Romney in Free Fall After a Double Dose of ObamaCare/RomneyCare Doom

Last updated on August 10th, 2012 at 09:29 pm

First Mitt Romney’s spokesperson indirectly endorsed ObamaCare on Fox News, then President Obama took the stage in Denver and dismantled Romney’s new found conservative healthcare values.

In the morning the conservative universal was set a tizzy by Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul’s ringing endorsement of Romneycare/Obamacare on Fox News.

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Saul was responding to the new Priorities USA super PAC ad where an a man blames Romney for his uninsured wife’s death, when she got way off message and said, “Obviously it’s unfortunate when anyone loses their job. This particular case was a plant that was closed years after Governor Romney left the company, and, to that point, you know, if people had been in Massachusetts under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they woulda had health care.”

While people not dying because they have access to healthcare is good thing to most Americans, Saul’s remarks were a sign of the Apocalypse to conservatives.

Rush Limbaugh summed up the general conservative attitude of doom by saying, “That’s a potential gold mine for the Obamaites, because they can say, “Well, yeah, and Romneycare’s the foundation for our plan, Obamacare,” which they are already out there saying.”

Hours later President Obama took the stage in Denver and hammered Romney for his conservative values on healthcare,

Mr. Romney is running as the candidate of conservative values. There’s nothing conservative about a government that prevents a woman from making her own health care decisions. He says he’s the candidate of freedom. But freedom is the chance, the opportunity to determine for yourself the care that you need, when you need it. It’s the ability to change jobs or start your own business without fear of losing your health insurance.

We’re not going back to the days when it was acceptable to charge women more than men for health care. And we’re not going back to the days when women with preexisting conditions, like being a cancer survivor, were denied affordable care. We’re not going to kick more than a million young women off their parent’s plan. We are not going backwards, Denver. We’re moving forward. That’s why I’m running for President again.

There is nowhere for Romney to go on this. If he tries appease the base, President Obama is going to keep hammering him. If he embraces Romneycare, conservatives are going to rebel and possibly stay home on Election Day. Either way, Mitt Romney loses.

If Romney stays in the middle and takes Romney/Obamacare off the table, he is going to be working against the strategy of many House Republican incumbents who have made repealing Obamacare a centerpiece of their campaigns. If Romney moves back to the right, he going to face endless 30 seconds using his own campaign spokesperson against him. It is a classic lose/lose.

Mitt Romney hasn’t even accepted his party’s nomination yet, but he is already wearing the look of a doomed candidate and if he can’t hold Republicans together all hell might break loose in Tampa.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association