Dionne has recognized something in the current Romney strategy of embracing Obama's positions, or if you prefer, changing his own to suit the moment that should be appreciated by our side. The craven appeal to the center, says Dionne is a de facto admission of defeat by the Tea Party and its ilk.
Here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Dionne writes:
If conservatism were winning, does anyone doubt that Romney would be running as a conservative? Yet unlike Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, Romney is offering an echo, not a choice. His strategy at the end is to try to sneak into the White House on a chorus of me-too’s.
The right is going along because its partisans know Romney has no other option. This, too, is an acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition that the grand ideological experiment heralded by the rise of the tea party has gained no traction. It also means that conservatives don’t believe that Romney really believes the moderate mush he’s putting forward now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the conservatives are forgiving Romney because they think he is lying, what should the rest of us think?
I think there is a profound point in this that the current obsession with polls has overlooked. Romney's tacking to the center does represent a tacit admission that the positions he staked out in the Republican primary and early in the race itself have proven unpopular with the majority of his party and independents. I believe that this will, despite what we're seeing in polling numbers, significantly depress the support he garners on Nov 6 from both extremists and moderates of the right as well.
If in fact we're now seeing an Obama 'bounce' coming out of Mitts grovelling debate performance, that may well indicate that the reasonable undecideds are coming home to Obama, and that some who were leaning toward Mittins have now decided to abandon him based on his lack of integrity.
I think the Obama campaign would be wise to hammer Dionne's point home in the final weeks—if he's lying now, he'll lie while in office. If he shifts constantly now, he cannot be trusted. Romnesia is a great meme, but even greater would be some key examples of how his 'selling out' of his brand as a severe conservative is not just a political act, but a moral failure.