Mitt Romney promoting individual mandate
You'd think
a poll showing Mitt Romney leading in Iowa if Mike Huckabee doesn't run would be great news for his campaign—but it's not.
Why not?
Because the same poll shows 61% of Iowa Republicans won't back a presidential candidate who supported a health insurance mandate at the state level—and Mitt Romney, as Iowa Republicans will soon find out, signed into law a health insurance mandate as governor of Massachusetts.
To put this in perspective, Romney's support for a health insurance mandate in Massachusetts puts him more out of step with Iowa Republicans on the issue of health care reform than on birtherism, an issue on which Romney has also taken a sane position. As amazing as it is that 48% of Iowa Republicans falsely believe President Obama wasn't born in America, just 11% of them say they definitely would be willing to support a candidate who has endorsed a health insurance mandate.
The only reason Romney is doing well in the polls right now is that Iowa Republicans are as clueless about his record in support of a health insurance mandate as they are on where President Obama was born. (It was Krypton, right?)
The GOP's 2012 field might be unwilling to tell Iowans the truth about President Obama's birthplace (Hawaii), but unfortunately for Romney, once the campaign heats up, you can count on them hammering him over the mandate every chance they get. And when they do, he's going to drop like a rock.