Is Mitt Romney the Next Phil Gramm?

Steve Kornacki of Unity08, which advocates a bipartisan presidential ticket, describes the parallels:

Mr. Gramm, then a second-term senator from Texas, entered [the 1996 presidential race] by aggressively playing to the party’s right-wing base voters to capitalize on their well-grounded view that front-running Senator Bob Dole was not a true believer. . . .

Mr. Gramm . . . crafted a stump speech that doubled as a checklist of every conservative interest group’s pet issues. . . .

And then there was his Texas-sized bankroll. In the first quarter of 1995, Mr. Gramm, with his Schumer-esque fund-raising abilities, reeled in $8.7 million. That’s nothing compared to today’s numbers, but 12 years ago it was a haul—nearly double Mr. Dole’s paltry $4.4 million first-quarter yield. . . .

There are already signs of the Gramm campaign’s profligacy in Mr. Romney’s operation, which last week reported spending nearly $12 million of the $23 million they took in—a burn rate every bit as unsustainable as Mr. Gramm’s.