With Newt Gingrich’s poll numbers heading south, conservatives are once again faced with the possibility that Mitt Romney will be the inevitable Republican nominee. So it’s hardly surprising the issue of the former Massachusetts governor’s vulnerability on health care would be revived. Along those lines, Phillip Klein’s piece in today’s Washington Examiner and a blog post by Red State’s Erick Erickson illustrate the continued resistance to Romney by those who believe he cannot be trusted to either successfully oppose Democratic counter-arguments or even to fulfill pledges to repeal Obamacare.
Count me as being one of those who thought the emergence of Obamacare as the one issue that unified the Republican Party in the last two years would constitute an obstacle to his nomination that couldn’t be overcome. But the failure of conservatives to produce a viable candidate has let Romney off the hook. Many on the right, like Klein, think Romney will betray them on health care. But Erickson’s assertion that it is “insanity” for Republicans to nominate either Romney or Newt Gingrich (whom he rightly considers to have a record that is just as questionable on the issue as Romney’s) is itself a sign of a lack of realism about this issue–or the race–on the part of some on the right.
