Maybe I am just a RINO establishment squish, but I have found myself this election cycle being very comfortable with the idea of Mitt Romney as the GOP Presidential nominee. Granted, I would prefer other options, but if Romney is the nominee I would be very okay pounding sidewalks on his behalf against Barack Obama. I thought he was impressive in last week’s debate and this time around he looks much more comfortable in his own skin than he did in 2008, when he was busy trying to pretend that he was everything to everyone.

A substantial amount of ink has been spilled since the debate concerning the tete-a-tete between Perry and Romney on whether or not Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.” If you have not already read it, I would highly recommend Stanley Kurtz’s excellent piece on the subject which nicely encapsulates where I stand on this particular debate. However, I thought it at least fair political game for Romney to try to make hay out of Perry’s failure to clarify with sufficient force that he was not actually for the abolition of Social Security.

However, in my view, Mitt Romney’s team crossed the line with the flier below, which is reportedly being distributed in Florida:

This level of Mediscare hackery (featuring a citation to the Huffington Post!) is shameful and unbecoming of a GOP candidate for President. In the first place, it dishonestly misrepresents Perry’s position, and hilariously leans (without any appreciable sense of irony) on the logical equivalent of the fact that Rick Perry has never denied beating his wife. It will also serve to diminish the national standing of the GOP in the event that Perry is the ultimate winner of the GOP nomination. This flier in its entirety is frankly more dishonest and sensational than attack materials against Perry that I would expect to see coming from the DNC.

Mitt Romney has plenty of opportunities to test Rick Perry over the next four months. He should leave the worst cheap shots from the Democrat playbook to the Democrats.