JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 2, 2011
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Republican candidates have been taking turns kicking around Mitt Romney over health care reform, and the latest up is Haley Barbour:
Add Haley Barbour to the list of presidential contenders who have gone after Mitt Romney over RomneyCare.
On Capitol Hill Tuesday, Barbour said Massachusetts had a state insurance plan it liked — and that his state, Mississippi, had no interest in it.
"We don't want that. That's not good for us," Barbour told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We don't want community rating. We don't want extremely high mandatory standard benefits packages."
Romney's response seems to be curling up into the fetal position and hope everybody gets tired of kicking him. Politico solicits some political professionals to offer up some advice for Romney. It doesn't sound very hopeful:
Romney’s “only prayer of winning the primary is that he convinces the ‘reasonable’ wing of the party – which is albeit shrinking – that he is the only one with a prayer of winning the general (election),” Gerstein said. “And that prayer rests on independents not thinking he’s a weasel.”
He added, “If I were advising him, I’d tell him that he has to say what he believes and own it either way ... I actually think he should stick with his current line, but just give a fuller, bigger explanation.”
After days of being poked by Huckabee on the issue, and in the former Arkansas governor’s new book, a Romney aide said the potential candidate is “proud” of what RomneyCare accomplished but that what works in states doesn’t work nationally. From there, he slammed ObamaCare.
A longtime Democratic strategist said Romney ought to pick a couple of key ways in which his plan is different than what Obama is doing “and say they are not the same, and stick with the accomplishment.”
“I would probably put it within the context of cost,” the strategist added. “Not coverage. In other words, ‘Middle class and businesses are getting slammed by health care costs. I reduced costs but without hurting businesses.’ ObamaCare is a Big Government program that hurts the economy. That’s the difference between us.’“
“If I were advising Romney, I would tell him, ‘You need to come to Jesus (on this), you need to figure this out because you can’t finesse it. You either kill it or don’t,’” said Florida-based GOP strategist Rick Wilson.
Wilson said Romney should give a major speech and say that Romneycare “opened the door” for ObamaCare, and be as blunt as possible, saying, “I was trying to do good and I ended up making a giant error.”
The apology route seems like the only way to make the pain stop. But as Gerstein notes, it would jack up the already-high weasel factor, which in turn would make him nearly useless as a front man to attract independents.
Apologizing is also problematic when you've written this:
My advice? Find something to do other than run for president.
11 comments
Seriously, "Come to Jesus"? The LAST thing a Mormon Republican politician can do is come clean and "come to Jesus". The Republican party, moved by the Tea-Party, can afford less and less truth in their policies. As far as I can tell, the Romney plan in Massachusetts doesn't have enough cost controls, so he DOES have people with Health Insurance that can't afford to USE that Health Insurance. He could shout that to the skies, but that's not a good thing.
- AllanL5
March 2, 2011 at 10:36am
I hear Charlie Sheen is looking for a new PR man.
- Tristan
March 2, 2011 at 10:40am
Shouldn't it be, "Come to the Angel Moroni?"
- wildboy
March 2, 2011 at 11:13am
No, it's not serious, Allan, it's a saying. The base will not cotton to Mitt Romney, of course. But remember, John McCain was anathema to the base in just about every way but he won the nomination. The Republican primary electorate is not coextensive with the base.
- liberalref
March 2, 2011 at 11:25am
And don't forget, Obama stuck the shiv in while speaking to the Gov's Association http://bit.ly/f7y49C : I know that many of you have asked for flexibility for your states under this law. In fact, I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he’s proud of what he accomplished on health care in Massachusetts and supports giving states the power to determine their own health care solutions. He’s right. Alabama is not going to have exactly the same needs as Massachusetts or California or North Dakota. We believe in that flexibility. So right now, under the law, under the Affordable Care Act, Massachusetts and Utah already operate exchanges of their own that are very different -- operate them in their own way. And we made sure that the law allowed that. The same applies for other requests, like choosing benefit rules that meet the needs of your citizens, or allowing for consumer-driven plans and health savings accounts.
- adsprung
March 2, 2011 at 11:27am
- Yeah, Mississippi is a shining example of state government wanting what is good for for their peeps. Mandatory or not, Boss Hogg can't claim to be the champion of high standards but he knows them when he sees them? I'm no fan of Mitt but he might ask Goober how an unhealthy (poor, uneducated) or any person on the margins of society is better off in the Magnolia State. What standards do matter and what's his plan for getting off the bottom of most rankings? Haley may not be good but he is cheap.
- michaelg
March 2, 2011 at 11:32am
I am on record in these pages as saying that in the end the Republican primary electorate will wake up and give Romney the nomination, given that he's the only grown up running. With the prevailing nuttiness, though, I am beginning to think that this may end up being a Make a Statement primary ... fingers crossed!!
- NR409654
March 2, 2011 at 12:05pm
NR: Romney is a Mormon, and Romney signed a bill too similar to the current Advent of Socialism boogeyman. I'm with Chait; he can't get the nomination.
- Jbryan
March 2, 2011 at 1:22pm
So how did John McCain get the 2008 nomination despite the rabid opposition of El Rushbo and his dittoheads and much of the Republican Party establishment? I think M. Romney will not likely get the nomination, but for other reasons than that he confected RomneyCare, i..e., that he has twisted himself into the ultimate pretzel, lurching from a moderate in an attempt to become the darling of movement conservatives, and that he will be highly vulnerable because of this.
- liberalref
March 2, 2011 at 1:38pm
Here's what I think about Haley Barbour: even thinking about his kind of Republican positioning any more makes me feel like I'm having a bad flashback from some decades old acid trip. I've done a fair amount of work with companies in emerging economies - in Eastern Europe, China, Brazil, India. Many of their founders and employees admire the United States in important ways - they buy into a slice of American exceptionalism (although far from the while fetid approach to it Republicans take). They'd like their countries to be more like the US. But none of them have ever equated that to being more like Mississippi. They are already ahead of Mississippi for God's sake. It's the Silicon Valley and New York and Austin and Portland and maybe Atlanta they admire. Now granted, they don't see the rot in California's and New York's foundations, but they do see something they want there. In Oxford or Jackson? Don't make me laugh. That there are a significant minority of American's who want, say Wisconsin, to be more like Mississippi - like I said, feels like a bad flashback. The damned walls just won't stop moving and morphing into horrible purple fanged things and yellow goose shit lollipops.
- IowaBeauty
March 2, 2011 at 1:47pm
Iowa - I wonder what would happen if you gave a poll asking Americans to choose what type of state they want to live in. State A sits near the bottom of state rankings in teenage pregnancies, single parenthood, divorce, drug use, illnesses caused by pollution, infant mortality, and murder, has low HS graduation rates, low numbers of kids going to college, few or no nationally or internationally-recognized universities, crappy state parks and few or no museums or other cultural institutions. State B ranks near the top in each of the foregoing categories. There's really only one way to answer the question, just as there's only way to answer whether you'd prefer to receive ten dollars or a million dollars, tax-free and no strings attached. Even so, I have a suspicion that a lot of Mississippians would smell a rat and say that State B is superior. And, turn on some music, and maybe the flashback will turn into something more pleasant. (I have no knowledge on this score, but that's what my friends tell me.)
- Geoff G
March 2, 2011 at 2:38pm