KUDLOW: ROMNEY IS PROFOUNDLY CONSERVATIVE, AND A WINNER

KUDLOW:

[ROMNEY] would limit the government budget to 20 percent of GDP, slash $500 billion in his first term, and restrain Medicaid, food stamps, and other entitlement transfers before block-granting them to the states. His Medicare reform is near identical to the Wyden-Ryan approach. He’s for a true, all-of-the-above energy policy that would take the regulatory handcuffs off drilling on federal lands. He would repeal Obamacare. And he has come up with a supply-side tax cut that lowers marginal rates by 20 percent across-the-board and drops the corporate tax to 25 percent. 

These are very conservative positions.  

...  The second half of the week was dominated by Team Romney’s Etch A Sketch gaffe. But folks shouldn’t let this fog out Romney’s brilliant economic-freedom speech at the beginning of the week. 

On the night of his big Illinois victory, Romney offered a moral exposition of the merits of economic freedom and free-enterprise business. And all the while, he mockingly referred to Professor Obama, who has no clue about what makes business tick. 

Romney railed against overregulation, noting that Obama’s regulators would have shut down the Wright brothers for their “dust pollution.” He said the Obama government “would have banned Thomas Edison’s light bulb,” adding, “Oh. That’s right. They just did.” 

Romney made it clear that economic freedom is the key to the American economy. He said, “The history of the world has shown that economic freedom is the only force that has consistently lifted people out of poverty.” He added, “The genius of America is that we nurture these dreams and the dreamers. We honor them, and, yes, we reward them.” 

...  “This election will be about principle. Our economic freedom will be on the ballot.” He said essentially the same thing the day before during a University of Chicago speech. And for many months he has been talking about the battle for America’s soul, between Obama’s big-government entitlement state and his vision of a merit-based opportunity society.  

This is Reagan-like. This is Jack Kemp-like. This is Paul Ryan’s American idea. This is, in short, profoundly conservative. An election winner.

ROMNEY'S 2 TERMS AS PRESIDENT - WITH A GOP CONGRESS - MAY VERY WILL BE EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS THE BEST CONSERVATIVE TERMS OF COOLIDGE AND REAGAN.