THE REAL ROMNEY? OR HIS NEXT MASK?

My first reaction to this was: Screw all of you who said we saw the real Romney in the debates, and he was a moderate. This is the real Romney -- the same guy who made the "47%" video.

Or is this just another Romney act? I'll explain below:

... In a conference call on Wednesday afternoon with his national finance committee, Mr. Romney said that the president had followed the "old playbook" of wooing specific interest groups -- "especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people," Mr. Romney explained -- with targeted gifts and initiatives....

"With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift," he said. "Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents' plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008."

The president's health care plan, he added, was also a useful tool in mobilizing African-American and Hispanic voters....

"You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you're now going to get free health care, particularly if you don't have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge," he said. "Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus. But in addition with regards to Hispanic voters, the amnesty for children of illegals, the so-called Dream Act kids, was a huge plus for that voting group." ...

Is this the real Romney? It probably is -- Romney labors under the delusion that he's a self-made man who derived no benefits from his father's wealth.

But I think it's also possible that Romney is just doing what he always does: recalibrating his pronouncements about the state of the nation in order to curry favor with the people he needs to impress to get where he wants to go. In seeking and holding public office in Massachusetts, he became somewhat liberal. When he wanted to run for the Republican presidential nomination, he whipsawed to the right. He took a while Etch A Sketching his primary positions once he was running in the general election -- apparently he was afraid he'd alienate the billionaire wingnuts whose money he was still begging for -- but he eventually recast himself as a centrist.

And now this. Could he just be saying it in the hope that right-leaning corporate moguls will offer him more slots on more corporate boards, or that he'll get a Murdoch commenting gig, or a better book deal from a right-wing imprint?

However real or fake this version of Romney is, the contempt he's expressing for people who don't have a soft life like his puts him up there with the Limbaughs and Gingriches. I don't know which would be more contemptible: really being this guy while pretending not to be throughout the campaign, or faking it now in an after-the-fact attempt to win wingnut love.

But you know what's going to be fun? Hearing the righties tell us that if Romney had talked like this during the campaign, he'd have won the election. Don't laugh -- they really will say that.