Mitt Romney cpac, For Romney, the nominal frontrunner in the 2012 nomination fight, his goal with his CPAC speech was to do no harm. He did far better than that with a very well-received speech and a strong second place finish in the straw poll. If any of the top tier candidates strengthened their hand at CPAC, it was Romney.

I couldn't disagree more, and although my sample is hardly scientific, I think the vast majority of conservative activists, insiders and journalists would find Chris's analysis wildly off base.

Romney has a huge problem that a wide array of Tea Partyers, Republican activists and officials, and conservative operatives think he can't overcome: RomneyCare. He leads in polls a year before the first primary because of name recognition. So did Rudy Giuliani at the same point in the 2008 election cycle. (And a second place showing in the straw poll shows only that in can almost match Ron Paul in the number of students he can bus in to the confab.)

However, if there is one point of consensus among plugged-in Republicans on the 2012 field, it is that Romney can't win unless he does a mea culpa on RomneyCare. Since he didn't and he won't do that, he's not going to be the nominee. Other than Romney admirers (and even some of them!) it's hard to find serious Republican players who disagree with that.

And so when Romney ignored the topic at CPAC, he hardly did "no harm." To the contrary, he simply reinforced the notion that he has an insuperable problem. Not only did his "ignore the elephant in the room" tactic not go over well with Republican pols, activists and insiders, but the competition showed up. The presence of a number of smart conservative contenders who don't have the RomneyCare problem (e.g. Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.)) reinforced the underlying problem with Romney's candidacy: Why vote for him when Republicans can vote for someone who didn't originate ObamaCare-lite?