Romney is moving to the left even before he captures the Republican nomination

Intrade shows Romney a lock on the Republican nomination so it isn't too surprising that he is already moving leftward. I thought that it might be later, after he had locked up the nomination. But Intrade shows the odds of Romney winning the nomination at 70 percent at the moment. So Romney moves to the left on homosexuals. Now he starts talking about a national value added tax. The contradictions in Romney's proposals are overwhelming. He talks about a flat tax, but he only wants cuts in tax rates for those making less than $200,000. Romney surely seems to want to make it clear that he is not for the wealthy. From the WSJ:

What about his reform principles? Mr. Romney talks only in general terms. "Moving to a consumption-based system is something which is very attractive to me philosophically, but I've not been able to sufficiently model it out to jump on board a consumption-based tax. A flat tax, a true flat tax is also attractive to me. What I like—I mean, I like the simplification of a flat tax. I also like removing the distortion in our tax code for certain classes of investment. And the advantage of a flat tax is getting rid of some of those distortions."

Since Mr. Romney mentioned a consumption tax, would he rule out a value-added tax?

He says he doesn't "like the idea" of layering a VAT onto the current income tax system. But he adds that, philosophically speaking, a VAT might work as a replacement for some part of the tax code, "particularly at the corporate level," as Paul Ryan proposed several years ago. What he doesn't do is rule a VAT out.

Amid such generalities, it's hard not to conclude that the candidate is trying to avoid offering any details that might become a political target. And he all but admits as much. "I happen to also recognize," he says, "that if you go out with a tax proposal which conforms to your philosophy but it hasn't been thoroughly analyzed, vetted, put through models and calculated in detail, that you're gonna get hit by the demagogues in the general election."

That also seems to explain his refusal to propose cuts in individual tax rates, except for people who make less than $200,000, which not coincidentally is also Mr. Obama's threshold for defining "the rich."

"The president will characterize anyone running for office, and me in particular, as just in there to lower taxes for rich people, and that is not my intent," Mr. Romney says. . . .