Mark (Levin): I am well aware of how McCain has downplayed the class warfare motivation for opposing the tax cuts — I wrote about it in May. Yes, he’s fidgeted. But at least he did not change his position on the issue of tax cuts and tax increases. He holds a position that I believe to be philosophically wrong but often correct in its results (for example, he has never voted for a tax increase). He reminds people that he voted against the tax cuts, even as he promises to extend them. (I have not seen Romney’s explanation for why his position on the tax cuts changed — I’d be grateful to anyone who can send it along.)

Your original point was that the Democrats would disembowel McCain for inconsistency. I am simply pointing out that Romney is much, much weaker on that point than McCain. For all of McCain’s bad positions, and his sour disposition toward conservatives (both good arguments for voting against him), he’s pretty consistent.

Look at what Bush did to Kerry in 2004, to great effect. Kerry supported, in writing, a unilateral invasion of Iraq, because he thought it would help him politically. Then he balked about that same invasion when he faced Howard Dean in the Democratic primary. Rove and company just took him apart for it. Yet for all of his posturing and flip-flopping on Iraq, John Kerry was as steady as Plymouth Rock for most of his career — an out-and-out abortion-loving, gun-grabbing, tax-hiking leftist. For all of that consistency, he was (rightly) sunk by charges that he was a flip-flopper.

The Dems would likewise shred Romney on inconsistency, but I fear that they’d have a lot more material to work with.