Romney and time

Continuing on a theme I have developed on this blog, the editors at NRO say that Romney just needs time for conservatives to get comfortable with him:

Part of what Romney needs is simply time, and even though the campaign season is already super-charged and the news cycles relentless, he will get it. It is still ten months before anyone votes, and conservatives will get a chance to evaluate Romney's sincerity and honesty over those months.

In the process of evaluating Romney over that time, the editors say that conservatives should be more welcoming to Romney’s rightward move:

Conservative openness to converts has made it possible for moderate Republicans who found themselves moving rightward to prosper, and given ideologically malleable Republicans an incentive to adopt conservative positions. In both cases, the effect was to facilitate the country’s rightward move.

Thus, the success of the conservative movement has been in part due to gaining converts, not only among the electorate, but also amongst political leaders, and not just by replacing them. Rejecting a convert like Romney early on would do nothing to advance conservative causes, much less Republican success. Personally, I think that conservatives will come to embrace Romney because he represents so many of those ideals that conservatives espouse, even if he was not always that way.