Jim DeMint comes to Romney’s defense on health care

Mitt Romney's potential GOP rivals in 2012 have made a big issue out of the former governor's role in enacting the 2006 health care overhaul in Massachusetts. Like President Obama's 2010 federal legislation, Romney's plan included a mandate for individual coverage--a feature that's launched a wide array of legal and political challenges to the Obama plan from the right.

Just yesterday, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is flirting with a second run for president, said in New Hampshire that so-called Romneycare "was a mistake and Mitt should basically say that."

But Romney is now getting support from a surprising source: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who offers a hint at how the ex-governor might defend the health care bill to GOP voters.

The conservative tea party leader, who was a major Romney supporter in 2008, tells The Hill's Michael O'Brien that it was the state's Democratic legislature, not Romney, that inserted many of the provisions reviled by Republicans.

"One of the reasons I endorsed Romney (in 2008) is his attempts to make private health insurance available at affordable prices," DeMint says. "For me, I think he started with good ideas that were essentially hijacked by the Democratic legislature."

The only problem with DeMint's argument is that it's a defense that Romney, himself, has never articulated—in part, because the health care plan wasn't perceived as a negative issue for his campaign until recently. As he prepares for a second run at the White House, Romney has barely mentioned the issue, though his spokesman last month insisted he is "proud" of the legislation.

(Photo of Romney and DeMint in 2008: L.M. Otero/AP)