Andrew McCarthy former Giuliani and Romney supporter,

[T]he choice in a nomination contest is not candidate A versus one’s ideal nominee. It is candidate A versus candidates B, C, D, et al. On that score, the contest was no contest — Mitt was easily, in my mind, the best remaining in the field.

That, of course, is not a stirring endorsement. I don't believe that "Romneycare" is likely to be pursued by Romney were he to be elected. I think the animus against him over it is overblown. I don't believe he is committed to it in principle, but in the context of Massachusetts, he saw it as the least of a bad choice. His decision to be honest about it is much more respectable than the pretense of others that they were always averse to any hint of a national solution ot the steep rise of healthcare. His current approach of undoing the interruptions of the doctor-patient relationship with employers, insurers and care providers pulling in different directions and leaving patients out of the loop makes the most sense to me. Allow medical savings plans and allow providers to negotiate prices with medicare patients, otherwise leave it up to the states and their people.

Elizabeth MacDonald has a list of her favorite quotations. Here are two I like too:

“Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”— Dame Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister, Great Britain "The four most dangerous words in investing are, 'It's different this time.'"— Sir John Templeton

Ed Driscoll rounds up Democrats' cynicism.

The dominoes are starting to fall. John Bolton endorsed Mitt Romney tonight on Greta Van Susteren, following Nikki Haley, and Pam Bondi.

Michelle Malkin: The abysmal incompetence of the non-Romneys; Huntsman, Gingrich, Perry all go Occupier; Santorum declines Good for Santorum, but it just reinforces my point about the ineptness of the tea party in preparing for this primary campaign. Romney has been organizing, raising money and studying the process for 6 years. He came in prepared. That is what a competent candidate does, not jump in at the last minute because the hard right have left a gap in the field. I'm not sure that someone like Sarah Palin would be a winning candidate against Obama, which is why she wisely stayed out. I wish the others had read the tea leaves that well. Mitt Romney, I'm convinced is far more conservative that he lets on, and that he's playing this just right to win the independents and swing voters who will not go for Obama next year if given an alternative who doesn't scare them. All of them except Mitt has thrilled the Not-Mitt wing of the tea party only to find shortly afterward that the thrill is gone. The only real avenues of attack on him are to paint him as a flip-flopper (although why he would flip to a conservative position and then flip back if he gets elected by the GOP makes no sense to me), a covert supporter of Obamacare (which I really doubt, considering how often he has criticized it and promised to repeal it,) or the Democrats' attack, he made a fortune destroying peoples' jobs. On the third one, read Michelle's post. It's perfect, and she's no Romney fan.

Newt should be renamed "Spite" GingrichI expected him or his superpac to launch attack ads against Mitt Romney, but these attacks on his business at Bain Capital, calling him a corporate raider, and accusing him of making millions by putting people out of work, are the same ones Ted Kennedy used to attack him, and will undoubtedly be used by Obama if Romney is the nominee. This is expected from a Democrat, but not from a putative conservative. Huckabee used a subtle version of the same populist attack in 2008, basically attacking Romney for making a lot of money, as if but for him and his company those companies would still be going concerns and those people still enjoying their benefits and paychecks. The way Bain Capital made money was by investing in an underperforming company managing it to increase its stock prices then selling the stock at a profit. Sometimes these companies went out of business, but more of them became more profitable. If they didn't increase the stock value, Bain Capital lost money. And the startups funded by Bain Capital created hundreds of thousands of jobs, just as Obama claims to be doing with his stimulus and proposed tax increases, but not at taxpayers' expense. There are truly predatory CEOs like "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap, but I seriously doubt that Mitt Romney was one. The idea that conservatives would adopt this stance against the only one left in the race whose main career was in the private sector creates massive cognitive dissonance and plays into the hands of Obama..