Does Romney Really Want to be President?

I don't believe Romney wants to be president bad enough. He can't taste it, and how could he? Who is he fighting for? Goliath? Hardly noble or worthy. Goliath can fight for himself. Romney's wealth cuts him off from understanding average Americans, and empathy doesn't appear to be his strong suit. He doesn't seem to have any substantive principles, at least nothing that sticks. I mean, what does Romney definitively believe in? Do republicans even know? All we know is that he says he'll repeal Obamacare and the rest of what he says -- platitudes. He won't mind he gets elected, but he doesn't seem to want to put in the work required.

I'd really like to be comforted a bit, in case he does win. I want to know where this guy is coming from. But I have no idea.

Apparently, the Wall Street Journal published its criticism of Mitt prior to his reversal (it's since been updated). Romney makes a lot of dumb mistakes. The WSJ is wrong, however. Whether it's called a tax or a penalty, matters not. The only people who would pay a penalty (tax) are the people who don't buy insurance, which the CBO estimates to be about 1%. The point of the mandate is to bring down costs for everyone and cover more people by having more people participating. Romney knows that.

If Mitt Romney loses his run for the White House, a turning point will have been his decision Monday to absolve President Obama of raising taxes on the middle class. He is managing to turn the only possible silver lining in Chief Justice John Roberts's ObamaCare salvage operation—that the mandate to buy insurance or pay a penalty is really a tax—into a second political defeat. Appearing on MSNBC, close Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom was asked by host Chuck Todd if Mr. Romney "agrees with the president" and "believes that you shouldn't call the tax penalty a tax, you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine?" "That's correct," Mr. Fehrnstrom replied, before attempting some hapless spin suggesting that Mr. Obama must be "held accountable" for his own "contradictory" statements on whether it is a penalty or tax. Predictably, the Obama campaign and the media blew past Mr. Fehrnstrom's point, jumped on the tax-policy concession, and declared the health-care tax debate closed. WSJ