Health care past clings to Romney
By: Carrie Budoff Brown
October 5, 2010 08:12 PM EDT

Six months ago, as the Republican base lined up against the Democratic health care overhaul, Mitt Romney stood by his signature achievement as Massachusetts governor, a comprehensive health care law that served as a model for the national program.

That was then. Now, stopping “Obamacare† cold has become an article of faith on the right, and Romney is facing the prospect that his health care plan could be his undoing as a presidential contender.

Conservatives, in turn, are increasingly blunt in their advice to Romney: Say you’re sorry.

“I guarantee that, at the top of everyone’s list on how to differentiate your guy from Mitt Romney, the top of the list is health care — until and unless he takes the opportunity to say, ‘We tried, and it didn’t work. The individual mandate at the heart of Obamacare and Romneycare was wrong,’† said Bill Pascoe, a Republican strategist who wrote a post on his blog earlier this year titled “Say Goodbye to Mitt.†

So far, anyway, Romney is showing no signs of backing down. His message is the same today as it was in March, when there was still hope that voters would warm up to the Obama legislation once it passed. Romney blasts the federal law as a takeover of health care, while defending the 2005 Massachusetts version. He argues the two are as different as night and day, despite their common and most reviled feature, the mandate on individuals to purchase insurance.

It’s a two-step that conservatives say they aren’t buying.

“I would advise him to acknowledge he made a mistake,† said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Conservative Victory Committee, who has been critical of Romney in the past for his stance on social issues. “You are defending a sinking ship. Put it this way, I don’t know of any other potential candidate who has as big of a potential single-issue problem as this one.â€

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7EE19D71-E8AC-95CB-3FCDCE29C6BB248D

This is interesting, since the HCR bill was largely modeled on Romney's plan, the 1993 Republican alternative to Clinton's plan and a plan done by the Heritage Foundation in 1990. I've laughed at any notion that Romney will be the GOP candidate in 2012. He can't run away from his HCR bill. He's gone on the record too many times defending it and he defended the mandate at a GOP primary debate in 2007. He's also Mormon, which isn't going to help, but "RomneyCare" is going to hurt him far worse.

Step aside for Huckabee and Palin, Mittens.