Mitt Romney has Ronald Reagan written all over him.

More than once, Mitt Romney invoked Ronald Reagan's name in the Iowa Republican debate this afternoon.

Defending his switch from a pro-choice politician while running for Governor of Massachusetts to his all-or-nothing anti-choice position now, Romney told viewers:

"I am pro-life now and I won't apologize for this. Reagan, Hyde...followed this."

Mitt Romney has carved out his niche. Talking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer in November of this year, Romney remarked:

"I must admit that I find the vision and the direction that Ronald Reagan laid out for this country to be very powerful and very compelling."

Romney is positioning himself as the clear heir to a Republican throne gone bad via Bush, Jr. As Scott Lemeiux on TAPPED puts it today, ""Yes, try to imagine a world in which a Republican administration substantially increased government spending, spent spectacular amounts of money to invade a country that posed no threat to the United States, packed the federal courts with statist reactionaries, and repeatedly supported arbitrary executive power. That kind of Republican Party sure would be useless!"

And so we have today's announcement that the National Review has endorsed Romney, because of their belief that Romney is the most conservative viable candidate who will unite the "conservative coalition" whereas Giuliani and Huckabee would "pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives."

Romney seemed to answer the siren song from The National Review telling viewers today that, "It's important that this next president be a conservative - not just a fiscal or social conservative but both. We're not going to strengthen America unless we can pull together a coalition of conservatives - social, economic and on defense. These three groups allowed our party to get elected over last several decades..."

Clearly, Romney's remarks were aimed straight for Giuliani and Huckabee. Huckabee turned off the more conservative elements on stage by stating that he'd encourage the inclusion of music and art in all public school's curricula and derided Congress' "platinum" health care package, while Giuliani told the audience that while he opposes abortion personally, he believes that the government should "leave the decision to a woman and her conscience" though he advocates for "limitations on abortion."

But maybe the National Review spoke too soon?

When asked a question about how he would lower the national debt, Mitt said: "We can eliminate the things that aren't critical. We have thirteen different programs to prevent teenage pregnancy. They're obviously not working very well. We could probably cut it down to one or two that are making a difference."

I'm not sure The National Review would like where he's going with that but it is clear that abstinence-only programs are not doing much for our rising teen birth rates or sexually transmitted infection rates among young people in this country.

In fact, Romney's timing is perfect.

A recently released report called Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy by Douglas Kirby, Ph.D., offers the latest information on what programs work to prevent teen pregnancy - and which ones don't.

Meanwhile, ten of our nation's leading scientists and academics, all of whom have conducted extensive research on sexuality education in this country, implored Congress last month to discontinue federal funding for abstinence-only programs, among the "thirteen different programs" that are doing nothing to stem teenage pregnancy or STI rates.

However, Romney's Iowa campaign office told me he's not making any global statement on the inefficacy of abstinence-only programs. Tim Albrecht, Romney's Iowa Press Secretary, says:

"This was an example of an area where Romney sees we can plunge the federal government of redundant programs. If we have thirteen programs all related to reducing teen pregnancy, why not take the best of two or three of them and use those elements that are most effective?"

When pressed, Tim told me that Romney was not commenting on whether abstinence-only programs were more or less effective than comprehensive sexuality education.

Romney did cover the requisite republican bases telling viewers that, in his first year as president, he would, "Establish a strategy to overwhelm the global jihad, end illegal immigration, end growth in federal spending, reduce tax spending, and work towards health insurance for every citizen in America..."

Alan Keyes provided the afternoon's eerie entertainment ("Join my political army at alankeyes.com!") and Huckabee continued to rely heavily on his identity as a person-of-faith in crafting his policy and strategy ("You go back to the founding fathers who said we are all created equal, endowed with our creator.").

The debate effectively pushed John McCain, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo into the shadows as the spotlight focused on Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.

And although Alan Keyes seemed to hold the title today for most-statements-made-on-a-debate-stage-in-support-of-the-unborn, the Republican field is pretty well split over pro-life endorsements:

Giuliani's got Pat Robertson's endorsement, Huckabee is the proud owner of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) endorsement, and Fred Thompson's acquired the National Right to Life's endorsement.

This debate pushed Mitt Romney into the forefront of a pack of interesting Republicans all vying not to be the next George W. Bush.