How The Right Robbed Romney Of His Running Room

Mitt Romney wants to boast about his signature policy achievement — universal health care in Massachusetts — but the right won’t let him.

It’s no secret that Romney has an uneasy alliance with the conservative base. But the movement’s reaction when he nodded at Romneycare wasn’t an isolated freakout about the one issue they disagree on. It was a warning to Romney that he veers from orthodoxy at his peril.

When it became clear that Romney would be the GOP nominee, the right, suspicious of his moderate past, undertook an effort to rob him of his governing agency. That’s included constraining his options on everything from tax policy to his vice presidential pick. The clamor when he claimed credit for Romneycare exemplifies what happens when he bucks those constraints.

“We are not auditioning for fearless leader,” Grover Norquist told conservatives at the CPAC convention in February. “We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.”

more:http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/mitt-romney-paul-ryan-budget-conservatives-vice-president-health-care.php

Poor Mittens.