Steve Kornacki: Why Mitt Romney is No Nelson Rockefeller

Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor.

...Comparisons between the 2012 and 1964 GOP races completely miss the mark, and treating the current contest as a repeat of Goldwater vs. Rockefeller is a poor way to understand the evolution of the Republican Party since the 1960s and how Romney fits into it today.

The most important thing to realize about the Nelson Rockefeller who ran for president in 1964 is that he was an authentic political liberal, a believer in the power of government to fix the nation’s biggest problems, and he made essentially no effort to hide it. He favored strong civil rights laws, expansive anti-poverty programs, and major investments in education, healthcare and conservation. And the most important thing to realize about the Republican Party of 1964 is that to many of its leaders and rank-and-file members there was nothing at all alarming about Rockefeller’s liberalism. It was common in a party that was littered with Northeast moderates and liberals and light on conservative white southerners....

This is why the Romney-as-Rockefeller comparisons aren’t very helpful. Romney just isn’t running the kind of campaign that Rockefeller ran. Ever since he decided to give up on winning elections in Massachusetts and pursue the presidency, Romney has been tailoring his positions and rhetoric to the very conservative base of the national GOP, throwing out his old beliefs if need be. Rockefeller happily picked fights with the right, but Romney has been doing everything he can to make conservatives believe he’s just like them. If he wins the nomination, Romney will presumably affirm a platform that calls for repealing healthcare reform, outlawing abortion, protecting “traditional marriage,” extending the Bush tax cuts in perpetuity, undoing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms, radically curbing the EPA’s power, and opposing the “class warfare” agenda of Democrat — just as all of his opponents would....