Another hypocrite from the right has spun up his presidential campaign. Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP) presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has ridiculed President Barack Obama’s health care law — modeled closely after the one Mitt signed into law as the governor of Massachusetts — as a “misguided” and “egregious” effort to seize more power for Washington.
“Obamacare is bad law, bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families,” Romney declared, vowing to repeal it if he were ever in a position to do so.
That’s pretty bold talk from a political has been who will never be allowed to get any closer to the Republican nomination in 2012 than Hillary Clinton can.
Talking about his own Massachusetts health care law, Romney claimed the solution for the unique problems of one state isn’t the right prescription for the nation as a whole.
“Our experiment wasn’t perfect — some things worked, some didn’t, and some things I’d change,” Romney said.
Oh, so Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts was an experiment? That’s how he ran the state as governor? As a political laboratory trying things out in case he wanted to use them later?
“One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover.” Romney said: “The federal government isn’t the answer for running health care anymore than it’s the answer for running Amtrak or the post office.”
First, since when did Mitt Romney become a states-rights candidate? What’s next he’ll put a confederate flag license plate on his car? Second, what do you mean the federal government isn’t the answer for running the post office? I’ll have you know Mitt that the founding fathers set it up that way, and Benjamin Franklin was the first Post Master General. You wouldn’t be claiming to be smarter than the revered founders would you? I don’t think people in the GOTP cotton much to that kind of talk. Especially from a carpet bagger like yourself.
Romney’s Tea Party states-rights pitch is one GOTP primary voters are likely to hear over the next year as he tries to persuade them to overlook his flaws because – in his mind – he’s the strongest Republican to challenge Obama on the country’s top issue — the economy.
And what if the economy continues to improve? Holy cow, then what will he do? If the economy is his one thing he thinks he can challenge the President on good luck with that. What will Middle America think when he’s exposed as a big business, let’s export American jobs candidate that he is?
The challenge for Romney isn’t just the similarities between his 2006 health care law and the current federal law but that Romney’s universal coverage law has a more sweeping mandate for people to get insurance than exists in Obama’s law — and penalizes the uninsured more severely. Romney’s law requires individuals, with a few exceptions, to obtain health insurance, and those who fail to do so have a $219 tax exemption withheld from them.
The big albatross hanging around Romney’s neck though is all the praise Democrats are heaping on him for his efforts in Massachusetts.
The President praised the efforts in Massachusetts during a meeting with governors at the White House, saying: “I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he’s proud of what he accomplished on health care by giving states the power to determine their own health care solutions. He’s right.”
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama friend, said Romney deserves a lot of credit on health care. “One of the best things he did was to be the co-author of our health care reform, which has been a model for national health care reform,” he said.
Of course the amusing thing with the Democrat praise is that it provides plenty of fodder for his GOTP primary opponents; some of whom are already opening up with pre-emptive campaign salvos.
One presumptive candidate, and someone who understands hypocrisy all too well, Mike Huckabee says in his new book: “If our goal in health care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work.”
Another GOTP likely candidate, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, threw Romney under the bus with a late great liberal icon when he said, “Senator (Edward M.) Kennedy and Governor Romney and then Governor Patrick, if that’s what Massachusetts wants, we’re happy for them. We don’t want that. That’s not good for us.”
Healthcare aside, his candidacy isn’t likely to last any longer than it did in 2008 when it was torpedoed by Huckabee’s disparaging remarks about Romney being a Mormon. The GOTP is so heavily weighted by extreme right wing born again Christians that it isn’t going to back a Mormon anytime soon; and if they were ever to be honest most of them would probably say they’d rather see a “foreign born Muslim” in the White House than one of those Mormons.
The Liberty Tree 