Learning to love the individual mandate

A pivotal moment in Boston Globe reporter Brian C. Mooney's in-depth retrospective on Mitt Romney's role in passing healthcare reform in Massachusetts centers on a qualified acceptance of the plan's most politically fraught element:

“I’ve never been one for individual mandates in the past, but I do think that the way this has been proposed, in that everybody will do their part, that’s a compromise...I can buy into that.’’

That's Ted Kennedy speaking.  Romney's commitment to the mandate came earlier (it was Romney's plan that Kennedy responded to above) and was much less guarded when it came.  The mandate was far more in accord with Romney's principles (at that point in his career it still appeared that he had some) and with the interests of his support base than it was with Kennedy's.