bapifar01: Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Sunday, 15 May 2011

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Visual source: Newseum

One key takeaway from the news that Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl is set to retire is that the national Republican Party could end up coming to regret Governor Scott Walker?s overreach in a major way: It could cost Republicans a Senate seat they might otherwise have had a better shot at winning.

Dana Milbank:

The conservative Romney head, which aspires to be the Republican presidential nominee, is trying urgently to separate itself from its conjoined liberal twin ? but the brightest minds in health care have been unable to help him with this logical leap.
And so the Romney twins presented themselves to the University of Michigan medical school on Thursday for a consult. Based on the symptoms, the prognosis is grim.

Romney tries, and fails, to be all things to all people. In 2011. As we used to say growing up in Brooklyn, phony baloney.

Greg Sargent:

The problem for Romney is that conservatives will never view his mandate as a minor transgression, and will continue to see it as proof that Romney at his core never has been, and never will be, one of them. No matter how hard he tries to wrap Romneycare?s mandate in the language of states rights and freedom, conservatives will not forgive this fundamental difference.
My guess is Romney knows this at this point. But since this is his only option, he?s putting himself out there to take a beating on the issue now, in hopes that he can talk it to death and get past it.

?That?s the strategic play here,? one GOP operative tells me. ?He knows he?s going to get killed on health care. He?d rather get killed today than a month before the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary.? It?s his only hope.

Good luck with that, Mitt.

USA Today:

Romney now promises that on his first day as president, he'd set every state free from the requirements of ObamaCare to run their health systems as they please. The first question he got from the audience after his speech Thursday was the right one: What's to prevent states from a "race to the bottom," where they cut their costs by slashing spending on health care? Romney had no good answer beyond a vague assertion that Americans are a "generous people" who would not deny health coverage to their fellow citizens.
He should get out more. The current system denies coverage to tens of millions of Americans who can't afford health insurance or can't get it at any price. For all its faults, ObamaCare would help address that.

Here's another good question: Does the nation really need 50 health care systems? Is a heart attack in Texas that different from one in Maine?

Or, to sum it all up, as they did: "What a disappointment."

And you're the frontrunner, Mitt? Michael Barone doesn't think so.

What?s interesting here is that Mitt Romney?s current strategy, as described by Dan Eggen and T. W. Farnam, looks an awful lot like the McCain strategy of January to July 2007. But Eggen and Farnam don?t point that out. Romney like McCain in 2007 (or like Phil Gramm in 1995 or John Connally in 1979) may be able to raise huge amounts of money but that, as the examples of Gramm and Connally illustrate, doesn?t automatically translate into votes.
Modest proposal: can we all agree to ban the label ?front-runner? from coverage of the race for the 2012 Republican nomination, at least until someone wins enough votes and delegates to demonstrate that he or she really is the front-runner?

Kathleen Parker:

Sitting under the lush palms and blue skies of the richest Americans? favorite resort ? during off-season, when the rich wouldn?t be caught dead here, I hastily add ? I naturally couldn?t wait to watch Mitt Romney?s PowerPoint presentation on health care.
But duty beckoned, and, several pots of coffee later, I can only add my own voice to those who concluded: Poor Mitt Romney ? though for different reasons.

Parker concludes that the earnest and effective Romney just isn't getting a fair shake. He's just so misunderstood by conservatives. And moderates. And progressives. Wonder how that could have happened? After all, Mr. Earnest in his flip-flops is just soooo above tawdry policits.

Peggy Noonan:

Newt Gingrich announced he is in this week. The news hit some in the media with a certain electric jolt, but not Republicans, most of whom assumed he was running and seem not that interested. Mr. Gingrich is a vigorous and compelling explainer of generally conservative positions and beliefs, and he will be interesting in debate. But . . . well, I have yet to meet a Gingrich 2012 supporter.