Mitt Romney's turn to the right grows sharper with every new campaign day.
At week's end, Romney cracked a birther-type joke at a campaign appearance, making a play for the deep crazies of his party who might still be harboring doubts about his ultra-conservative credentials.
He earlier approved the inclusion of a Republican platform statement barring all abortions, even in the cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the woman.
He supports his vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan's budget that will turn Medicare into a voucher program -- and will certainly end the guarantee of Federal health coverage for older Americans. He stands by his commitment to lower taxes for those making over $250,000 a year. And, in concert with that, he backs Ryan's plan to cut back on most social programs like Food Stamps to fund that upper-class entitlement.
He wants to open up all Federally-owned land to exploitation by special commercial interests in the 50 states -- repudiating the philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt.
Finally, he willfully refuses to reveal at least the past five years of his tax returns apparently because he believes that as a rich fellow, he has no duty to do so for the American people -- though every presidential candidate of recent memory in both parties has done so.
Romney is banking on his conviction that the votes of reaction in America will overcome the votes of reason in 2012. In the words of the poet Robert Frost, his credo could well be: "And nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."