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To Our Friends at (The) National Review, II

Wow, That Really Went Well, Didn't It?

By: Thomas Crown (Diary)  |  November 9th, 2012 at 06:22 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Well, let me be among those congratulating you on your endorsement, over the course of not one, but two campaign cycles, of Willard “Mitt” Romney for Republican Nominee for President. I would like to remind you of your rationales for endorsing President-elect Romney. It might be small and un-generous of me, but I’m sure you can enjoy the benefits of that endorsement, direct and indirect, as a consolation.

From 2008:

More than the other primary candidates, Romney has President Bush’s virtues and avoids his flaws. His moral positions, and his instincts on taxes and foreign policy, are the same. But he is less inclined to federal activism, less tolerant of overspending, better able to defend conservative positions in debate, and more likely to demand performance from his subordinates. A winning combination, by our lights. In this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field, we vote for Mitt Romney.

From 2012:

Governor Romney won our endorsement last time, in part because some of the other leading candidates were openly hostile to important elements of conservatism. He is highly intelligent and disciplined, and he takes conservative positions on all the key issues. We still think he would make a fine president, but time and ceaseless effort have not yet overcome conservative voters’ skepticism about the liberal aspects of his record and his managerial disposition.

That blurb is itself incomplete, as your non-endorsement endorsement also praised Governor Huntsman (how’s he doing, by the way?) and specifically listed a lack of executive experience as the sole disqualifier(!) for extremely former Senator Santorum — a disqualifier apparently not shared by the two former governors. You’ll recall that you also praised this quality of President-elect Romney’s in 2008 — how did you put it? Oh, right: He is “more likely [than actually-elected twice President Bush] to demand performance from his subordinates.”

Now, it might be small of me to note this, but I’ve already confessed to meanness, so: Did any of you notice that Mitt Romney isn’t really very good at campaigning, let alone winning elections? That he lost in 1994, won in the high-water year of 2002, ran screaming in 2006, got his butt spanked in 2008, and only overwhelmed Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum with unholy gobs of money? That the story of the 2008 campaign was of an organization that was not very well-managed, and was instead a group of tightly-controlled fiefdoms who treated insiders — except of course favored insiders from prominent national magazines — as the enemy, even if, especially if one might say, they were conservatives?

It may not be the thing to mention on, say, a paid trip to Italy for no reason whatsoever, but it is a terribly important thing if one is endorsing, let us say, a candidate for the most expensive and complicated election process in the world. As we now know, from those well-disciplined subordinates who are desperately leaking against each other at all costs, the campaign was a total screw-up from Kolob to Adam’s Altar, Missouri. One generally blames the head of an organization for replicating a Fatty Arbuckle out-take, you know.

I know, I know. I’m nit-picking, right? So let’s move past that, to the robust defense of conservative principles and policies — remember the whole “he takes conservative positions on all the key issues” bit? Let’s get to that.

Remember how he endorsed Paul Ryan’s budget plan? Issued a detailed one himself? Went to war against Obamacare? Something something something?

(Even sarcasm gets hard at times.)

You sold your souls to back an utter incompetent. You don’t actually have to endorse anyone, you know.  It’s actually quite easy: We refuse to endorse anyone because half the candidates are barking mad, and the other half are at least slightly incompetent and at least slightly left-loony on command.

Ta-da! I mean, it’s not like anyone’s paying for your endorsement, right?

During the Bush years, you went from being a conservative flagship to being a Republican one. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a free country (for at least another twenty-six months), but it might not hurt to be up-front with your readers, you know?

Perhaps we should expect no better; your recent NewsMax deal appears aimed exclusively at making sure the Unsubscribe link on your mass emails no longer works and Google’s Spam filter can’t stop you no matter what. (Block your own damned email?)

But out of the bloody ashes of my respect for you, one piece of advice: If you’re going to trade a vital cause for being a good party organ, if you’re still going to hide what you are behind what your readers expect you to be, at least don’t pick such a stumbling moron that you sacrifice what’s left of your credibility with those otherwise too dumb to pick up on what’s happened.

Free advice, worth every penny.

Just like your last Presidential endorsement.

COMMENTS

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  • Darin_H

    Makes yummy burgers.

  • Thomas Crown

    That may have been the most apropos defense I’ve ever read.

  • http://www.bohnetlaw.com rightappeal

    Lot’s of leadership failings among conservative opinion-makers in the primaries: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and a bunch of others failed to endorse anyone and were very restrained in their critique of Romney. And let’s not even talk about Ann Coulter and her absurd shilling for Romney.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    “a bunch of others failed to endorse anyone and were very restrained in their critique of Romney”

    BECAUSE IT WAS A WEAK FIELD! Were they goiing to go for the never-elected Cain, or not-quite-ready Perry, or not-electable Bachmann, or also-not-quite-electable-brilliant-but-with-baggage Newt? No, so it was ‘electable’ Romney vs a field of has-beens, never-wases and conservative activists.

    In retrospect, they would have jumped on Mitch Daniels’ bandwagon, and he might have been a better option. We needed some real A talent in the race, and it is a pity that we didnt get it.

    Personally I wish Bobby Jindal had run. Maybe we can get him to run in 2016. We need to weed out the joke candidates next time, and in retrospect Cain was a joke candidate, despite his engaging debate performances.

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  • billcor

    I’m all for slapping that establishment rag the National Review, but can we please stop piling onto Governor Romney? He is a kind-hearted, family man who BUILT HIS FORTUNE himself, and just gave his all to save us from the brink.

    > Remember how he endorsed Paul Ryan’s budget plan?
    >

    This is hardly fair criticism. Romney CHOSE RYAN as a running mate! Hardly a stronger endorsement of the Ryan budget than that!

  • billcor

    +1 for this guy!

  • streiff

    I remember the tizzy I caused over there a year ago with my opening paragraph here http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2011/10/07/mitt-romneys-foreign-policy/

  • conservativecurmudgeon

    Sadly, I must agree about the Ann Coulter assessment. She’s lost all credibility, and I can’t even enjoy her Slicing and Dicing on other matters now, by virtue of the fact that I’m not sure how much integrity she really has. Very sad, really. She was quite an asset.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Daniels, while I was one of those who was wishing for him, would probably have been scared away by “dirty wife=bad husband!!!” and “Booosh!!!”.

  • Thomas Crown

    Funny you should say that. I see Romney like a particularly dim Boromir — trying to do the right thing and just unable to do so.

    And, as a bonus, I have the virtue of being right.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Tell Rick Scott something about destroying the state party apparatus, but I digress.

    Perhaps he was actually interested in GOVERNING.
    Most barely serviceable Democrats do not make efforts to hold spending and taxes down. And I think we can be clear- the guy balanced budgets and helped create jobs.

  • Thomas Crown

    In a booming economy, he did indeed manage to not stop jobs from being created. (See how I was a conservative and not a liberal there?) On the other hand, his job creation record was … not really all that high-ranking, you know?

    You are correct, though. A barely serviceable Democrat would run for re-election.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Sure.
    Because Boromir actually died defending Merry and that fool of a Took.
    Wormtongue? He died running away and blaming Saruman for everything he did.
    And I don’t think we have to talk about Denethor.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Obama just turned out to be a better actor than Romney.

  • Jack_Savage

    I can’t help but feel there is a fairly large part of our friends in the Northeast that pines for aristocracy. I think it runs through NR, and even ran through WFB to a certain extent. Far removed from the rabble of the southern social conservatives, Romney provided the perfect amount of noblesse oblige, a man who was comfortable on Wall Street and in boardrooms and in Boston. A guy they could deal with. Not a radical bomb thrower, but a cool numbers guy.

    I feel like their endorsement was not one of policy or principles, it was that Romney was the only guy they felt could parade down Park Avenue without emptying the Skoal out of his mouth onto the sidewalk. A purely emotional and psychological indulgence.

  • Thomas Crown

    A Crown tantrum is 6,000+ words long.

    I’m intrigued that you seem to think that I believe that the failure of the Romney ground game is proximately caused by National Review’s endorsement. Could you perhaps help me locate where I did this?

  • ceili_dancer

    I would say that he won because he was a giant among midgets. Riding in second place while everyone tore away at the flavor of the month.

  • Thomas Crown

    Just out of curiosity, on which social issues did Mitt Romney campaign? Can you help me find where he made those parts of his speeches or pitch? Because that would help me a great deal — seeing your comment made me think this was 2007 all over again.

  • Thomas Crown

    That may or may not be true.

    Why, then, did NR give him its imprimatur? “You’re the best of the worst” is generally not where institutions hang their legacies.

  • robertdavidhummel

    Our Nation is in CRISIS and EMINENT
    DANGER…CREATED BY OBAMA and HIS SOCIALISTIC COHORTS…that is why my U.S.
    Colors are FLYING…Up-Side-DOWN…on my front lawn, which is my personal
    Landmark to continuously Honor, The Country I served, and spilled blood on
    Foreign soil, to preserve, protect and defend.the Freedoms provided in this,
    “God’s Gift to Man”, that We Call “AMERICA

    “One CLEAR RESOLVE or
    PREVENTIVE ACTION”, that NEED be ENGAGED in rapid time….is to…”"HALT any
    additional steps in the IMPLEMENTATION of “OBAMACARE”. ….”TO INCLUDE ALL OR
    ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDING of the LAW”…(This includes the immediate HALT in
    moving/transferring the Seven Hundred & Sixteen Billion of Medicare
    Dollars)… until such time asThe Executive and Legislative Branches CREATE and
    MANAGE a more RESPONSIBLE NATIONAL BUDGET, and our National Unemployment Rate is
    LESS than4.5%, ….AND… the OBAMACARE BILL,… (“PREVIOUSLY ENACTED BY
    DEFAULT”),… has been RE-Delibrated with precise and valid CLARITY of
    FUNCTIONABILITY…by…OPEN SESSIONS of the U.S.HOUSE and SENATE…as prescribed
    by Our CONSTITUTION…and NOT ANOTHER CLOSED DOOR FIASCO, or BEHIND THE SCENES
    FIDGETING, nor any inkling of UNSCRUPULOUS words/phrases or terms therein.
    (This good choice action is SUBJECT to a Fundamental SUNSHINE type interim LAW,
    form of reasonable management).

    “One CLEAR RESOLVE or
    PREVENTIVE ACTION”, that NEED be ENGAGED in rapid time….is to…”"HALT any
    additional steps in the IMPLEMENTATION of “OBAMACARE”. ….”TO INCLUDE ALL OR
    ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDING of the LAW”…(This includes the immediate HALT in
    moving/transferring the Seven Hundred & Sixteen Billion of Medicare
    Dollars)… until such time asThe Executive and Legislative Branches CREATE and
    MANAGE a more RESPONSIBLE NATIONAL BUDGET, and our National Unemployment Rate is
    LESS than4.5%, ….AND… the OBAMACARE BILL,… (“PREVIOUSLY ENACTED BY
    DEFAULT”),… has been RE-Delibrated with precise and valid CLARITY of
    FUNCTIONABILITY…by…OPEN SESSIONS of the U.S.HOUSE and SENATE…as prescribed
    by Our CONSTITUTION…and NOT ANOTHER CLOSED DOOR FIASCO, or BEHIND THE SCENES
    FIDGETING, nor any inkling of UNSCRUPULOUS words/phrases or terms therein.
    (This good choice action is SUBJECT to a Fundamental SUNSHINE type interim LAW,
    form of reasonable management).

    HOWEVER…the portions of “OBAMACARE”,
    that are already implemented…ergo….Parents can keep children on their
    policies until age 26,… and pre-existing medical disabilities are inclusive
    as part of medical insurability and other specifications continue their
    enactment …AFTER THOROUGH REVIEW and APPROVAL of The U.S. HOUSE and SENATE ,
    and RE-WRITTEN as a BASE-LINE BILL as a precursor, reminder of the above
    Re-ASSESSMENT, and ENACTMENT of the OBAMACARE ACT, when BUDGET TERMS are
    MET.

    I agree that my…problem
    solving…SUGESTION is not perfect…but 1% of SOMETHING is BETTER THAN 100% of
    NOTHING.

    I recall one very plain Military Order;
    “GAS!”,… when Commanded, “IMMEDIATELY HALTED, and…CEASED… ALL TROOP
    MOVEMENT …..BEFORE THE NEXT STEP of THE LEAD RANK, IN A FILE …FROM FALLING
    OVER THE CLIFT”. After which some auto /individual intermediary functions were
    resolved, order re-established, and THOUGHTFUL resolve attained, THE SOLDIERS
    TOOK A MORE NEGOTIABLE PATH to get to POINT “B”……With that example being
    said….

    PERHAPS, “We The
    People’s,… COMMAND… to The Executive and Legislative BRANCHES of Our FREE
    GOVERNMENTAL BODIES should BE…”NO MORE CENTS… will the TAXPAYERS
    PAY”…UNTIL…The Same BODIES MAKE SENSE…of a Medical Law…that is a
    MAJOR the CAUSE of Our Nations ECONOMIC DIS-ARRAY and DISMAY”.

    If you have a better plan
    to resolve our dilemma…SHARE IT,…and help me FLY My Old GLORY with the
    STARS above the STRIPES…Thank You and God Bless AMERICA.

  • Thomas_Hauber

    I cancelled my subscription as of today.

  • Bill S

    Oy. Please medicate before posting.

  • http://rightwardjournal.com Jeff Swanson

    I do understand your point. I do. I just may not agree. If you are to invoke sins of the past, I would reassert Reagan.

    Reagan not more than a couple of decades prior to becoming President was a Democrat. Signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act (though I realize it was never something he was happy about) and increased spending and deficit during his Presidency (though I realize why and agree that it was a military gambit that worked out well). This adds to the losses as a candidate too.

    Yes, I know I am making the Zombie Reagan argument. Reagan, with an imperfect past, pushed the nation rightward. Not to perfection, but right.

    The point is; to hold a candidate to the imperfections of his past puts no human in a category that is both acceptable and able to win.

    NRO is not the problem nor is Mitt Romney, If anything, they would be a symptom. It’s effectively shooting the messenger. It is misplaced.

    I understand that you are excoriating National Review and not directly Romney per se, the Review is merely reflecting a choice based on the candidates available. I agree, they could make no choice and retain what you assert as credibility. So be it.

    What does that gain anyone?

    Perhaps, like me, it was a matter of overturning Obamacare, entitlement reform and deficit/debt reduction. No other candidate from the available field was going to overcome Obama and team.

    No matter how wrong, the Obama team earned its bones. Still, to stop the train, I didn’t really care if it was the Conservative Superman or the Greatest American Hero, believe it not.

    At times, in a strategic fight, you have to make a tactical decision that is not ideal. Mitt was not my ideal but was going to do minimally what I felt needed to be done. I assume this was the position of the National Review. But what do I know from Adam?

    What I do know, a system of conservative candidate vetting and carnival-like primaries that does not develop ideal leaders is where grist of our ire should be directed.

    National Review and it’s (as well as Mitt Romney’s) lack of perfected Conservatism is a result and not the cause. I’m just suggesting less focus on the symptom.

  • Thomas Crown

    It profiteth not a magazine to sell his soul if he only gains a losing candidate in return. NR did not need to make that trade. When you ask, “What does that gain anyone?” The answer is simple: credibility.

    We need a plethora of credible voices for the next four years, oh so desperately. We need them to hold the Administration accountable and Republican Congresscritters accountable, too. We need transmission channels to tell voters and donors and everyone else what’s gone wrong and what’s about to go wrong and what’s going right, and we need them believable.

    Do you believe NR about anything about Republicans right now? I don’t. They’ve turned half their reporters into mouthpieces for the Hill and the Romney camp. They endorsed Romney as a conservative on the evidence of nothing. They gave Republicans a pass when they needed a whipping.

    Perhaps NR’s day has passed. But it needn’t have done so and need not do so.

    But this isn’t about their imperfections, it is about their being a leading example of the movement’s ideological capture by the Party. It needs to end, today, now.

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  • jaykali

    Ya you’re right, similar sentiment tho

  • jaykali

    Half conservative, half burger

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  • katem

    “As a former ambassador for Obama he had no chance.” Sad comment for our party and sad for our country but (obviously) true in today’s climate.

    Remember Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.? He was the GOP’s VP nominee in 1960 and then President Kennedy’s ambassador to South Vietnam. In 1964, while still serving in South Vietnam, Lodge won the New Hampshire Republican primary as a write-in candidate (a campaign was organized by others on his behalf). He then competed in other primaries but lost. President Johnson re-appointed Lodge ambassador to South Vietnam. Most people call Lodge a statesman and a great American who served his country well under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Boy, those were different days. Maybe we all need to go back to civics class, if they still teach that anymore. It is a shame that the GOP held an ambassadorship to China — i.e., service to his country — against Jon Huntsman. Huntsman is not only a statesman but was a popular governor of a red state with a conservative record. Republicans and conservatives should have loved Huntsman. But they couldn’t look beyond his service under a Democrat, so they ignored his record and labeled him a liberal.

    Huntsman’s campaign was NOT “about his ego.” What a foolish statement. He entered the campaign with the strongest tax and economic plan of all of the candidates (endorsed by the WSJ) and he focused on debt reduction and other conservative ideas such as breaking up the big banks. He tried to bring to the national stage some of the good things he did in Utah, which was ranked #1 in job creation and the best managed state while he was governor. Huntsman’s campaign was about ideas, not ego. But he didn’t call Obama a socialist or an “anti-colonial Kenyan” or foolishly bash China. Huntsman was the Reagan candidate in the race — principled, optimistic, moderate temperament and ability to work with the other side to get things done. Huntsman was the only guy who could have won the general election. I’d sure like to be looking forward to a president Huntsman (with a VP Rubio — Huntsman/Rubio would have been a fantastic ticket), not 4 more years of President Obama. (Romney was never going to win the general election. Anyone who watched his 1994 campaign against Ted Kennedy knew that.)

    National Review should have endorsed Huntsman. He had the best chance of winning, if only he could get through the GOP primaries (as predicted by Nate Silver, the guy who correctly predicted the election outcome this week).
    We threw away a winnable election. I hope we won’t be so foolish in 2016. As Bill Buckley used to say, go with the most electable conservative. That was Jon Huntsman.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Either you just called TCrown a traitor or you’re a moron who’s using words you are too stupid to understand.

    Either way, give me a reason to ban you. Go ahead.

  • http://about.me/l.v.johnston lvjohnston

    I give very little credence to *any* source that claims to be a ‘voice’ for any particular group/position due to unstated agendas that run counter to their public positions. No doubt those unstated concerns were present in the case of NRO during the primary battles – as some have commented here. I simply refuse to let others do my thinking for me but will listen to arguments on subjects that need to be discussed to move them forward.

    In close contests, the ground game is of utmost importance. This battle was lost because our ground game was behind the opposition’s when measured in boots on the ground in support of GOTV. We did not do as good a job.

  • major

    Romney was just fine….other candidates were weak as well.
    It was not a good year for candidates, and Libertarians suck in their destructive behavior!

  • bongobear

    I agree with your point about voter turn out. What vexes me is if you can’t get people to turn out to vote against an administration like Obama’s then what would it take?

  • benson1

    Newt was opposed to only one part of Ryan’s plan because it was the same as the liberal Democrat plan that is it was compulsory to have insurance. Ryan changed his plan to not include that and Newt supported that. These are facts so easily substantiated I find it hard to believe people are still spouting the the nonsense Newt opposed Ryan’s plan. So in essence garfieldji you are correct.

  • benson1

    If I could I would have clicked LIKE a hundred times. The only two out of the bunch who ended up having any real sense of what we were up against and who would do the best job was Hannity and Palin.

  • benson1

    Obama is not a good campaigner he’s a good liar. His campaign was a pathetic mixture of distraction from the real issues and lying about anything of importance. Add into that stupid uninformed voters and you have re-election. Wait…I guess your right he is a good campaigner.

  • Common_Cents

    if the media was 20% honest, obama would have been wiped out worse than Carter. Why does everyone ignore the propaganda media?

    So romney had a marathon race with obama, and the media hangs a 100lb anchor around Romney, and they say obama ran a good race.

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  • jrterrier5

    Except that Romney won the nomination not because of an endorsement, luke-warm or inconsistent but because he received more votes than anyone else. I voted for Romney in the primary & the election because I believed him to be a very good candidate — smart, willing to work hard, and a man of integrity. And he certainly was the best candidate running in the GOP.

  • jrterrier5

    The fact that many, many districts in Philadelphia, Colorado, Cleveland & FL had greater than 100% voter participation and that in a number of those districts Pres Obama received nearly 100% of the vote speaks to incredible base-loyalty or fraud.

    The multi-million smear machine directed at Romney may also have had something to do with the loss.

    I could go on.

  • jrterrier5

    Newt was not going to have a chance to beat anyone. Newt is a study in extremes. On his own, he went from extremely good to extremely nuts. When he announced that his inability to get his name on the VA primary ballot was the greatest catastrophe since Pearl Harbor was over the top narcissistic. The explanation that he was paid by Frannie Mae/Freddie Mac because he is a historian doesn’t pass the laugh test. The press conference he gave after losing the Nevada primary appeared to be unhinged. His insistence that Callista, his third wife & the woman with whom he was having an affair as his House impeached a sitting president in part because of his sexual activities, stand next to him each and every time he spoke was barf-inducing. Having his 2d wife lash out at him on national TV & probably available for other interviews was not good.

    NR could have come out for Newt every day for the entire campaign period and he still woudn’t have won the primaries or the general election.

  • jrterrier5

    For me, Huntsman’s problems had nothing to do with being an Ambassador for Pres Obama.

  • jrterrier5

    Brokered convention? That would have been great — a bunch of party-insiders picking the next nominee, the primary voters be damned. Ryan couldn’t even carry his own state. He and the others chose not to run. Cry me a river. Each had serious problems. Not to mention that they each have problems. If you think that the Obama machine wouldn’t have dirtied up each of them, you are dreaming.

  • jrterrier5

    In my opinion, Romney was not a flawed candidate. It didn’t help him that for much of the campaign he had to fight the Obama-media, the Obama machine, & the conservative/libertarian/republican punditry.

    The Romney that you saw in debate #1 & at the Al Smith dinner is the real unfiltered Romney. Take away the media, the punditry (on both sides of the aisle), the Obama smear machine, & the voter fraud, & Romney wins by a landslide.

  • jrterrier5

    If you don’t think that Akin & Murdoch coupled with the Obama war-on-women theme hurt Romney you are ignoring reality.

    And the fact that the Republican office holders have allowed Obama to blame Bush & Bush alone for the 2008 financial meltdown is a tragedy.

  • jrterrier5

    Who was the alternative to Romney — from the South or otherwise — that was available for Republicans?

  • jrterrier5

    Either he did worse among Mormons than George W. Bush, or the exit polls are not very accurate. I vote for inaccuracy. If they were accurate, John Kerry would have defeated Bush in 2004.

  • jrterrier5

    Oh, please by your logic, President Obama should have been the greatest president alive as he beat the vaunted Clinton machine even though women & the blue collar clingers greatly supported her.
    Romney had to counter the pro-Obama media, the contrarian & conflicted Republican/libertarian/conservative blogosphere, insurmountable AA loyalty, the Santa Claus incumbency (gay marriage evolution, Dream Act exec order, free contraceptives), the cool Pres who can sing like Al Green, and the foot-in-mouth twins (Akin & Murdoch). Still he almost pulled it out. And I’m not convinced that the DEM shennanigans in inner city districts didn’t have something to do with the results (those Philly & Cleveland & Port St Lucie numbers are awfully suspicious).

  • jrterrier5

    Who would believe that Obama’s numbers in Philly & Cleveland would be better than in 2008? Yet if there was no fraud, they were.

  • Bill S

    In the state of MO, where more people than anywhere else knew about Todd Akin and what he said, Mitt Romney won by almost 10 percentage points. The “war on women” was alive and well long before that. Try again.

  • jrterrier5

    I understand. But in states outside MO & IN, the Akin & Murdock comments just played into the war-on-women theme that the Obama campaign was pushing. And it played particularly among young women who apparently were taken in by the notion of radical Republicans wanting to push back the clock on abortion & contraception. Remember the Stephanopolous primary debate question to Romney in NH about his stance on contraception.
    It’s what I saw among the young women who are my daughter’s friends.

  • CarolT

    I remember reading here on RS in 2009 that Obama took out his chief opponent for 2012 by appointing Huntsman ambassador to China. I’m sorry I dismissed him. Before replying to you I did a search on him. I know now that he started his career as an assistant in Reagan’s admin. I also know he was ambassador to Singapore under GW Bush.
    I know he left office as Governor with 80% approval rating.
    We do live in very partisan times. I don’t think anyone took him seriously in the primaries because he worked for Obama.

    There was something, I don’t remember what it was but I did not like the way he came off in the early debates.

  • CarolT

    I give a lot or credence to Investor’s Business Daily editorials. They are mostly conservative but they always include one from the left at the end.
    They had a special series in 2008 asking if Obama was a socialist. They are very informative and free.

  • gipsytim

    NRO hasn’t been the same since the passing of William Buckley.

  • Jack_Savage

    No one this time, and I understand your point. I think that is why we were pretty morose during the primaries. I really, really wanted to support Rick Perry, and he is a good man and a strong conservative, but he was very ill-prepared to run for the office he sought.

    This doesn’t explain the endorsement in 2008. The good news is that our bench is strong, and we will be taking off some redshirts very soon.

  • Thomas Crown

    Um.

    No, by my logic, President Obama would be a President who runs an insular, tightly-connected administration largely unconcerned with developments in the outside world except for public relations purposes, whose entire oeuvre is to divide Americans by race and class at all costs.

    I win!

    Romney had to counter the media as every Republican nominee does, and the incumbent, as every other challenger does. Everything else is just sour grapes (do you think the blogosphere had any sort of impact in this election? really? after the right had fallen in line?).

    Your theory of vote fraud is interesting but not only unlikely but out of line with the available data. Cubans trended to Obama in 2008. Port St. Lucie is a Hellhole, ditto Philly, ditto Cleveland. Republicans have to expect to get slaughtered there and for there to be cheating.

    Romney’s team was awful. The man at the top takes responsibility. Those who endorsed him take a different kind of responsibility.

  • Thomas Crown

    At some point, you have to admit that he ran a really, really bad campaign.

  • BA Cyclone

    Aha. So you cleverly agree that Mitt Romney sucks at politics. I feel we have a breakthrough!

  • http://about.me/l.v.johnston lvjohnston

    Yes, and the facts surrounding voter participation levels and reports of outright fraud will continue to unravel Obama’s “mandate”. I can add to the litany… what about the continual push to suppress the vote of conservatives and others on the right while those sentiments were constantly being projected from the left?

    I too can go “on and on” but again, my statement above is that I try not to put much credence in the press and their endorsements. The reason is that I refuse to be a sheeple (I was a democrat in a former lifetime but I got out of college – reality will do that…). So, my personal tendency is to question those in authority when it looks like they are hell bent on a power grab….and question even harder those who seek the power of an elected office.

    I agree that all of the issues surrounding the election are troubling, but of little or no surprise to anyone who has seen the way hardball politics are played in Illinois. Been here for 44 of my 54 years and this is ‘SOP’ for the Chicago Machine. Anyone who did *not* know that from the start should *not* have been on the strategy team for the Romney campaign.

    Good or bad… it is what it is… but for the campaign to ignore/discount the likely tactics? Why didn’t they go on the offence against such possibilities by making them known to the public well ahead of the general… refusing to speak on any of the major news talk shows? Really? In this day and age? I remember that Romney didn’t like the interview questions from Bret Baier at FNC and refused to do any more. How does that win the hearts and minds of the voting public? That *lapse* allowed the Obama/Biden camp to hoist up all the negative ads up the flagpole with little or no rebuttal.

    I also remember reading more than one comment made by people here on RS wondering why that was allowed to happen. That – along with continual questions about the GOTV efforts – were raised but seemed to be blown off as were many other justifiable concerns.

    As I said, I too could go on and on playing “Monday Morning Quarterback”.

    But the question and looming problem – as I see it – is that now that this ‘style’ of political campaign has become the standard for our national campaigns (2008 and 2012 *were* from the same playbook), are we just going to roll over (again) and keep trying the same things over and over (again) or are we going to buck up, take the bull by the horns, disband the circular firing squads and work together for a common goal?

    John Ransom’s Townhall commentary from last Wednesday (page 2 link below) speaks to this very issue.

    http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/11/07/why_mitt_lost_and_it_wasnt_very_close/page/2

    If we, as a group of like-minded individuals believing in the truth of our conservative principles are not willing to do what the left has done – but on our terms – well, it would probably be best to pack it up now and concede our futures to a more socialist/statist government before we even get to the 2016 elections. As I have stated here many times before, I refuse to climb down in the gutter to defend my principles and as I have found, that is not the way to achieve a win because we lose in other ways when we do that.

    However, some politicians here in the Land of Lincoln *have* found ways to overcome the Chicago Machine ‘style’ and actually win without sacrificing their principles. The narrow victory of Rodney Davis (R) over David Gill (D) here in Central Illinois comes to mind and that was a win for a congressional house seat that was marked as a defeat in the R column due to recent redistricting. Not many examples to be sure, but it *can* be done and work towards that end should start now, not a year from now.

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