ideological migrators

The “stubborn question” remaining about Mitt Romney, the New York Times asserted after his primary wins Tuesday: “Can a onetime Northeastern governor with a history of ideological migration win the Republican presidential nomination in the era of the Tea Party, with all its demands of political purity and passion?”

Took the words right out of my mouth—especially the part about “ideological migration.”

In Romney’s defense, I say it’s a politician’s prerogative to ideologically migrate. And doesn’t Newt Gingrich have a history of spousal migration to overcome? Rick Santorum supports an electrified fence to prevent illegal ideological migration, but has ideologically migrated on its voltage. Probably the only candidate safe on the key IM issue is Ron Paul, whose last ideological migration was as a teen during World War I, when he switched from Wildroot to Brylcreem.