As it becomes more apparent that Mitt Romney isn't the obvious nominee, he sees a need to really cinch up his relationship with a base that increasingly won't vote for him in the primary. So he goes off to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and gives a speech, hoping to solidify his credentials as a conservative. And he says to the assembled crowd, "I was a severely conservative Republican governor." Now as it turns out, those weren't his prepared remarks, which read, "I was a conservative Republican governor." He, all by his own self, wove in there the word "severely." Limbaugh has lampooned this. The entire conservative base has lampooned this. In fact, someone, by proxy, has now registered severelyconservative.com. When you, as a would-be executive, go to a conference of your base and instead of solidifying your support, you instead say things that erode it, you're not gifted with skills of execution. Damn, but a lot of people wasted money on that campaign... ETC: I read that Romney wins the CPAC vote. That's what happens when you pay to bring as many of your supporters as you can muster. The bigger news? Santorum (31%) was only 7 points behind Romney (38%), and Santorum didn't have any money to ship people in. | 
