Zakaria, you can’t separate Mitt Romney, fluent and intelligent though he may be, from his party’s “strictures.” Mitt Romney launched his national political career on the strength of those strictures. He molded himself to them. He dutifully championed them. He opportunistically whacked rivals like John McCain, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum upside the head for running afoul (to borrow Zakaria’s phrase) of them.

Can Romney be seen as both an accomplice to and victim of ideological intransigence?

I guess that’s a possibility.

But it doesn’t evoke much in the way of sympathy, does it?

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