Bingo. It's just some freepers didn't notice that until she hitched her wagon to Romney and he won the nomination (she endorsed Romney in '08, but her fan club here simply ignore it and pretended she was "for Duncan Hunter" because said some nice things about him)
Nothing's changed about Annie, except some vehemently anti-Romney freepers woke up.
I agree. I think that, early on, she had found a profitable niche, and just ran with it. Ann is an entertainer. The role she plays is "conservative firebrand".
She was trained as a lawyer, and what lawyers are trained to do is make convincing arguments supporting the position that they're paid to support, without regard to how they personally feel about what they say.