Whatever Romney's ideological moorings, there was a clear political calculus to his stance. In his 2008 campaign, he'd suffered mightily from his reputation as a flip-flopper, a man with his finger in the political wind who changed his position depending on what he was running for. This time, Romney and his aides vowed, no one could accuse him of that. He would stand unflinchingly on principle, even when it cost him. No one would be able to accuse him of shifting with the tide.

Fast forward to today, when Romney is under fire for a leaked video from a fundraiser. On Monday night, he hastened to convene a press conference to clarify the damaging description of 47 percent of Americans as "victims" who are "dependent on government." You could imagine a candidate in that situation apologizing to those he'd offended, or admitting he'd made a blunder. But Romney would only go so far as to say his remarks were "not elegantly stated." He said he stood behind the gist of his comments:

It's a message which I'm going to carry and continue to carry, which is, look, the president's approach is attractive to people who aren't paying taxes, because, frankly, my discussion about lowering taxes isn't as attractive to them, and therefore I'm not likely to draw them in to my campaign as effectively as those who are in the middle. This is really a discussion about the political process of winning the election. And of course I want to help all Americans -- all Americans -- have a bright and prosperous future, and I'm convinced the president's approach has not done that and will not do that.

Romney's response was reminiscent of less than a week earlier, when, despite the intervening revelation of four American deaths in Libya, he had similarly declined to repudiate his statement criticizing the American embassy in Egypt for attempting to placate protesters: "I don't think we ever hesitate when we see something which is a violation of our principles," he said to a question about whether he'd been too quick to assign blame. "We express immediately when we feel that the president and his administration have done something which is inconsistent with the principles of America."

What these statements have in common is a refusal to back down, even when the facts have changed or a mistake has obviously been made. For better or worse, Romney -- the author of a book called No Apology -- has adopted a policy of never admitting to having erred.

But in this campaign, the main rap on Romney hasn't been that he's wishy-washy. It has been that he's a radical right-winger who doesn't relate to regular people. It's not clear whether this is because Romney successfully put the flip-flopper thing to rest, or because his opponent took a different strategic tack than expected and Romney failed to adapt, still fighting the 2008 war instead.