Gingrich and Romney Tack Right

There was one moment in that debate, coupled with a short C-Span clip in Arizona, that delivered a new, heretofore unseen, Mitt Romney.


Often a single utterance changes history.


Remember, the “macaca moment” that defeated Sen. George Allen in Virginia? Or the “malaise” speech that still haunts former President Jimmy Carter?


Better, Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” demand.


Those utterances not only defined or re-defined the character of the speaker, but also signaled a directional change in history.


Romney had two such moments recently. Together, they portend a quick end to the Republicans’ decision about their nominee and a greater challenge to Barack Obama’s re-election.


The press, however, wants none of this quick end to the primary fights. A well-known “secret” in politics is that all of the invented early brawls mean big money for the local television, radio, magazine, newspaper, hoteliers, restaurateurs, etc.


The early races are shakedown primaries in every sense of the word.


(Who, among us, thinks Iowa or even New Hampshire are representative of the U.S. population?) However, lots of money has now poured into those states.


The shakedown may continue—a Gingrich PAC, founded by the owner of Las Vegas Sands, has pledged $10 million, and the Perry campaign has enough cash to go the distance. But Romney just won the Republican nomination.


And he won with two simple, game-changing utterances.


His team should remove the clips from the archives and start airing them on a non-stop feedback loop—immediately.


The first such utterance occurred in Arizona. There, a routine endorsement from former Vice President Dan Quayle (just as Gingrich was soaring to the lead in every national polls) permitted Romney a space to declare himself.


Almost as a toss off, he said—with genuine passion (something missing thus far in Romney and even more remote in President Obama)—“I love this country. I love the future I see for it.”


Wow. Someone actually sees a “future” for this country.


On Medicare, the two Republicans both back “premium support,” a concept advanced by House Republicans to limit government spending for each beneficiary. Democrats say such a shift would end traditional Medicare.


But Mr. Gingrich would give beneficiaries the option of keeping traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Mr. Romney would also preserve a traditional Medicare option. Mr. Romney has not specified the level of spending per beneficiary or how fast it would grow over time — the critical variables determining how much in higher costs the elderly might face.


To avoid crippling attacks, said Ron Haskins, the top House Republican aide on welfare policy during Mr. Gingrich’s speakership, “You’ve got to be able to say the increases are not going to be that big, you’re protecting poor people, and preserving traditional Medicare.”


Following that formula, the House Budget Committee chairman, Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, last week eased his earlier “premium support” proposal enough to win over Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat. Their plan gives the eventual Republican nominee an opening to claim a bipartisan middle ground.


If the revised proposal does not yield the savings Mr. Ryan once cited — and Mr. Obama attacked — Republican strategists will not mind.


“That bravery has to occur after the election, not before it,” said Deborah Steelman Macon, a health policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush. “That’s just the way politics is.”


Immigration poses a special danger for Republicans. The fervor of conservatives to get tough on illegal border crossing collides with the need to avoid further erosion among Hispanics, who backed Mr. Obama by two to one in 2008.


Mr. Gingrich proposes what he calls a “humane” approach, allowing many of the 11 million people who immigrated illegally to the United States to remain. Mr. Romney has criticized that as “amnesty,” but he has shied away from proposing to round up and deport illegal immigrants.


To be sure, a presidential nominee’s policy proposals are only part of what determines the breadth of his or her general election appeal.


Mr. Haskins, for instance, has backed Mr. Romney. But he has been disillusioned by what he considers disingenuous rhetoric attacking primary rivals on immigration and Mr. Obama on health care, despite similarities between the administration’s health plan and the one Mr. Romney fashioned in Massachusetts.


“How can you believe anything Romney says about health care?” Mr. Haskins asked. “It’s hard for me to get serious about Romney’s positions.