Romney flip-flops on Iraq

This is almost like a f***ing Saturday Night Live sketch...

Romney 2008: Vote for him because he panders?

Andrew Sullivan makes an interesting pitch for Romney here, in which he sees the man's transparent willingness to pander to literally anyone as a plus, and that it will make him more able to pivot on Iraq and other things. In the interest of full disclosure, Sullivan loathes Romney and acknowledges that he is an obvious panderer and fraud. Still, this is a notion that should be discussed, and it has a sort of perverse merit to it.

I don't agree, though, with the notion that if Romney wins it will be in spite of Christian evangelicals, rather than because of them. He is hardly running a centrist campaign, and although he might be more inclined to compromising with Democrats than, say, Rudy Giuliani, Democrats are not going to be nearly as inclined to work with him, and thus we have a new incarnation of the Jimmy Carter presidency. This assumes Democrats stay in control of Congress. If not, of course Romney is going to pursue a conservative policy agenda--that's what the Republican base is going to want, and if he doesn't do their bidding, he immediately becomes a target to become the first sitting president defeated for renomination by his own party since...Chester Alan Arthur, I think. In that eventuality, I think Romney begins to look more like a Prime Minister than President, as his support among the conservative rank-and-file will always be tenuous, and conservatives on the Hill will sense an opportunity to reassert their power after years of being muzzled by Bush. Evangelicals aren't just going to forget about Romney's past--for example, they're not going to forget his promise to be more liberal on gay rights than Ted Kennedy in 1994.

Ultimately, the old truism is that the devil you know beats the devil you don't. I have no idea what a Romney administration might be like, but I hope I don't have to find out.

Rudy, McCain cut and run, Marines still never do

I make a conscious effort to quote the Best Congresswoman in America (aside from Babs "I'm going to make cookies that look like phalluses!" Cubin) as much as possible, and this is one of Jean Schmidt's best (worst) lines. As it turns out, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, two men who are trying to out-strong each other in order to get the GOP nomination for President, have elected to skip the all-important (really, not at all important) Iowa Straw Poll. Prior engagements, I'm sure. Hey, those checks from Giuliani to Planned Parenthood don't just write themselves! And goshdarnit, if John McCain wants to watch a weekend marathon of M*A*S*H reruns, then that's what John McCain is going to do, my friends! Now, why anyone would want the GOP nomination when a reanimated Saddam Hussein would probably have comparable approval ratings to Bush is beyond me.

I find this baffling, and in a rational world, it would be a huge story that would get both their asses out of this election right now. These men are campaigning for the presidency, our nation's second-highest office (behind vice-president, of course), because they believe that they will provide strong, resolute leadership that doesn't run from tough fights and tough decisions, like Iraq. Yet, they're willing to skip a minor GOP event because the odds are they aren't going to win. Let me tell you something: if these guys legitimately believed the Iowa Straw Poll to be a silly nonevent, I'd be fine with them skipping out on it. But this is obviously an attempt (and a feeble one on McCain's part) to avoid hitting some negative momentum. A McCain victory in the Straw Poll might have revived his poll numbers, and without Rudy sucking all the air out of the room, he would have been in a much better position to do well there. Oh, well. I guess Mitt Romney, who heretofore will be known as Ozzie Smith (thanks to the latter's acrobatic flip-flopping and Romney's baseball-term name) will win the Straw Poll, every primary and then be elected President of America. God (Moroni?) help us.