Think Progress lists 8 ways Romney is more conservative than George W. Bush.
- Romney’s tax cut plan is four times larger, more heavily weighted to benefit ultra wealthy.
- Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Romney supports repealing virtually all campaign finance laws.
- Bush supported comprehesive immigration reform, a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants and provisions of the DREAM Act. Romney opposes all of it.
- Bush enacted a historic expansion of Medicare. Romney wants to end Medicare as we know it.
- Bush signed a substantial increase to the minimum wage. Romney opposes increasing the minimum wage.
- Bush created higher fuel efficiency standards. Romney says even current standards are too high.
- Bush acknowledged global warming is caused by humans. Romney says “we don’t know.”
- Bush lauched one of the biggest land conservation programs in U.S. history. Romney says the federal government owns too much land.
And Ezra Klien points out that a large part of the GOP agenda is fiscal, and can therefore be passed via reconciliation rules. In other words, a President Romney is likely to enjoy a majority in both the House and the Senate ... and could implement a large part of the above without having to overcome a filibuster.
If filibuster survives the first day of the new session ... which it might not, given that the GOP would probably want to fill all those judicial seats they have prevented Obama from filling, and fill them with people who'd make Alito look moderate and Thomas look principled.
Motivated yet?
Now, I don't for a minute believe Romney is actually a lot more conservative than Dubya. On most of the above, he's just pandering. But he is utterly ruthless, utterly ambitious, and terrified from his dyed hair down to his wingtips of the GOP base and their masters.
In other words, I suspect that in terms of how he would actually govern he'd be worse than Dubya. He might even be worse than Santorum would have been.