In the wake of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s disastrous debate performance, many conservatives are facing the reality that they may be stuck with Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee just as they were stuck with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 2008. Tim Carney describes in his column how this came to be even though Romney, like McCain, was the driving force behind a law that was anathema to conservatives. The difference is in 2008, there wasn’t a realistic chance that any Republican would win given the anti-Bush sentiment, whereas this time around, things are reversed, and it’s President Obama who is the vulnerable incumbent. So there’s a pretty decent chance that if Romney is the nominee, he’ll be our next president.

The questions for conservatives wrestling with the prospect of a President Romney are: how do they prevent him from governing as a big government Republican once in office, given his liberal past and penchant for shifting positions? How do they ensure that the guy who was the architect of the Massachusetts health care law actually fights to repeal Obamacare? How do they get a calculating politician who attacked his rival for daring to criticize Social Security to actually reform entitlements? Though it can’t make up for true presidential leadership, the one way conservatives could attempt to force Romney to govern as a conservative or temper his big government impulses, would be to pack Congress with as many conservative, or Tea Party, members as possible.