Zogby: Romney handily defeats Obama among independents

My take:

So, Mitt Romney is the front-runner, for the time being, among three unannounced but likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. He leads President Obama by 11 points among independents and trails Obama by only 2 points overall, according to a Zogby Poll released Thursday. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee trail Obama by much bigger margins.

This is an exceptionally strong showing by Romney, whose overhaul of the Massachusetts health care system, while governor, became an embarrassing model for Obamacare. He has weathered that embarrassment.

From here, Romney's upside is terrific. Obama's anti-American policy regime, designed to weaken, and perhaps bankrupt, the country, has driven up the national deficits and debt and raised doubts throughout the world about this country's viability.

For Romney, this may induce a sense of deja vu. He earned his wealth by picking through the boneyards of corporate America, salvaging things of value from the debris. Later, as the Salt Lake City Olympics were careening toward debt-ridden disaster, he was called in to turn things around, and did.

Now, history may be calling again, except this time it is the nation itself that has been placed at risk by a corrupt and reckless Democrat Congress and a White House that uses thuggish Chicago tactics to enact legislative memorials to long-dead leftist icons.

"Medicine is the keystone of the socialist arch," said Vladimir Lenin, chief architect of Russian communism.

Obama appeared to take those words as his command, leading an absurd, exaggerated attack against the world's finest health care system.

Romney, on the other hand, undertook the Romneycare project for a practical reason. At the time, Massachusetts was taxing businesses to compensate for shortfalls in the health care system. Some businesses were leaving the state. The point of Romneycare was to preserve the state's tax base, while also extending health care to underserved citizens.

In any case, that's an old story and any resentments against Romney already are reflected in the polls.

Those polls show that, among independents, Obama is weak while Romney is strong.

The well-tailored Romney seems tailor-made for the task at hand.

Obama leads all Republicans in 2012 matchup, but Huckabee and Romney are close and Paul runs strong with indendents

Barack Obama leads all of his potential Republican opponents in hypothetical 2012 match ups, and it's becoming increasingly clear from this monthly poll that there are two tiers of GOP candidates when it comes to electability.

Polling close to Obama are Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. The President leads Huckabee 46-44 and Romney 45-42. They both do a good job of consolidating the GOP vote and holding a solid advantage with independents.

Doing less well are Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Ron Paul. Obama has a 47-39 advantage over Gingrich, a 50-41 against Palin, and 46-36 edge matched against Paul.

One thing that's very interesting about these numbers is that Ron Paul is the most popular out of the whole group with independents. They see him favorably by a 35/25 margin. The only other White House hopeful on positive ground with them is Romney at a +2 spread and they're very negative on the rest: -5 for Huckabee, -16 for Gingrich and Palin, and -17 for Obama. All five of the possible GOP contenders lead Obama with independents, but Paul does so by the widest margin at 46-28.

Cato goes after Romney on Massachusetts plan

An influential conservative think tank is firing a broadside at ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R), criticizing the potential WH'12 contender for a health care plan they say looks identical to Pres. Obama's.

"When you run down this list of elements in the Obama plan and the Romney plan, they are all identical," says Michael Cannon, the Cato Institute's director of Health Policy Studies, in a new video running on the group's website. "Both the Romney plan and the Obama plan are essentially a government takeover of the health care sector of the economy."

Romney's signature achievement during his tenure in the Bay State, CommonwealthCare, has now become a serious liability for a potential WH'12 bid. Romney's approach was controversial among think tank conservatives then; now, with the spotlight on health care, some are convinced it will be a deal-breaker.

"As Pres. Obama himself has pointed out, Romney is the guy who created the prototype for Obamacare," said Cato executive VP David Boaz. "How can he lead the charge against a health care plan that is modeled on his own?"

Romney has pushed back hard, dismissing comparisons between the 2 plans as inaccurate.

"Pres. Obama has tried to compare Gov. Romney's plan to his own but there are important differences. Gov. Romney's plan is different because it didn't include a tax increase, and it didn't cut care to seniors, and most importantly, it is based on the premise that states should be free to pursue their own healthcare solutions," said Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior advisor to Romney's Free and Strong America PAC.

"Under Gov. Romney, Massachusetts solved the problem of the uninsured without raising taxes. Other states are free to copy what he did, or improve on it, or chart their own course, but we should reject a federal one-size-fits-all plan," Fehrstrom added.

My take:

The first graf of this piece insinuates that Massachusetts copied, or borrowed heavily from, Obamacare. In fact, Massachusetts enacted its plan several years ago. Congress enacted Obamacare this year.

There's another slant to this story that intrigues me. Perhaps Obama's handlers tailored Obamacare after the Massachusetts plan so as to make a presidential run by Romney difficult, if not impossible. If so, their scheme has succeeded. While Romney has survived his difficulty to this point, and still appears to be a viable candidate, that could change when the presidential primary campaign heats up and his rivals go after him.

This theory assumes more intelligence and skill than I believe the Obama team possesses, but it is plausible.

To see a video of the Cato attack on Romney, go here: http://www.cato.org/pressroom.php