Following me and Beinart, Paul Waldman dissects the quixotic quest to discover Romney's "true beliefs:"
[A]ny hope or dread (depending on your perspective) that the "real" Mitt Romney is more moderate than the current Republican primary version is not so much incorrect as misconceived. One can presume that somewhere underneath all that calculation there are firmly held beliefs, but what they are is not all that important. The Mitt Romney who is president, just like the Mitt Romney we see today, will act according to the incentives with which he is presented and what he fears. The result will be a presidency reflecting today's Republican Party, which is to say an extremely conservative one.
Larison thinks Dubya's presidency proves the incentives align in the opposite direction:
Bush assumed that he could take conservatives for granted, and he could, which is what he proceeded to do. Bush presented himself as a conservative while arguably governing farther to the left than anyone, including his father, in the previous thirty years. Most conservatives accepted the act, and largely ignored the substance. If there’s one thing we know about Romney, it is that he is quite capable of pretending to be conservative without being one. He may govern that way for as long as he believes it is advantageous, but there is nothing to stop him from keeping up the pretense of conservatism while enacting policies that are nothing of the kind.
But Bush was an evangelical Christian – which provided critical bona fides. Romney is, as far as many base Republicans are concerned, a member of a strange cult. He has no connection to them in their hearts and guts. Hence my view he will be completely beholden to the worst of their instincts. And fail in office even to command his own party, let alone the country.
The Dish 