Catch of the Day

Mitt Romney, scourge of softies on immigration...when it's a good campaign tactic. David S. Bernstein, ace reporter (and Plain Blog brother) gets more mileage from Romney's campaign book by noting that immigration was almost entirely missing from that manifesto. As David reminds everyone, immigration was a good issue for Romney in 2008, when he was up against notably wobbly John McCain. So it's interesting that he had decided to ditch the issue this time around, only to bring it out of mothballs when Rick Perry showed there was still mileage to be had.

All of which is just more evidence, long past when any is needed, that Romney either has no actual beliefs about public policy or (more likely) is entirely devoted to submerging whatever it is that he actually believes to the present needs of his presidential campaign. Which still leaves Republicans with the same puzzle: will he, if he becomes president, continue to pretend to believe whatever is needed to keep their support; will he start to pretend to believe whatever is necessary to maintain support from the median (moderate) voter; or will he suddenly reveal actual preferences and act on them, and if so what are they?

My guess is that the first of those is probably the most likely, given the partisan presidency I was talking about earlier today. And given the lack of a viable true-believing alternative, I've always thought there was an excellent chance that Republicans would risk it. After all, the only viable alternative remaining, Rick Perry, probably isn't a true believer either.  Which isn't to say that Romney will win; I still have no idea which one of them ends up on top.

Anyway, nice catch!