United Liberty

Mitt Romney, the soon-to-be crowned Republican nominee, and his campaign haven’t done much in recent days to calm the nerves of conservatives. As mentioned earlier today, Romney’s people have been heavily involved in rules changes that are the beginning of the end of grassroot activism in the party process. Romney once again defended his health care reform law, which was the blueprint for ObamaCare and the main reason many GOP primary rejected his candidacy out of hand.

Another slap in the face of grassroots activists came from Avik Roy, who advises Romney on health policy. During an interview on MSNBC, Roy weighed in on some of the platform positions forged, hinting that they posed a problem to a candidate trying to run close to the middle and that activists wouldn’t have much pull inside Romney’s presidency:

Avik Roy, a health care policy adviser to the Romney campaign, said the GOP platform — which includes provisions like a “human life amendment” to the Constitution that would ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother — should not be considered a reflection of Romney’s personal views.

“I think it is a statement of what activists in the party, the consensus among activists in the party believe should be the core of activist conservatism,” Roy said. “But that is different from what a candidate who is appealing to the center of the country is going to try to do.”

Asked how much purchase those activists would have in the White House should Romney become president, Roy said, “very little.”

Yeah, that’s not going to fly. What Team Romney doesn’t understand, and they haven’t grasped this for some time now, is that they’re not giving many reasons for conservative, grassroots activists to get solidly behind him. Yes, they’re going to come to vote against Obama, but if Romney isn’t careful, many grassroots activists aren’t going to lift a finger for his campaign.