Reason Writers Around Town: Matt Welch at CNN.com on the Iowa Caucus and the Romney Paradox
At the opinion section of CNN.com, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch writes about last night's results and the Mitt Romney paradox. Sample:
[Despite giving him virtually the same vote totals], Iowa arguably derailed Romney in 2008 while shoring up his front-runner status this time around. GOP politics have become so fluid, so unpredictable, so bizarre, that the main point of the game is more about survival than winning. […]
[Electability] may be enough to help Romney survive against three competitors who are more excitable. But it also sets up one whale of a paradox: After 39 months of consistent public hostility to bailout economics, after the rise of the tea party movement, after town-hall opposition to "Obama care," after the long-shot Scott Brown win in Massachusetts, after the 2010 limited-government resurgence in the House of Representatives … after all of these unmistakable signs of public—let alone Republican—sentiment, the alleged party of limited government may be on the verge of nominating someone who is running to President Barack Obama's left on Medicare, who helped pave the way for the Obama policy Republicans hate most and who has no real plan for cutting the biggest growth items in the federal budget.