All along Mitt Romney had a plan. Wait for the Obama administration to eff’ up the economy and then offer a solution. Hell, if nothing else wait until there’s a perception that the economy is still in the tank and blame Obama. Now he’s starting to find his stride in pitching himself as the economic fix-it-man.---

Yesterday, Romney busted out his 10 point plan for economic recovery in an editorial in USA Today. The long and short of it: expand trade, freeze stimulus package money that hasn’t gone out yet, make permanent Bush-era tax cuts, more business incentives. My favorite point is this lucid explanation of financial market regulations: “rules that are up to date, efficient and not excessively burdensome.”

Oh just like that! Huh, I kinda thought the old system was pretty unburdensome and likewise pretty efficient at bankrupting our country.

On the home front the Trib reports Romney making a stop at the ribbon cutting of the new APX Alarm’s corporate headquarters in Provo, where Romney took the opportunity to henpeck the Obama stimulus package. It was also a place where he tested out a nice sound bite of “entrepreneurs not bureaucrats” being the ones to fix America.

Romney of course still says he’s just helping candidates out for 2010 like Gary Herbert and Bob Bennett win in 2010. It’s also fair to say that if Romney show’s he’s a team player for the party in 2010 he might stand a chance in 2012.

Here’s the problem though. 2009 is the year Romney has to worry about. He needs to capture a freeze frame of our current economic woes and rub it constantly in voter’s faces from now until 2012. Will things be absolutely hunky-dorey with the economy in 2012? Probably not. Will they be better than they are now? Definitely. Romney will find himself in the tight spot of explaining why things--which aren’t so bad--could probably have been better, had voters put a real CEO candidate like Romney in the White House in 2008--and why it’s not too late for 2012 to choose the right candidate (I couldn’t help myself) to completely revive the economy.

Good luck with that, Brother Mitt.