I was reading this piece about the successful effort by Ron Paul supporters in Nevada to replace Romney backers with Paul backers on the Republican National Committee.

Read it and you'll come upon this quote from a pro-Romney official ousted by the Paulites:

"The only way we can get that damn socialist out of the White House is to vote for the man who will do it," she said.

I am not a fan of cheap political rhetoric. And frankly I regard as stupid anyone who falls for the notion that Obama is a "socialist" in any way in which the great majority of Beltway insiders aren't.

In fact I would argue that the single most successful effort to move the socialist ethic forward in the prior decade was Mitt Romney's pioneering effort at bringing the individual mandate to Massachusetts.

Again, there are people stupid enough to believe him when he says there is some sort of difference between the mandate on the state level vs. a mandate on the federal level.

Here's the difference: Romney socialized medicine on the state level. Obama socialized it on the federal level.

That's a difference of geography, not philosophy.

The idea that Citizen A must be charged a fee to provide health care for Citizen B is socialistic, period.

Anyway this woman is a damn fool. And so are you if you fall for this nonsense.

It's fine to argue that, as socialists go, Romney won't be as bad as Obama.

But it's silly to claim he is some sort of opponent of the idea of socializing assets and risks.

That's Ron Paul she's talking about - even if she's too much of a damned fool to know it.

ALSO: Check

this piece from our sister paper

on how Ron Paul dominated the New Orleans conventions.