With Rick Santorum’s withdrawal from the Republican presidential race Tuesday, Mitt Romney has now effectively won his party’s nod to go up against President Obama in November. But winning the Republican nomination in 2012 has required Romney to move well to the right of any GOP presidential nominee since Barry Goldwater. The Arizona senator, of course, relished what he acknowledged was the extremism of his positions. Romney, by contrast, has been compelled to become an extremist by the Republican primary electorate.




In September, 2009 Atlantic Monthly named 
