Mitt's Last Stand

"I have stood in the center of the battlefield on every major social issue."
-Mitt Romney

Today, I heard possibly the best answer to the Romneycare spectre that haunts prospective Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, not only did Romney not utter it, but he had already publicly taken exactly the opposite position. Romney on Romneycare:

According to Romney, the differences between his plan and Obama's are many, but similarities exist as well-and he's not willing to apologize for one of them.

Though he "respects" those who believe he should've taken a different course as governor and realizes that his explanation is "not going to satisfy everyone," he would not reject the individual insurance mandate included in the Massachusetts plan -- the pesky similarity to federal health care reform that serves as fodder for criticism from both sides of the aisle.

"It wouldn't be honest," Romney said. "I, in fact, did what I thought was right for the people of our state."

I'll paraphrase the defense he might have used:

"President Obama had good intentions with the health care bill. I know all about it! I had good intentions, too, when I signed universal health care in Massachusetts, but no one knows better than I do that universal health care did not live up to expectations nor did it reduce costs the way it was planned. Obamacare takes everything that failed in Massachusetts and multiplies the flaws and shortcomings fifty fold."

Instead of admitting he was wrong and demonstrating that he learned from the experience, he's doubling down on good intentions, ignoring the consequences, AND the intensity of the public's dislike for Obamacare or its unwitting author from Massachusetts.

Cross posted at LCR.