As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney basically wrote the blueprint for health care reform bill signed into law by President Obama this past March.
Now, as a likely contender for his party's presidential nomination in 2012, he's leading the field, according to the most recent Clarus Group survey conducted last month. Romney gets 26% of the GOP vote compared to 21% for Mike Huckabee. Newt Gingrich is at 14% and Sarah Palin as at 12%.
The cognitive dissonance is deafening: GOPers have declared the health insurance mandate public enemy number one, but more of them support the guy who helped make them become reality than any other candidate. Sure, Romney now tries to pretend he hates the mandate, but he passed into law as governor, embraced it during the 2008 primary campaign, and he wouldn't be able to walk away from it in 2012.
In March, the DNC put together this highlight reel of Mitt Romney explaining -- in 2008 -- why he supports a health insurance mandate:
Pretty damn impossible for him to walk away from that, eh? I still believe Romney's support for mandates will ultimately cost him the nomination, but if he somehow gets the nod, it would be hilarious indeed given his full-throated endorsement of the GOP's most-hated aspect of health care reform.