Going even further...

If "Romney-care" is the sort of thing that gets an independent voter to vote for Mitt... is that a bad thing?

Romney-care was a state-mandated level of medical and prescription coverage that MA required citizens to carry, either through their employers or through subsidized means outside of the work place.  Since it was implemented in 2006, the percentage of uninsured in MA has dropped from more than 6% to less than 3%, while the number of bankruptcies filed due to medical costs or health issues has gone up by about 33%.  A 2011 study found the program to have accomplished most of its goals, and only future increases in costs and subsidies could derail the effort (source HERE).

I have made the case in the past that this is a good example of allowing a State to run itself.  The program does not draw on Federal funding, so it isn't costing ME anything... it only costs those earning wages in Mass.  Romney himself has said that he wouldn't support such an effort on a Federal level... but feels it is a perfectly justified move at a State level.

Nothing about Romney-care conflicts with the fundamental aspects of conservative politics... mandated, centralized and regulated medical coverage seems as anti-conservative as it comes, but it isn't the Fed that is mandating it, is it?  If it isn't an enumerated power, then it reverts to the States and to the People... NEVER to the Fed... right?   Where is the beef here?

The problem, in my eyes, is that Romney hasn't made his case adequately from the word GO.  Neither has Santorum.  Both have gotten so mired in the fringe details of their existence that the core principles that make them viable candidates have become utterly lost.  I think Romney has done a better job at ignoring these fringe details (his tax returns, for one example) and allowing the rest of the liberal world to exhaust themselves with them.  Santorum seems to want to engage in debate about the moral issues he feels are so paramount in America today... and that makes him an easy mark.  As Governor of California, Reagan made many decisions that probably would have marked him as less-than-conservative in the eyes of a broader America... but he didn't allow himself to be baited into those sorts of confrontations.  He kept his focus on the national agenda, and didn't wear his morals and faith on his shirt sleeves.

Romney, as the front-runner in the primary, needs to STOP trying to defend his positions on Romney-care.  It doesn't (or shouldn't) apply AT ALL, since it was a State issue and the Commonwealth of Mass. acted within its constitutional rights when it enacted it.  Santorum needs to stop espousing the need for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman UNLESS it is strictly and clearly understood to be as a citizen of these United States and a resident of Pennsylvania... and NOT as the future President of the United States, since that is beyond the President's authority to change or control anyway.  Morality cannot be legislated, and faith cannot be mandated.

Both should make it a priority to show the hypocrisy behind the liberal agenda... that alone would make them seem miles ahead of the game, and is (I am convinced) the reason why Reagan ran away with the nomination in 1980 and was able to become such a driving figure long before the general election swung into force.  He showed America the fallacy of Carter's "malaise" and provided a map to get out of it.  He countered the liberal view that America was failing with a measurable and specific "pride" in both what America was then and could be in the future.  THAT was the paradigm that Reagan changed, far more than his understanding of Arthur Laffer's graphic representation of Keyensian economic theory

I'd say we are ripe for that sort of contest right now.