Conservative case for Romney is … he can’t possibly flip-flop again

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Can a conservative case be made for Mitt Romney? Michael Gerson tried mightily at the Washington Post yesterday, leaning heavily on Romney’s business experience and cultural background to argue that Romney’s current positions are probably more natural to him than those he adopted for more than a decade as a Massachusetts politician. Unfortunately for Gerson, he has to come up with some way to explain why Romney wouldn’t slide back to his earlier positions once he faced some political headwinds on the national stage, and this is the best Gerson can do:

Romney’s main political vulnerability is a serious one. Running for Massachusetts’ governor in 2002, he was a pro-choice, economically centrist, culturally liberal, business-oriented Republican. Running for president in 2008, he was a thoroughly pro-life, orthodox supply-side, culturally conservative, Fox News Republican. Romney’s shape-shifting 2008 campaign only reinforced the impression of a consultant-driven candidate.

But conservatives — unsurprised by human frailty — know that great republics are constructed out of flawed materials. Some of Romney’s transformation is explainable as the result of ideological regionalism. It would be a rare candidate who could run and win in Massachusetts with the same message offered to Republican caucus-goers in Iowa.