Obamacare becomes a non-issue in November if he is the nominee. With Newt, we have someone who fought against and defeated a socialist health care proponent while balancing the budget with $1.13/gal gas prices across the country.

ROMNEY MUST GO…this is imperative…and this leak should be the final straw.

Also, the indifidual mandate and Obamacare won’t be an election issue as it is highly likely that the Supreme court will rule it unconstitutional in June.

There is not a word about bringing the individual mandate to the federal level. He is talking about Mas. plan.

I guess this op-ed wasn’t published.

It speaks very badly that he’s willing to lie in the primary is a way that can be brought back not only to bite him and the party in the general election if he were the nominee (God forbid) but on an issue that would be extraordinarily damaging.

It also calls into question what Romney was thinking at the time. He would’ve been advocating the individual mandate not 20 years ago when most other conservatives were also but for Obamacare — a piece of legistlation that his own party was overwhelmingly, passionately against.

He gave massive cover to Obama, stabbed his own party in the back then lied about it — and would (by his lies) sabotage us in the General Election.

Repulsive.

Then RS wouldn’t be the only one covering it. It looks like to me that someone fed this to EE and he missed that this was already covered in the first and second debate.

Time for a real March surprise

Paging all conservative voters in Virginia (Newt / Rick x 2 / Herman / Michele ……..

Now hear this……

Vote Ron Paul on Tuesday!!!!…..

Time to send the GOP establishment a real surprise…..we don’t want Obama-Lite Mitt Romney !!!

“Rally ’round the Virginians….There stands Jackson like a stone wall”

Read the entire op-ed. There is nothing close to an offering of a national mandate. This article was on Romney’s own site. Also, Perry brought it up in the second debate. Even Romney has discussed it on the trail. Some October surprise.

http://mittromneycentral.com/op-eds/2009-op-eds/mr-president-whats-the-rush/

At lot of you dillusional Gingrich people (the ones on this site that actually think he has a chance despite polling 4th in MI and 3rd in WA and winning 1 state) along with the Santroum people don’t seem to understand that while 60% of the American people supposedly “agree with us on” this electorate is fickle. They may agree with us now, but will they in November on this issue?

Its always going to be about the economy and jobs come November. The best we can hope for is 1. the SC throws out this bill in its entirely in June then it takes it off the table for all you anti Romney people like EE, or they throw out the 2nd case which is just the contraception part argued by 7 Attorney General’s (so far).

Also, I am hoping for $7 gas not now when its too early and not close enough for the election, but I want $7 gas by November. We need an angry electorate and I can’t think of a better issue than gasoline which affects everyone every day personally in their pocket books. Since I don’t want my fellow Americans to be hurt for far too long, it would be best if this spiked around October 10th that way it doesn’t peak too early and have time to go back down in order to re-elect The Chosen One.

Back to the point of the thread, how many times does Romney have to say on his first day as President, he’ll issue an exective order getting rid of ObamaCare? But then again, you probably don’t believe that either, right? He’s also explained over and over the HC was right for MA, but its not for the nation. This is nothing but a bitter gotcha thread by an editor that is going to have a cold dose of reality when Romney is the nominee, but I thank EE for getting this issue out in the open so Democrats can’t but this really was a dirty attempt to smear Romney’s momentum prior to Super Tuesday. I hope it won’t work and by all accounts, judging by the post-MI forums on CNN and FoxNews, in addition to the new Marist OH polls with Romney closing the gap to within the MOE, and the WA caucus win, Romney has all the momentum and this thread came out too late.

I’ll still vote for Romney no matter how much EE, RS or others try to smear him because Romney is the one candidate consistently who can beat Obama in a head to head. Must be nice to have a blog where you can try and sway people’s opinions but then makes me laugh when despite all this Romney continues to win. Must burn RS up inside for all the wasted efforts. I think a little of James Carville, Donna Brazille, and Paul Begala are rubbing off on the once relaible EE but thats just my observations from his boring panel discussions.

Romney may be Obama-Lite but I believe that he loves America. Even the Democrats realize that Obama is a Commie and he’s not raising NEARLY the money he thought he would raise because even his own party realizes what a huge mistake his election was. Hillary was ready. Obama is not–still.
I started a doomsday strategy in 2008 as a backup plan. I’d suggest everyone take whatever steps are needed to ride out a second Obama term just in case. Romney isn’t my first choice–he’s not not even my third choice. Bush wasn’t that hot of a POTUS either, but I never doubted his patriotism but the blatant corruption that is Obama and Co. is frightening. Protect your assets hide your money and stock up on non-perishables and ammo. It will be a long 4 years if we don’t support the Republican nominee NO MATTER WHO IT IS. It’s survival time for America and Americans and I do not believe America will exist as we know it if Obama gets a second term. Grow up people and get rid of Obama–we’ll have plenty of time to find a GOOD candidate for 2016 to primary Romney with, but OBAMA MUST NOT–MUST NOT BE ELECTED TO A SECOND TERM. That’s the bottom line folks. A ham sandwich is a better choice than Obama and Romney is at least good enough to stop the hemorrhage while we look for a real conservative for 2016. We are playing into the hands of Obama’s people as they pump and dump candidates to keep us from uniting behind one candidate to ensure Obama’s defeat November 6, 2012. Nothing else matter except that OBAMA MUST NOT BE RE-ELECTED!!!

There is no real conservative in this race. But, they are all good candidates. Newt’s record of bipartisanship reveals that cooperation is essential to get things done. Rich Santorum understands that he doesn’t hold others to his beliefs while seeing the common ground. Romney has shown leadership where ever he has gone. He was the conservative alternative to McCain. You conservatives talk a good game. You really don’t have any risk takers that aren’t nuts.

published opinion piece considered a leak? I don’t know what is more desparate, calling it a leak or calling the article some kind of plea for Obama to pass healthcare reform with an individual mandate. Erik does not link directly to the article but.rather to another article that says what he is saying. Okay, Ill play this crazy game: BREAKING: RedState releases article from Mitt Romney Central that was written by Romney during the healthcare debate that is critical of Obama for not working with republicans. Romney counters Obama arguments that tend to portray Republicans as wanting to see people without access to affordable health care by propping up Romneycare, a state level health care reform bill that covers all citizens of the state.
Look, if this was really “Breaking” news, Erik would have provided a direct link or at least a direct quote that backs up his crazy and destructive anti-Romney movement. It seems as if everyone who is posting comments just read this headline and stopped. Glenn Beck always said to do your own research and he never told you where to look, as Erik is trying to do here. Romney will do good tomorrow but certainly not enough to satisfy the few that think Romney is Obama-lite. Maybe on Wednesday RedState will break a story that Romney published a Times op-ed about how he came to change his stance on abortion while in office. Then Erik broke the news that Romney admits to flipfopping while everyone who posts neglects to mention Reagan did the same thing….but but but its different, Reagan was…well he was Reagan. And Mitt Romney will be president because he is not pretending to be Reagan or anyone else. He has flaws like every candidate, and off the wall stories like this one is just confirmation that those opposed to Romney are getting more desparate by the day.

After 3 years of BHO, the rise of the tea party, and the only significant piece of legislation by BHO is wildly unpopular…..it has come down to a likely GOP nominee that can’t even argue against Obamacare. I have said for a while they I would eventually support him as the nominee though I have no excitment to work for his election — I’m beginning to wonder whether I will even vote for him. I live in a terribly slanted Dem State so it is a token vote anyway.

Even if it were a tax, that doesn’t make Ocare any more constitutional.

The 16th Amendment is just a mechanism for raising revenue to fund the duties of the federal government enumerated in Article 1, section 8.

It isn’t carte blanche to do whatever the heck they want.

I know you aren’t just finding this out.

There are strict requirements for the job. SMOD can’t win.

His campaign staff said he would not repeal Obamacare. Just eliminate a few parts. Why anyone would believe him about anything I don’t know.

one wonders what he thinks is good about it?

They didn’t want any SERIOUS challenges to their hand-picked boy.

They didn’t want any SERIOUS challenges to their hand-picked boy.

Sigh…if only…

At least the GOP is doing the exact opposite to their candidate that the Democrats did to their candidate in 2008. We all heard about how the world was going to heal, how the oceans would recede, and how pronouncing Pakistan as “Pawk-EE-stawn” would heal Muslim outrage toward the U.S. We expected a miracle worker and no less.

The GOP are setting the bar so low for their nominee that no one expects anything but a complete disaster from him. People are having hysterics over the pettiest of concerns. Mitt will be a good president. There is no need for pessimism. Barack Obama will not win reelection.

at least other liberal Republicans may be open about their beliefs. as good a man as Romney appears to be, he is an appalling politician.

a liberal you know where you stand and won’t turn your back. This guy tries to gain trust and then stabs conservatives in the back. He needs to have a tattoo on his forhead reading “Liar”

…that explain why 50% of your potential Republican voters do not trust Mitt Romney. In the 2008 campaign, Obama clearly indicated he would not support an individual mandate even though there was documentation to the contrary. So now it’s deja vu all over again, only our candidate looks like an even bigger liar than the one we are trying remove from office.

It does indicate that he thought universal health insurance would be a good idea for everybody. (I disagree.) July 2009 was pretty early in the reign of Prince Barry the First, and it isn’t terrible that anybody, including Romney, would write a piece making what he thought were helpful suggestions.

“Republicans will join with the Democrats if the president abandons his government insurance plan, if he endeavors to craft a plan that does not burden the nation with greater debt, if he broadens his scope to reduce health costs for all Americans, and if he is willing to devote the rigorous effort, requisite time and bipartisan process that health care reform deserves.”

It doesn’t indicate that Romney would NOT repeal Obamacare if given the opportunity, nor does it indicate he’d push his plan onto everybody else, just “because he could,” as Obama has done. Note that the conclusion of the piece, quoted above, calls for Obama to “abandon… his government insurance plan” and adopt a “bipartisan process that health care reform deserves.”

While I personally don’t think health care reform should even be on our list of priorities, a lot of other non-ideological people do think it’s a good idea. I could support a Constitution-based, piece-by-piece plan if such a thing could be devised, such as a single-purpose bill allowing insurance plans to be sold across state lines (although that should be possible now–the insurance companies just need to offer them for approval by the insurance boards of each state).

Note that last sentence. What I keep hearing about is a federal law to force states to accept an insurance policy that has been approved by any other state. That in itself may be an infringement of a state’s sovereign jurisdiction, but it may also be a legitimate application of the commerce clause. What do you think?

Your question was my first question when I saw this, although I am not surprised that Romney thought this was his claim to fame.

My second question is the title above: all the other campaigns, from Bachmann to Perry, did not find this grenade to lob at Romney back in the autumn?

Was it incompetence or fear or something else?

this wasn’t very controversial. Most people believed that Obama was really trying to do the right thing, and therefore suggestions as to how to do it right were probably all over the MSM of the day.

My vote? Newt

We’re better off with a private-sector, businessman liar than a Washington insider…blah, blah, blah….

it would not be brought up? Was he willing because of his ego to take down the whole ship?

who would prefer to talk about moon bases and how to make your sex life special over what they plan to do about the debt and the economy.

How cute!

A one-term gov who would have been a sure loss had he run for re-election, a Reagan-basher, voted for dems, flip-flop after flip-flop, Romneycare, lib judges, just one thing after another.

The only thing that makes any sense to me is that many are so desperate to be rid of Obama that they were easy targets for the phoney electability argument, and once having bought into that crap they can’t bring themselves to admit that they were suckers.

But its not like there isn’t enough opposition out there on Obama today as is. Pour some $5/gal gasoline on his dismal record as President and I think there is plenty of fire there.

to find this out, but rather, since Newt has his own skeleton in the closet on this, he would like to ignore it.

Since Erick is so interested in what Buzzfeed has to say on its site, let’s not forget that it was the same Buzzfeed that uncovered a 2008 video where Newt passionately defended the idea of an individual mandate and called it “immoral” for those who can afford to have insurance not to buy it. Now that Newt is also running for President, he is also running away from this position.

I would be curious to know if Erick posted a diary on Newt’s “embracing” of the individual mandate.

Does this Romney hating ever stop?

nt

in which case, Obama is probably your guy. He is the only candidate that is straight up for the mandate and will say so out loud (,,,yes, I’m looking at you, Mitt).

The pro-mandate argument has always been that cutting down on the emergency room freeloaders by requiring health insurance will stabilize health care costs and make everyone accept responsibility for themselves. Well, that’s Obama’s argument anyway.

.

…but Mitt didn’t.

That “money quote” is a real stab in the back of the American people. Just who do these politicians think they are!

whether or not one has insurance *is* the individual mandate. If you don’t have a problem with that, that’s great. Romney, throughout the campaign, has perpetuated a “nuanced” image of himself as a federalist who believes that this is well and good on the state level (where he did it), and a no-no on the federal level (where Obama did it). Conservatives have long doubted the good faith of this argument, given that Romney seems to apply this federalist stance to nothing else that the federal government is doing. This is indisputable proof that Romney called for individual mandates at the national level. Mind you, it’s not very hard to find examples of Mitt reversing himself on major political issues, but it is pretty damning to have him do so on an issue that is topical (for both the economy and debt), and which plays well among a broad cross-section of the American public.

The only thing that this satisfies is the truly perverse enjoyment that I derive from watching Romney supporters continue to tie themselves up in incoherent spin trying to defend their boy.

Before I was disapointed in a potential Romney GOP candidate, now I am hopping mad. Every GOP voter who will vote on Super Tuesday should vote for any other GOP candidate who is not Mittens (even Ron Paul and yes it has come to that low point).

I know I plan to vote with great enthusiasm for a vote against Mittens and for Newt.

Thank the Lord EE dug this up now while we still have a fighting chance to defeat Mittens.