Will The Real Mitt Romney Please Standup?

Steve Bennen, a producer for the Rachel Maddow Show, wrote a fantastic op-ed detailing the “severe Conservatism” of Mitt Romney. Bennen delves into Romney’s stance on health care, tax policy, environmental policy, and Medicare among others.

This goes beyond just individual issues; there’s an underlying philosophy here. Americans have become accustomed to gradual, almost imperceptible, shifts in the nation’s larger ideological trajectory. Politics, the pundits say, is played “between the 40 yard lines.” Democratic eras inch the country slowly to the left, while Republican eras nudge the country to the right, but in nearly all cases, the basic framework of American society and the relationship between the populace and their government doesn’t change too dramatically, at least not quickly.

The presumptive Republican nominee aims to set the nation on a very different course early next year. The general consensus about the social contract has been fairly reliable since the days of the New Deal, but Romney intends to rewrite it. A press secretary for the Republican National Committee recently said Romney and his party would pursue the policies of the Bush administration, “just updated.” Democrats rejoiced — it meant they could tell voters Romney would simply represent Bush’s third term. But in important ways, they’re both wrong. Romney is more extreme. Those quietly hoping that he doesn’t mean what he says are making a sucker’s bet.

The man has spent a year showing the American electorate a road map, pointing at a distant, radical destination. Only the deliberately blind could miss the signals, and only a fool would assume he’ll change direction once he’s in power.