Governors do a lot of things, but there’s no doubt Mitt Romney’s signature accomplishment from his single term as governor of Massachusetts was the passage of the state health care plan that became known as Romneycare. It was Romney’s bad luck that, by the time he won the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, Barack Obama had passed a national health law based in part of Romneycare, and the Republican base hated it — a lot.

So Romney disavowed his signature accomplishment. It was an awkward process, with Romney attempting to argue that he did a good thing for his state but that doing something similar would be a very bad thing for the country. Running for president while disavowing his signature achievement was a heavy, daily burden on Romney’s campaign.

There are two GOP candidates who have such a signature achievement.The first is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who famously faced down public sector unions and won. Walker’s defeat of the unions is a huge favorite with the Republican base and has created a well of support that could see him through the rough spots in his campaign. Walker will run in the GOP primaries on his signature achievement, and if he wins the nomination he’ll do the same thing in the general election campaign.

The other candidate is Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio’s signature accomplishment is the Senate passage of the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill. It isn’t an actual achievement in the Romney or Walker sense because it never became law. But it’s a lot more than some other lawmakers have done, and it is what Rubio devoted the great part of his energy to and what he hoped would be a major legislative landmark.

Read the article “The GOP’s 2012 Nominee Disavowed his Own Signature Achievement. Could it Happen Again in 2016?” on washingtonexaminer.com.