Why A President Romney Would Govern From The Far Right

Once upon a time I suspect a number of voters believed that Mitt Romney was a moderate who would not become a puppet of the dark forces of the far right in the Republican Party.  In retrospect, that view seems to have been a fantasy.  Not only has Romney pandered disgustingly to the Christianists and Tea Party loons, but his willingness to do anything to further what he believes to be in his political interest is telling in terms of how the far right will hold the puppet strings during any Romney administration.  Having seen the fate of moderates like Senator Lugar, Romney will be beholden to the forces that might rise a primary challenge to his reelection should he win a first term in the White House.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this reality and why Romney would not govern even remotely as a moderate.  Here are excerpts:

For all of Mitt Romney’s talk of what he would do on Day One in the White House — Bomb Iran? Or was it Planned Parenthood? — there’s just as good a chance he would be tacking up two pictures on the wall. One would be of George H.W. Bush and the other of Jimmy Carter. They both became one-term presidents after they were challenged in the primaries. This is a lesson for Romney.

It is also a lesson for everyone who thinks that if Romney becomes president, he would govern from the center. This is a widely held belief, encouraged by the Romney camp itself and the supposed gaffe of Eric Fehrnstrom that the world would see a different Romney in the general election: “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.” This is not a gaffe but a feint. Romney would be able to restart nothing.

In the first place, Romney would likely have a Republican House, and maybe a Senate, too. This means he has to work with a party that has just recently punished Richard Lugar for excessive moderation and is willing, at this very moment, to bring down the country’s credit rating another notch rather than budge on the debt ceiling. To Romney, who made a fortune with the clever prestidigitation of debt, this has to make no sense, but he would go along because (1) he’d have to, and (2) he always does.

Congress, though, would be the least of President Romney’s troubles. The real threat will come from the Republican Party’s very core, which likes him little and trusts him less. The moment he shows the slightest moderate or rational tick, someone such as Rick Santorum will barrel out of the GOP’s piney woods, screaming oaths, and enter the 2016 Iowa caucuses that, you might remember, Santorum won in 2012.

[I]t’s hardly conceivable that, as president, Romney will become the Romney some think he is. The forces that shaped him in the primaries and caucuses will not go away. He has been clay in the hands of the political right, and this will not change. After Romney recently disparaged Carter’s political courage, Gerald Rafshoon, once Carter’s communications director, shot back with this via Bloomberg View: “Scour Romney’s record for a single example of real political courage .  .  .  . 

The widespread belief that Romney would govern from the center is supposedly supported by the equally widespread belief that he is a liar. .  .   .    The belief that he would revert is the desperate rationale of nominal Democrats who have had it with Barack Obama and want to be excused for abandoning ship. 

According to what a family friend told the New York Times, Mitt and Ann Romney decided he should run for president because they both “felt it was what God wanted them to do.” Having done just that, Romney has left it to others to define what sort of candidate he would be. Nothing would change if he were president. Weakness is his one consistency. 

Like Obama or not, there's simply no way that I believe Romney can be trusted.   He'd even sell his magic Mormon underwear for the right price.