Romney seems at first and second glance to belong to a more sober tradition, if only because he brings with him a penumbra of pragmatism and a moderate record as a one-term governor. But little that he says today deviates from the Party’s prevailing hard-line tenets: no new taxes, a blanket repeal of “Obamacare,” the appointment of Supreme Court Justices committed to repealing Roe v. Wade, a pledge to cut billions of dollars in unspecified spending for entitlements, little sympathy for gays.
In 1967, General Eisenhower said (of Mitt Romney's dad, George), “He has been on so many sides of so many questions that one begins to wonder just where he does stand. He sounds like a man in a panic. And a man who panics is not the best candidate for President.”
Republicans have left a little room for diverse views, such as the neo-isolationism and currency fixations of Ron Paul. But that’s about it for the “big tent” that the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater once celebrated; today, the only tent that comes to mind is one that houses a circus.
--Jeffrey Frank, The New Yorker
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