A question to Romney supporters

[Beet]

This is a too static view of the race. Let me present a more dynamic view:

We are now entering the late Spring/Summer season. The first two years of this decade each saw multiple disasters break out during this season, and this year it looks very possible that it will happen again. In the Spring of 2010, the economy appeared to be recovering until the outbreak of the Euro Crisis initiated the 'flash crash'. This was swiftly followed by the months-long industrial disaster in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon platform. Then in the Spring of 2011, a tranquil winter was followed by upheavals in the Middle East that sharply raised the price of oil, the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, the debt ceiling debacle, and the re-occurrence of the Euro crisis. While except for [in half-part] the debt ceiling crisis I do not blame the President for these disasters they will have an effect on the election sufficient to nullify any certainties that can be made today based on marginal analysis of swing states. Today we are in another period of relative tranquility but the trials of the season are already looming large: an Irsaeli strike on Iran potentially igniting a region-wide uprising against US/Israeli imperialism, a re-occurrence of the Euro-crisis after the current government in Greece falls, and a Supreme Court decision that could at once focus the nation's attention on an issue that ignites the Republican base and destroys in one fell swoop the President's primary domestic policy initiative.

In short, these kinds of analyses best wait until the Fall.

[Beet]

sbane- probably because of the individual mandate. I support the individual mandate, but have no religious or intrinsic attachment to it. I support it only as a means to an ends- firstly because no reform would be possible without addressing the free rider problem (hence the necessity of a mandatory tax to pay for the increased generosity of coverage under the law), and secondly as a means of expanding coverage to everyone.

However, if some other way can be found of reaching the same ends with different means, then I think there'd not be a lot of resistance to further reform. In fact, as a supporter of the law I'd much rather find a way of achieving the same ends with means that so many fellow citizens are not so strongly opposed to. In the long run, a law will not be sustained by one party alone, because there will come a time, sooner or later, when the other party is in full power. True, final health care reform must be bipartisan. The verdict of Bill Kristol's 1993 memo must be reversed. Policy must prevail over partisan politics- not just as a matter of normative rightness but as a matter of practicality.

In other words, opponents of (specific parts of) PPACA or specific policies designed as means to achieve particular ends, which could be achieved in other ways, are not lost even if it is not struck down and Obama is reelected. The only ones truly lost are the ones who support the forever perpetuation of the status quo, because as the years go by it becomes increasingly clear that it is unsustainable. The policy options aren't "PPACA" vs. "no PPACA", the future policy options as numerous as the universe of choices the courts will not strike down. And since neither the current status quo nor the pre-2010 status quo addresses all of the problems that need to be addressed, we should be looking forward to those options.