Columnist James Pinkerton makes a pitch for Mitt Romney as a transformational figure, a change-agent candidate who can upend the status quo in Washington, and tries to inoculate Romney against attacks from the Right on his Massachusetts health care plan.
Pinkerton:
The former Massachusetts Republican governor used the word "transform" or a variant no fewer than 13 times in his presidential announcement Tuesday. Of course, so far at least, the greatest object of transformation in Romney's life is - Romney. And maybe that's not so bad. Because, while some might wish for a president who is locked into predictable orthodoxy, right or left, America desperately needs a president who can learn and adapt - and get things done.
Romney's career as a venture capitalist- he is worth an estimated $500 million - is certainly proof of his acumen. And, at the same time, any baby boomer who has been happily married to the same woman for 37 years deserves a medal for good conduct during sexual revolution.
So when Romney, whose father, George, was a Detroit auto magnate turned governor, declares that "innovation and transformation have been at the heart of America's success," he knows whereof he speaks.
...The next president will have to grapple first with public-sector issues. The universal health-care program that Romney enacted in Massachusetts was a deft compromise, sitting snugly between the social-contract imperative to get everyone covered and the equally strong need to avoid bureaucratic socialism.
So when he said on Tuesday, "If there ever was a time when innovation and transformation were needed in government, it is now," Romney was accurately describing the need to overhaul the doddering status quo in health care, education and homeland security - just for starters.
He was also correct when he added, "I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician." To put it another way, does anybody really believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton or John McCain, for example, have demonstrated the capacity to look upon the current mess with fresh eyes?
No. But Romney isn't the only change agent in the GOP field. Rudy Giuliani didn't just manage the status quo as mayor of New York City, either.
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