Mitt Romney

Having bested a troop of colorful candidates in a relentless slog through the primaries, Mitt Romney is about to achieve his goal: the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. When he stands before the GOP delegates in Tampa, Fla., those who doubted his conservatism or his political skill and longed for another choice will cast aside their reluctance and embrace Romney as their champion - at least until election day. Every quadrennial race for the White House has fascinating dynamics and this one continues to exhibit new twists almost every day. On Sept.

Mitt Romney may have won the first presidential debate, but what stuck in many people's minds was his threat to fire Big Bird. Apparently, Romney thinks America's debt problem can be fixed by picking up pennies along Sesame Street. Pressed to explain how he would balance the federal budget while cutting trillions of dollars in taxes, the allegedly masterful debater offered up just two specifics: He would repeal “Obamacare” (even though the Congressional Budget Office says the healthcare act actually reduces deficit spending)

Mitt Romney established universal health coverage in Massachusetts with an individual mandate to buy insurance. But he says he'll overturn an identical system at the federal level. He also has dismissed the idea of a Medicare-for-all insurance system in the United States. Yet the presumptive Republican nominee-to-be is hailing Israel's healthcare system as a model of efficiency and effectiveness. And what do you know - Israel has something like a Medicare-for-all system. Romney praised Israel for spending just 8% of its gross domestic product on healthcare while still remaining a "pretty healthy nation.

When the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the federal mandate to buy health insurance, who is most likely to take a political hit, President Obama or Mitt Romney? The skeptical tone of the questioning during oral arguments before the high court on Tuesday did not bode well for fans of the new healthcare law famously nicknamed "Obamacare. " Chief Justice John G. RobertsJr.and the perennial swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy, are expected to cast the deciding votes between the liberal and conservative factions on the the court, and both seemed wary of ratifying the federal government's right to require every citizen's participation in a health plan.

The expectations game that has been going on before tonight's presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney has been hilariously goofy. It is as if each side is trying to pretend their guy just wandered in from a life of solitude in a monastery where talking is not allowed.  President Obama, at his best, is one of the most eloquent speakers ever to take up the big chair in the Oval Office. He may not be a stellar debater, but he held his own with Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2004 Democratic primary debates and easily outshone Sen. John McCain in the fall trio of face-to-face encounters.

Rush Limbaugh is freaked out by Mitt Romney giving backhanded praise to President Obama for saving the American auto industry. This week, in an interview on CBS, Romney defended himself against critics of his work at Bain Capital by equating what he did as a corporate restructuring specialist with Obama's temporary takeover of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009. “In the general election,” Romney said, “I'll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler - closed factories, closed dealerships, laid off thousands and thousands of workers - he did it to try to save the business.” Limbaugh has gotten his voluminous knickers in a twist because Romney is essentially acknowledging that what Obama did was a good thing.

It is impossible to know if Mitt Romney would turn out to be a good, bad or a mediocre president, but one certain downside of a Romney victory is that it would reward the most venal forces in American politics. It only starts with the kind of campaign Romney has run. He and his "super PAC" allies used a mountain of dollars to produce unending waves of attack ads that swamped the messages of his Republican primary rivals, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. In the general election, Romney cranked it up a notch.

Hurricane Sandy's devastating intrusion into the final days of the presidential race would have at least one positive result if it inspired President Obama and Mitt Romney to finally address a huge issue they have ignored throughout the long campaign: climate change. After the firestorms that swept the West amid a merciless drought and the killer tornadoes and freak storms that battered the Midwest, South and East Coast, Sandy is just 2012's latest screaming reminder that our weather is becoming a much more destructive force.

Another debate brought out another version of Mitt Romney. This third time around, the chameleon candidate was not the hard-charging neo-con hawk of the primaries. Instead, he talked about peace, negotiations and using military power as a last resort.  He also was not the pushy CEO who commandeered the first debate or the combative sparring partner of Debate 2. From the first minute in this discussion of foreign policy, President Obama tried to pick a fight, but Romney was just ducking punches.

Now that the battle for the Republican presidential nomination is drifting to a close, no Democrat should assume the long, drawn-out trashing of Mitt Romney by his competitors is a guarantee that he will be a loser in November. Think about where we were four years ago at this time. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a struggle whose outcome was far more in doubt than was ever the case for Republicans this year. The race would grind on to the last primary in June when, finally, Obama sealed the deal.