Mitt “John Kerry” Romney
by: Rob Chapman-Smith ‘10Despite straw poll win, picking Romney could rob Republicans of ammo in 2012
It’s barely four months into 2010 and the Republican field of presidential candidates for the 2012 general election is already taking shape. Straw polls of potential candidates are being conducted at various conferences around the country. The most recent straw poll took place at the Southern Republican Leadership conference in New Orleans on April 10. The winner of the poll is a familiar face, former Massachusetts Governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Mitt made noise in 2008 as a real world self-made business man promising to bring fiscal responsibility back to the White House and Washington. Of all the GOP big wigs jockeying for an early lead in the presidential race, Romney is the only candidate who has an actual chance of winning the general election, with a record that even remotely resembles the principles of fiscal responsibility. But if Republicans nominate Romney in 2012, they will be making the same mistake Democrats made in 2004 with the nomination of John Kerry.
A Democratic victory in the 2004 presidential contest seemed all but guaranteed in the year preceding the election. George Bush led America into an unpopular war on shaky intelligence. The public was clambering for a referendum on the Iraq War. But the Democrats decided to nominate John Kerry, a liberal senator that just so happened to agree with then President Bush about the one issue most American’s hated Bush for: the Iraq War. In nominating Kerry the Democrats gave away the most effective talking point in their armory, a move that arguably cost the Dems the election.
Given the acidic nature of Washington politics, the chance that Barack Obama and the Dems railroad through another massive piece of legislation before (or after) the 2010 mid-term election seems unlikely. While the President is setting an ambitious agenda, he’s facing an increasingly polarized political climate. Obamacare is likely going to be the defining moment of Obama’s four years in office. The Republican strategy for 2010 is shaping around repealing Obamacare. If the repealing strategy is politically successful, then the Republicans will likely want a redux for 2012. Unfortunately for Mitt, Romneycare, Massachusetts’ misguided attempt at health reform, is the intellectual forebearer to Obamacare. Mitt’s predicament could be mitigated substantially if Romney denounced his state’s attempt at healthcare reform. But when pressed by reporters about the closeness of the two plans, Romney has refused to acknowledge the failures of the Massachusetts system; focusing instead on healthcare as a “states rights” issue.
Not only is Mitt making a category mistake by casting healthcare as a states rights issue, but in doing so, Mitt is missing an opportunity to expose the problems with Obamacare. Many of the problems with Obamacare are present in Romneycare, the biggest being the insurance mandate and the removal of preexisting conditions as a tool insurers can use to deny service. If the Republicans nominate Mitt, they will hinder their ability to effectively argue against Obamacare.
Why is the link between Obamacare and Romneycare so bad? Just take a look at Massachusetts’ healthcare system post-passage of Romneycare. Thanks to the individual mandate, Massachusetts is home of the highest health insurance premiums in the nation and the cost of insurance in Massachusetts is likely going to increase. According to an April 7 Boston Globe article, the market for health insurance in Massachusetts has effectively stagnated and entered a state of market chaos. No new health insurance plans are available in Massachusetts because Governor Patrick and the insurance companies are squabbling over rate hikes. In addition to the market chaos, Massachusetts’ healthcare system is a drain on the state’s budget, pushing the budget further into the red when the plan was designed to help push the state into the black. An article on Reason Magazine’s website explains how some Massachusetts citizens abuse the preexisting condition loophole and only buy insurance right before expensive procedures. While the state of Massachusetts requires citizens to have insurance, people can opt-out by paying a penalty. The people who abuse the system run up thousands of dollars in costs while only paying hundreds into the system; the same problem is likely to happen with Obamacare if the IRS fails to effectively enforce the individual mandate. On top of the aforementioned problems, Massachusetts is also in the midst of a doctor shortage as medical practitioners leave the state for friendlier climates. To put it simply, Romneycare has been a disaster.
Yet Romney insists on defending Massachusetts’ healthcare reform as a “state solution” that makes sense for Massachusetts, but not for all of America. Sorry Mitt, Massachusetts’ healthcare reform doesn’t work for Massachusetts and its failure is the Republican’s best weapon in the 2010 and 2012 elections. If the Republicans wish to make Obamacare the key issue in 2012, selecting Mitt Romney (or new Republican darling Scott Brown, who voted for Romneycare as a state senator in Massachusetts) is going to deprive the GOP of the best weapon in their arsenal, the real world failure of Obamacare’s intellectual forefather. Obama’s astronomically high popularity is on a meteoric ascent and may even crash through the upper tier of Bush’s post 2005 Gallup numbers. If Republicans want to take back the White House, then Republicans cannot afford to make the same mistakes Democrats made in 2004 by nominating John Kerry. The country is clambering for a referendum on the recent healthcare bill and Republicans can best help themselves by avoiding entanglement with any Republican that endorsed Massachusetts’ healthcare reform, particularly Mitt Romney.
Related posts:
Loading ...