Even Mitt Romney Doesn't Think the Obamacare Shutdown Is a Good Idea

Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney weighed in on the current Republican shenanigans on Friday in an interview with CNN

Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney weighed in on the current Republican shenanigans on Friday in an interview with CNN. And it sounds like the former Massachusetts governor, whom President Obama likes to credit with the "blueprint" for the Affordable Care Act, isn't a fan of the Ted Cruz-led plan to force a government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare. "We're more effective tactically not to use a shutdown of some kind to pursue the ... anti-Obamacare objective," Romney said. But Romney still thinks Republicans should try and get rid of the health care law:

"I think there's a better way of getting rid of Obamacare — my own view — and that is, one, delaying it by at least a year... The other would be potentially working hard to get Republicans elected to the House and Senate and they'd be able to do in a traditional way." 

Romney's argument — in part, to take another shot at what the party failed to do in 2012 — is actually pretty mild in its criticism of the wing of his party leading the current strategy. And Romney, it seems, declined to provide a similar criticism of a separate plan to refuse to lift the debt ceiling if Obama and Democratic-led Senate don't let the House Republicans pass every major policy goal of their party. That plan includes a provision that would delay Obamacare for a year. In essence, Romney's answer to the debt ceiling question was to blame Obama:

"There's no question that the political dysfunction is the cause of many of the problems of the country," he said, noting that leadership is needed "breakthrough" it. "And unfortunately, we haven't seen the kind of leadership in the White House. The president spends his time attacking the opposition party..." 

This is the second resurfacing for Romney in a week. On Wednesday, the former candidate headlined a fundraiser for Ken Cuccinelli, who's running in Virginia for governor on a conservative platform. The full CNN interview will air later on Friday afternoon.