Steve B. asks the question of the election cycle:

I still have no idea why the GOP field is giving Romney a pass on health care. The former governor’s health care included an individual mandate forcing taxpayers to purchase insurance; it provided benefits to immigrants who entered the country illegally; and it covers abortion — and somehow, this hardly ever comes up in the middle of the GOP primary contest. A year ago, the right was saying Romney wouldn’t even be considered unless he renounced and apologized for his health care law, and now, it’s effectively become a non-issue.

Jonathan Bernstein recently argued that Romney’s GOP rivals are “blowing it.” I agree.

I don’t think this is a very hard question, but it’s not one with one simple answer. On the one hand, business plan candidates like Herman Cain have absolutely no reason to involve themselves in the cut-and-thrust of campaign politics, and probably a strong disincentive to slam the party’s likely candidate for 2012. If anything, such a thing complicates how they’re perceived and could make book deals and FOX gigs harder to come by. That alone is a fairly substantial chunk of the Republican contenders, one that includes Cain, Santorum, and probably Gingrich (though Gingrich now seems to think he’s for real). On the other hand, you have your fringe contingent that either prefers a different reality to the one we’ve got (i.e. Bachmann), or is far more interested in their own pet things than trying to play a role in mainstream debate (that’d be Ron Paul, and perhaps Gary Johnson too, though he’s pretty marginal). Ron Paul wants to bring back the gold standard and kill off the Federal Reserve. Gary Johnson wants to legalize pot. Bachmann wants to stop Barack Obama from surrendering to Uruguay. Their obsessions–which are admittedly of very different levels of merit–tend to crowd out issues that other people care about. And then there’s Perry (and Pawlenty, back when he was in), who have made some jabs at this but haven’t been willing to follow through with a vengeance. In fairness, Perry hasn’t yet made his move, and he might well slam Romney on health care closer to the Iowa Caucuses. So that’s the one proviso.

The one wild card here is the one I can’t figure out. Jon Huntsman has for some reason not made a fuss of this issue even though he’d probably do best with it. Political attacks’ effectiveness depends a lot upon the deliverer. Michele Bachmann saying that Obama is detached from reality counts for a lot less than, for example, were Romney to say it (though it still wouldn’t count for much, as it’s a banal attack). Given that, an attack on Romney’s health care system coming from a smart, mainstream, wonkish dude like Huntsman would go a lot further than from, say, Rick Santorum. Huntsman is the most like Romney in the field and stands to gain a lot by shaking loose Romney’s support. Admittedly, Huntsman used to support the mandate concept himself, but I seriously doubt Romney would be in a position to call Huntsman out for just one flip-flop. That would just open him up for Huntsman to strike back on the dozens of flip-flops on Romney’s record. It’s practically fool-proof. Why Huntsman hasn’t tried to turn this into his big issue baffles me, the political calculus for him to do so is strong, and striking this pose would elevate him among conservatives while not dooming him in a possible general election. I can only conclude that, even in a field of incompetence, Huntsman is a strikingly inept candidate, one of the least able to sense and exploit opportunities that is out there. Maybe he has some hidden reason for not doing so (perhaps he’s a closet Obamacare fan?), but from where I sit it looks like plain miscalculation, and he makes up a third contingent with Perry and the late for the campaign Pawlenty: the incompetents.

What this adds up to is a unique situation in which Romney’s biggest threat has been mostly ignored due to the unique structure of this year’s GOP field: you have a group of candidates that splits easily into three segments, the business plan types, the fringers, and the incompetents. These groups are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but Romneycare provides an interesting perspective on just how awful the Republican field is: the business planners lack the motive to attack, the fringers lack both the motive (and the opportunity, frequently), and the incompetents lack the smarts and determination to get it done. Why hasn’t Romney come under attack for inspiring the Affordable Care Act? Read the title of the post.