Mitt-igating Circumstances in 2012

No matter what your own opinion of HCR is, I think we can all agree on one thing:  Mitt Romney's toast.  Josh Marshall:

Mitt Romney, April 11th, 2006: "Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian."

Like I said, I think Mitt's done. Unless Health Care Reform ends up having no part in the 2012 presidential election. And even if that's true, too much of the early spadework for the nomination will have to be done in the period where the GOP is the anti-Health Care Reform party. 

And while Josh is right, you have to just shake your head at how exceedingly simple it was to get the GOP to run as the party of no health care reform.  Already, the battle cry of "REPEAL!" is running into a serious problem in the GOP ranks.

In a brief chat with the Huffington Post on Tuesday, National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Cornyn (R-Tex.) implicitly acknowledged that Republicans are content with allowing some elements of Obama's reform into law. And they'd generally ignore those elements when taking the fight to their Democrat opponents as November approaches.

"There is non-controversial stuff here like the preexisting conditions exclusion and those sorts of things," the Texas Republican said. "Now we are not interested in repealing that. And that is frankly a distraction." 

Wait, repeal only SOME of the provisions?  Gosh, you guys said this plan was 100% evil and you hated it.  Now you have Republicans admitting parts of it were a good idea?

That's not going to go over well.  Even Ross Douthat thinks that's a bad idea.

This is incoherent, of course, because the preexisting conditions exclusion is one of the things that could end up increasing premium costs for the already-insured. But to the extent that Cornyn’s vision coheres, what he seems to be proposing is a reform of the reform that keeps the goodies and takes away the spending cuts and tax increases that pay for them.

California, here we come …

Of course, that's how Republicans have been operating for some time now.  Not like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Bush tax cuts, and the Medicare prescription drug benefit were paid for.  The Democrats proposed a plan that...surprise!...included plans to pay for it!  The party of "fiscal responsibility" doesn't want to pay for it, and has no problem apparently wanting to run up the debt all of a sudden if it means they can try to get back into political power.

If even Ross can see this mess coming a mile away, I know the rest of the GOP can.  And that leads us back to Mittens.  Will he throw his own health care plan under the bus for a shot in 2012?

Doesn't he have to?