I really recommend Paul Waldman's column on "The Ideal Opponent" today, in which he outlines which competitor each party's top-three candidates would wish for in the general election. It's great fun, and Paul predicts quite accurately, I think, how these candidates' narratives would bump up against one another. But I do take issue with Paul's assertion that Mitt Romney would be John Edwards' dream opponent. Think two words: health care. While it's true that Romney has spent the primary season running away from his legacy of being the first American governor to pass comprehensive health care reform with an individual mandate, I think he'll likely modify this tune if he makes it to the general election. There, he'll respond to Democratic calls for universal coverage with the mantra, "Hey, I did it in Massachusetts. It wasn't perfect, but working together, we provided more Massachusetts residents than ever with health coverage. And it didn't require socialized medicine!" I think the media has been way too complicit in advancing the line that Romney is, as Paul writes, a "technocratic businessman committed to obtaining and evaluating relevant data before pursuing appropriate action." This is, after all, the same guy who didn't know United Nations weapons inspectors were inside Iraq prior to President Bush beginning the war there. But voters might buy into Romney's MBA resume, and he might seem quite the pragmatic compromiser next to Edwards and his grand calls for systemic change. --Dana Goldstein
