CT Blue

It is, perhaps, a measure of the extent to which Romney perceived the Democratic convention as a success,that he felt the need to try to pander on health care. He was, wasn’t, was, and then wasn’t again for preserving the ability of people with pre-existing conditions to get health care, until he finally settled to a classic Republican formulation: he is going to preserve insurance for people with a pre-existing condition as long as they already have health care. If you have no health care: tough. As Krugman points out, you can’t meaningfully perserve that one feature while repealing the others (arithmetic again), but when has arithmetic ever meant anything to Republicans, even “wonks” like Ryan.

I found this particular bit of dishonesty on Romney’s part rather puzzling. At this point, it’s highly unlikely that anyone who actually cares about health care will vote for the man, who after all heads a party that has insisted on repeal of the whole kit and caboodle. And make no mistake, if he’s elected, against what looks like big odds at the moment, it would mean the Republicans would control the entire government, as they would certainly take the Senate. At that point, the base will settle for nothing less than complete repeal. So what does Romney gain by even bothering to sound somewhat reasonable on health care? Are there enough gullible independents that might be swayed by this that it is worth antagonizing the base, which despite what the press may say, still doesn’t trust the man?

Josh Marshall thinks that, on this issue, Romney sometimes can’t help himself. He knows he actually did something right in Massachusetts, and he knows that Obama’s health care act (as flawed as many of us think it is) is a dead ringer for his own. So, sometimes, without thinking, he lets the truth slip, and then his minions have to do damage control. There may be some truth in that. It’s probably not easy to have that kind of cognitive dissonance building up inside you, even if you are as pathological a liar as Romney.