The Wall Street Journal takes a hunk out of Mitt Romney's hide this morning, wondering if, beneath his affinity for data and process (or data processing, if you prefer), there is anything to the man from central casting:

...we haven't been able to discern from his campaign, or his record in Massachusetts, what his core political principles are. Mr. Romney spent his life as a moderate Republican, and he governed the Bay State that way after his election in 2002. While running this year, however, he has reinvented himself as a conservative from radio talk show-casting, especially on immigration.

The problem is not that Mr. Romney is willing to reconsider his former thinking. Nor is it so much that his apparent convictions always seem in sync with the audience to which he is speaking at the moment. (Think $20 billion in corporate welfare for Michigan auto makers.) Plenty of politicians attune their positions to new constituencies. The larger danger is that Mr. Romney's conversions are not motivated by expediency or mere pandering but may represent his real governing philosophy.

And that, my friends, is a truly sobering thought. The last president who governed from a position of expediency was...Bill Clinton. Yes, he had multiple ingrained flaws, none of which are present in Romney. But the most famous triangulator in recent memory goverened in a manner that put his immediate needs before everything else. It worked for him personally, but his party and those around them paid a terrific price for it. In a Republican, such behavior would seem implausible, they are, after all, supposed to be the party of principle.

But as we all know, principles wither in the face of incentives. And Romney has practically conducted a clinic on how incentives mold politics. The Journal shows his jaw-dropping Michigan pander on the auto industry as an example. But they put the boot firmly in his backside with this:

John McCain's difficulties in selling himself to GOP voters reflect his many liberal lurches over the years -- from taxes to free speech, prescription drugs and global warming cap and trade. Republicans have a pretty good sense of where he might betray them. Yet few doubt that on other issues -- national security, spending -- Mr. McCain will stick to his principles no matter the opinion polls. If Mr. Romney loses to Senator McCain, the cause will be his failure to persuade voters that he has any convictions at all.

Very cold comfort, for a very cold day.