For the hordes of Republicans left thinking post-2008, “Had only we run a real moderate!” yesterday’s news that Rick Santorum is dropping out, thus clearing the way for Mitt Romney, was quite a relief. Finally we’ll be able to prove that stubbornly unprovable theory that the only way to beat Democrats is by running Republicans who sound and govern just like Democrats.

But actually, as everyone who’s read, seen, or heard Ann Coulter at any point over the last six months is well aware, Mitt Romney is no moderate at all. Rather, he’s a “good, solid conservative,” as Coulter told Greg Gutfeld’s “Red Eye” panel last week. The reason people are confused about Romney’s politics, she explained, is because “We’ve always had a liberal-moderate Republican in every Republican primary. It was, you know, Ford-Reagan, Bush-Reagan, McCain-Bush, and then McCain-Romney. Well, Romney was the conservative alternative just four years ago, how did he suddenly transform into a liberal? I’ll tell you how. Because people are always fighting the last war, so they have to find somebody in this campaign who is the establishment.”

Yes, that must be it. Conservatives are criticizing Romney because of an innate reflex to always fight the last war, which in this case means pretending Romney is someone he’s not simply to score one against the establishment — even if that means losing a perfectly good conservative presidential candidate in the process. It’s certainly an interesting theory, but here’s a somewhat less complex theory: Conservatives don’t like Mitt Romney because we’ve been listening to what he says.

From his political birth up through the 2000s, Romney reliably backed Democrats, spoke stridently in favor of abortion, nearly doubled corporate taxes in Massachusetts, publicly panicked about global warming (at one point, he even worked with climate alarmist/forced-sterilization enthusiast John Holdren), and, as his masterstroke, engineered an unpopular, unaffordable, unsuccessful government takeover of Massachusetts’ health-care system. But for these sins against conservatism he repented — just in time for the 2008 campaign. Which is all well and good; conservatives are a forgiving bunch. And Ann’s right that Mitt positioned himself to the right of McCain in 2008. But did that make him an actual, William F. Buckley-style conservative? Or simply someone taking advantage of his opponent’s GOP primary Achilles’ heel?

So let’s give Mitt and Ann the benefit of the doubt and do the utterly irresponsible thing of just forgetting Romney’s entire political history, focusing, instead, just on his current campaign. Start the highlight reel:

● TARP. Romney says he still supports it, and that Hank Paulson deserves credit for “keeping the country out of a great depression.” [March 22, 2012]

● Inflation and the dollar. Romney supports Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s inflationary dollar policy, which in 2011 used imaginary money to purchase 61 percent of U.S. debt, driving consumer prices up almost 10 percent in a single year. “I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy. He’s doing as good a job as he thinks he can do in the Federal Reserve. But look, I’m not going to spend my time going after Ben Bernanke. I’m not going to take my effort and focus on the Federal Reserve. I gotta focus my effort on the administration.” [“The Kudlow Report,” April 2011]

● The size of government. Romney believes cutting government hurts the economy: “If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy.” [Feb. 21, 2012]

● Welfare. Romney says it’s working and he doesn’t care about the poor anyway: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.” [CNN, Feb. 1, 2012]

● Entitlements. Romney hit Obama from the left for “cutting” $500 billion from Medicare in a January CNN debate. In Florida, he told seniors, “We will never go after Medicare and Social Security.” He ripped Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich for proposing alternatives to Social Security.

● Minimum wage. Romney supports not only the minimum wage, but also indefinite guaranteed increases that are indexed to inflation, a position first expressed in 2002. “I haven’t changed my mind on that,” he told reporters on Feb. 1, 2012.

● Conservatives. Romney thinks they’re easily led, drawn to the loudest person in the room: “It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We’ve seen throughout the campaign if you’re willing to say outrageous things that are accusative, attacking President Obama, that you’re going to jump up in the polls. I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support.” [Feb. 28, 2012]

● Democrats/Obama. Romney promises not to attack them too much: “Well, my message is, I’m not going to say outrageous things about the president or about my opponents. It gets headlines and a lot of excitement, and it gets you, by the way, a number of days in the polls to get a nice little bump … I’m not going to attack them personally. I mean, I know that’s fun, but it’s just not productive.” [“The Kudlow Report,” March 6, 2012]

Romney has subsequently abandoned many of the above statements, claiming that they were either taken out of context or were poorly worded.

Republicans have a long and pathetic history of allowing themselves to be used by power-seeking politicos who find wearing the “R” next to their name advantageous. So long as a “Republican” beats a Democrat, the thinking goes, conservatism prevails. If only. When Michael Bloomberg used the Republican Party and Rudy Giuliani’s legacy to leap into New York City’s mayoral office, the party didn’t blink. At least we’ll win, Republicans thought. But as soon as Bloomberg assumed office, he raised taxes, increased spending, and made the New York City government more intrusive. The fact is, Bloomberg would have just as easily called himself a Democrat if his then-opponent Mark Green had happened to be running as a Republican, just as Mitt Romney would be perfectly comfortable running today as a reformer Democrat if Barack Obama happened to be a Republican.

Republicans have no obligation to “rally around” Romney, who has only won a majority of Republican voters in five of the 30 states that have voted thus far. Republicans’ only obligation is to their principles.

Obama is by all objective measures an unusually weak incumbent president. Why not seize the opportunity to run an actual conservative? It’s not too late. Many states still haven’t held primaries or caucuses, and the national convention is months away. There’s plenty of time to continue voting against Romney, push for a brokered convention, and try to take one last stab at saving the Republican Party and, ultimately, America.

Tom Elliott is the executive producer of The Peter Schiff Show. He formerly produced Laura Ingraham’s radio show and wrote editorials for The New York Post and New York Sun. Follow him on Twitter @tomselliott