It looks like Sen. Jim DeMint, notable conservative crackpot, is (unofficially, mind you) a Romney man:
After a meeting with Romney, DeMint told reporters that although he is not endorsing a candidate in the race, he is more than satisfied with the idea of Romney becoming the GOP nominee.
“I can tell conservatives from my perspective is that, I’m not only comfortable with Romney, I’m excited about the possibility of him possibly being our nominee,” DeMint said. “Again, this is not a formal endorsement and I do not intend to do that right now, but I just think we just need to look at where we are.”
(That may be the first time anyone has used "Romney" and "excited" in the same sentence, so cherish that.)
I suppose it's not very surprising that support for Mitt Romney's candidacy comes from people who also cannot seem to make up their mind as to what they believe about things. Sen. DeMint is about as conservative as Republicans get (by this we mean he blocks lots of otherwise uncontroversial things in the senate for absolutely no discernible reason other than general assholishness, and ... well, that's pretty much it, I guess), but he is still willing to put his lonely tea partyin' self behind the Romneybot. Interestingly, this has required Jim DeMint to contort himself rather substantially, since keeping up with what Mitt Romney supports is at least as hard as coming up with what "true conservatism" supports on any given day.
Case in point: Health care. Or ObamaCare, or RomneyCare or whatever the hep young cats are calling it these days. There was a time not all that long ago when the ultraconservative Jim DeMint thought Romney's health care success was the bee's knees, and should be taken nationwide:
But that was waaaaaaay back in 2007, before a Democrat thought so too and all hell broke loose. Once
that happened, Romney-style health care reform became a tool of Satan, communism, and a bunch of other things that DeMint can't think of right now but will get back to you on. Oh, that's right—an "unjust law."
I still admire him for taking on the task, but I think it's important to recognize that that's not where we want our healthcare to go. States can compete with different plans, but we shouldn't have anything like what they did in Massachusetts at the federal level.
That was
a year ago, after he had sufficient time to reflect on how if Democrats did something, that must automatically make it unacceptable tyranny.
I don't know that Mitt Romney is going to benefit much from having Jim DeMint in his corner, but I do think it's funny to watch how even the most dyed-in-the-wool ultraconservatives have to explain away flip-flops in their basic beliefs according to what they're supposed to be selling during any given year. Romney isn't exactly alone on that front.