Romney Perched Atop The Fulcrum

The fat lady might not be singing, but she's standing back stage with some salt water gargle and just the slightest touch of crimson rouge. While it is still a mathematical possibility that another candidate could sweep into the GOP catbird seat, with Mitt Romney having gathered as many delegates as he has unto himself at this point in the delegate season, it would take a near miracle for any other GOP candidate to knock him off the November ticket.

What a sad state of affairs this is.

I'm not going to go into the flaws of every candidate left on the GOP ticket other than to say that from a conservative standpoint, the most flawed is the one standing tallest. I say he is the most flawed because his years in government service indicate an to me that he is the biggest believer in big government solutions among all the other big believers.

An important part of his impending victory in the GOP nominating process has been his assurances that he is indeed a conservative. He knew that the conservative base of his party was jumping from one non-Romney candidate to another in sheer terror over the possibility of his carrying the GOP torch. This forced the man to pander to conservatives.

He needed to hold off a charging more conservative Santorum just as he had to put aside the charge of a more conservative Gingrich, a more conservative Perry, a more conservative Cain and a much more conservative Bachmann. (Ron Paul doesn't count in this regard as it appears the two have long been working on a back room deal with the avowed conservative Paul's contribution to the pact being unrelenting attacks on whoever is currently most threatening to Romney.)

But all of this conservative pandering is soon to change.

Romney believes, as do all establishment Republicans, that he can take the votes of conservatives in his party for granted particularly in this election when the need to defeat Obama is so great. Once he has locked down this nominating process he will then move toward attracting centrist and independent voters--a targeted audience that he is much more philosophically inline with.

We are very close to that point.

And this is when we will see what side of the fulcrum Romney lands on. Will he continue to try to soothe conservative voters when he believes they will be compelled to support him regardless, or will he begin to posture to those in the middle with whom he actually finds more common ground?

I believe now that super Tuesday has passed we are going to be seeing more and more of the latter. Contrary positions with the left will soften. So-called pragmatism will trump that of what were once important conservative ideological leanings. Global warming will become even more important as will compassionate immigration reform. Conservatives will simply have to suck it up and take one for the team. (By the way, this is the same thing we had to suck up during the McCain run.)

All of this is pissing me off in advance. It is a certainty that Romney will be taking my vote for granted. I'm certain he shouldn't.