In 2005 Mitt Romney decided to run for president, and set about making himself acceptable to the Republican party’s conservative base. He reversed his pro-choice stance, abandoned his support for cap and trade, and discovered a set of almost brutally nationalist foreign policies. The journey from centre-right to right-right nearly killed him, but he made it. Announcing his exit from the 2008 race before the Conservative Political Action Committee, he was introduced to wild applause as a “conservative’s conservative”.
Tragically, the party has developed since 2008 in such a way that Mr Romney once again finds himself suspiciously moderate to the base. Part of the problem is his Massachusetts healthcare plan, which President Obama has imported to the national level only for the GOP to discover that it amounts to the greatest threat to freedom in the history of the Republic. More broadly, Mr Romney’s difficulty in rousing himself into a state of bug-eyed terror when denouncing the administration has caused the party faithful to serially attach themselves to a procession of retreads who more authentically channel their mental state. He has used his financial advantage to unleash an advertising barrage against these hapless foes. And, incredibly, he has positioned himself to their right, lambasting Newt Gingrich as a climate-change opponent and Rick Santorum as a labour-friendly big spender.
All this merely underscores the very strange match between party and nominee. Republicans have been lurching rightward for several decades, a process that slowly redefined died-in-the-wool arch-conservatives of the 1970s such as Bob Dole as squishy moderates of the 1990s.