If Palin runs against the individual mandate, she'll have at least
four
opponents who have flip-flopped on it (Palin photo: Roger H. Goun)
So Sarah Palin isn't just "coincidentally"
heading up to New Hampshire on the same day that Mitt Romney formally declares his candidacy there (the
thirteenth step of running for president), she's also challenging him on his past support for the individual health insurance mandate. Speaking to reporters in Massachusetts before heading up north to the Granite State,
Palin said:
"In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, so obviously ... there will be more the explanation coming from former governor, Romney, on his support for government mandates," Palin told reporters today.
When a reporter followed up that Romney has distinguished his state mandate from the federal one President Obama signed into law in 2010, Palin responded that even state mandates are problematic.
"He makes a good argument there that it does. States rights and authority and responsibility allowed in our states makes more sense than a big centralized government telling us what to do," she said.
"However, even on a state level and even a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it's tough for a lot of us independent Americans to accept, because we have great faith in the private sectors and our own families ... and our own businessmen and women making decisions for ourselves. Not any level of government telling us what to do."
It's pretty obvious that whether or not she's running, Palin intended to throw Romney under the bus with her comments. The fact that she wasn't terribly well prepared for the follow-up question—about state vs. federal mandates—tells us more about her complete lack of interest in studying actual issues and knowing candidates' positions on them: Romney has actually supported mandates at the federal level and even predicted we'd end up as "a nation that's taken a mandate approach" to health care reform.
