Mitt Romney got a warm reception at CPAC, standing ovations . . . the works. He did nothing to calm fears that he is not one of us. In fact, he might have made it worse today.

He ad-libbed one particular portion of his speech that just may give away the game for him with the CPAC crowd. He threw in this line:

“I fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but I was a severely conservative Republican governor.”

What the heck is a severe conservative? The man who likes to fire people should probably fire Miriam-Webster, in addition to whoever came up with his strategy for Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado.

A severe conservative? It sounds more like a critique of conservatives from the left than that of a conservative himself. In fact, if you want to read only one thing on Mitt Romney’s views of conservatives, I actually think Chris Orr of The New Republic captures the situation best.

Orr writes on Quentin Tarantion’s view of Superman as discussed in the movie Kill Bill 2.

Superman was born Superman. It’s Clark Kent that is the invented alias, the pose, the “costume.” And in the way Superman plays Kent–weak, self-doubting, cowardly–we see his critique of the human race.

It occurred to me that the same is true of Romney’s desperate, if never terribly persuasive, impersonation of a conservative Republican. That persona–angry, simple-minded, xenophobic, jingoistic–is exactly what Romney (who is himself cultured, content, and cosmopolitan) imagines the average GOP voter to be.

I think that is perhaps one of the most accurate reads on Romney today and why so many of us think he is not what he claims to be.

Just randomly, on the actual issue of Superman, Jim Pethokoukis is correct that Quentin Tarantino got Superman wrong. I think what he means is that Mitt Romney is actually Bruce Wayne, a shallow playboy super rich businessman. (Kidding)

The other night I was having dinner and Pat Cadell, Jimmy Carter’s pollster and a very honest liberal, came up to me. He said bluntly that if his side’s front runner had lost 3 of the first 8 elections and been swept out last Tuesday, by Wednesday the Democrats would have a new candidate in the race.

He is right.

Yet the Republican Party has decided instead of finding a new guy to do what it can to get Romney across the finish line no matter how bad the limp.

On Tuesday, Santorum swept. Romney came in third in Minnesota. Counties he won big in Colorado turned on him overwhelmingly. Our “frontrunner” has won three of the first eight. With the exception of Florida, he has shown he can only win states with strong family ties like New Hampshire and states with strong Mormon participation like Nevada.

That may give him Michigan and Arizona, but it spells trouble elsewhere.

This is the seventh CPAC I have been to. The crowd is the least excited I have seen. On the first day, before the candidates have had a chance to bus in their supporters to stack the deck and straw poll, this is the least excited I’ve seen them. The crowd’s heart is with Santorum. But in their mind they do not think he can win.

Today, Mitt Romney must convince the crowd he is one of them or at least won’t betray them. Rick Santorum must convince them he can beat Barack Obama. Newt Gingrich must convince them he is still viable.

Along the way a funny thing has happened. Romney supporters are starting to be openly critical of him. The business whiz has failed to restructure his own failing organization. His support is a mile wide and an inch deep.

And he has been replaced as front runner by the crowd. They are with Rick Santorum in heart, but also in money and votes. On the horizon looms a brokered convention.

RedState Morning Briefing
For February 10, 2012

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Since February of 2009 when President Barack Obama began his aggressive push for stimulus into the American economy, he focused on one core area — infrastructure.

In fact, in his stimulus speech before Congress in 2009, his States of the Union in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and his Jobs Act speech of late 2011, the President repeated referred to spending government money to create jobs to fix America’s infrastructure.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), leader of the Republican Study Committee, is confirmed to be leaning toward supporting the plan. His public pronouncements that he is leaning toward supporting the plan is leading House conservatives as a whole to support this new stimulus plan — a stimulus plan to create jobs fixing and expanding America’s infrastructure.

The plan will most likely necessitate a federal bailout of the Highway Trust Fund, which is typically funded through the gas tax and is used to pay for highway projects. But Obama’s new stimulus busts the cap on the trust fund and, like social security, gets into general fund money to pay for the spending binge.

With the House bill, as is typical of Barack Obama’s legislation, spending will outpace income over the next five years by $69.6 billion. Moreso, as is also typical of President Obama’s stimulus schemes, Washington would retain the bulk of control, even though the money would be going to state transportation projects. Federal strings and federal money will come with the legislation.

Oh, and if the House goes along with the Senate’s version of this stimulus plan, Americans could see new taxes on their IRA’s.

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RedState Morning Briefing
For February 9, 2012

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What is it with Salem Radio’s major hosts? Geez. You want to find out what the Romney campaign thinks, flip on Michael Medved or Hugh Hewitt or a number of the other Salem Radio hosts and you’ll find a host fully in line with Mitt Romney and fully out of step with the bulk of the conservative movement.

In fact, it is striking to find Salem’s radio hosts so in the tank for Romney when the top radio shows in the country from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Glenn Beck to Mark Levin to Neal Boortz to Laura Ingraham have all either stayed on the sidelines or gone largely against Romney.

And if being out of step with the larger conservative movement on this issue weren’t enough, Michael Medved has decided to trot out the newest pro-Romney talking point with some serious condescension. You see, it is not Mitt Romney. It is you hicks, rubes, and idiots that are to blame. “Dammit, why won’t you like him??!!??” Medved comes close to asking.

Mitt Romney has not changed. You people have! This follows an earlier Michael Medved lament where he threw out every straw man he could at both Rush Limbaugh and me in the name of defending his Massachusetts Moderate.

Most interesting, in that earlier opinion piece Medved claimed the Republican Party had to abandon conservatism to win in 2012. This time around, Medved claims Romney actually is a conservative. It’s just conservatives have become radically conservative. He seems to be shifting positions as often as Mitt Romney.

To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht’s “The Solution,” it seems a lot of Romney’s ardent supporters have viewed the base of the Republican Party and decided the base should be replaced with a new base rather than admit the their candidate is the problem.

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Mitt Romney had a horrible, horrible night. Early yesterday, Mitt Romney’s campaign called Missouri a “beauty contest” and said to focus on Colorado. We did. Wow.

I’ve said since Sunday that yesterday would be the first day of voting that Mitt Romney’s “poor” comment to Soledad O’Brien would have an impact. It typically takes a week for comments like that to be digested by voters. Six days after Romney opened his mouth, Rick Santorum swept the night.

From Missouri to Minnesota to Colorado the Republican electorate sent a very clear signal — they want conviction over electability. They do not like Mitt Romney. They see Santorum as authentic. They see Mitt Romney as a fraud. Rick Santorum swept the races. Romney, the front runner, got crushed by conservatives.

The pattern has held up from Iowa to South Carolina to Florida to Nevada to last night. In every county that saw increased turn out, Not Romney won. In counties with decreased turnout, Romney won most often, but not always.

The real winner last night is CPAC – the conservative political action conference. At the end of this week, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich will, in that order, address the crowd. Conservatives in the heartland last night rejected Mitt Romney as inauthentic. CPAC will be a must win speech for Romney.

Considering how often Mitt Romney has lost in the past decade, you’d think he would have given a better concession speech last night. He did not and will need to up his game for his CPAC speech. He must now seriously woo the conservatives he thought he would not need.

But what of Romney vs. Santorum? My prediction is that Romney has nothing to lose and will go negative. He will suddenly become as noxious as his supporters are on twitter and in the Washington Post. It will backfire on him. He will seem Newtish and Newt’s recent complaints about Romney’s negativity will be looked at anew.

Gingrich is a big loser after last night. But I think the untold story is just how terrible Ron Paul did. He had a caucus strategy that has failed across the board. He has won no states. His strategy is failing him.

What a night.

RedState Morning Briefing
For February 1, 2012

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At RedState we have become quite familiar with Scott Rasmussen’s polling on the political class and every day Americans. There is a great disparity between the two. In my book Red State Uprising I relied on Scott Rasmussen’s polling heavily, including this nugget:

A July 23, 2010 Rasmussen survey found “75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure.” But, among those considered the political class, which trascends party lines, “a government managed economy [is preferred] over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin. . . . [A]mong Mainstream voters, 90% prefer the free market. Outside of the Political Class, free markets are preferred across all demographic and partisan lines.”

Now Scott Rasmussen has taken the next step and written a book called The People’s Money. The subtitle is “how voters will balance the budget and eliminate the federal debt.” He goes straight into the great divide between the political class and most Americans.

Turns out all that polling that shows Americans are a rather conservative lot is true. It also turns out that the public is willing to make cuts and is willing to tackle social security and medicare.

The catch is that voters are necessarily in favor of a lot of movement conservative reforms to social security, etc., but are much more closely aligned to the conservative movement than to the left.

It makes a really fascinating read and could be a blueprint to get the serious discussions moving on our nation’s fiscal solvency. I am not nor have I ever been a fan of poll driven political platforms. But seeing where voters are and what they think provides a lot of insight and can help politicians build a workable platform to solve our serious problems.

You can get Scott Rasmussen’s The People’s Money right here. It is a very thought provoking read.

RedState Morning Briefing
February 7, 2012

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As I said back in December, I have no plans to endorse a candidate for President of the United States. I wrote, at the time, “I would prefer instead to tell you exactly what I think about each of the candidates, good or bad, and let the chips fall where they may.”

Since then, I have routinely been asked who I would endorse. Today, after a lot of reflection on this race, I can honestly say my position has not changed and I would honestly prefer Ace of Spades’ sweet meteor of death than any of the candidates left in the race. Only the sweet meteor of death seems capable of stopping both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I can take the easy way out and not endorse because while I recognize politics necessitates compromise, I would have to compromise my intellectual honesty too much to choose any of the remaining candidates. Tonight, on my radio show, I put my weight behind the sweet meteor of death. You can listen to my reasons why here.

The Republican Party is putting itself in the hands of the economy. With Mitt Romney as the nominee, we will be forced to hope for a deteriorating economy because, while I will vote for him and think he is vastly better than Barack Obama, the fact is he has made no case for himself against Barack Obama except that he can do a better job on the economy. And let’s be clear — no Republican should hope or appear to be hoping for a deteriorating economy. It’s just that with no other justification for his election other than electability based on the ability to fix the economy, if the economy fixes itself, suddenly there is no justification for Mitt Romney’s electability.

My sincere and honest hope is that both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich stay in the race as long as possible to deny MItt Romney enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination. I do not think either Santorum or Gingrich have much of a better shot against Barack Obama, but I do think they are at least running on bigger ideas than Mitt Romney — ideas that still translate and survive an improving economy.

For months I have said I am for “Not Romney.” It is not because I think either Gingrich or Santorum have a better shot at winning than Romney, but because I still hold out hope for a broker convention to save us from ourselves.

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I’m on CNN tonight, but I’m also on radio tonight out of Atlanta on my own show.

You can listen live right now on WSB’s live stream. The show started at 6:00 p.m. and will run till 8pm tonight.

Tonight at 7:34 p.m. ET I will make my endorsement for President of the United States.

I will not be endorsing “We the People” as I kind of blame them for this present mess. But I will be making an endorsement and if you are curious you can listen by clicking right here.

RedState Morning Briefing 

February 6, 2012Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
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I’m afraid we need a little Sunday morning theology. Hopefully someone at the White House will read this and realize just how ill advised the President was to do what he did this week and we should be praying hard for him to see the error of his ways on this.

In the Bible we read these things:

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” Gen 1:28 (ESV)

“Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?” Job 31:15 (ESV)

“Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.” Psalm 119:73 (ESV)

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:13 (ESV)

These are clear references to God intending people to procreate and recognize that, even in the womb, God played a vital role in the formation of children and we should not casually destroy life God himself created. These passages of scripture are what inspire so many pro-life advocates to defend the unborn.

Had the President of the United States stood at the National Prayer Breakfast and uttered any of those passages and then announced his intent to protect the unborn, abortion rights advocates would have stormed the White House and the Courts all in the name of separation of church and state. The media would have had on Barry Lynn to proclaim his outrage that the President was mixing religion and politics.

Jim Wallis would have gone on the news to dance around life issues and try his best to neuter God out of them and the media would have treated him as an objective source.

But that’s not what happened.

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Judd Legum at Think Progress did what appears to be a pre-emptive strike against former Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer claiming that Fleisher was “secretly involved” in the Susan G. Komen Foundations‘ strategy on planned parenthood.

In fact, according to people I’ve spoken to who are aware of the decision making processes at Komen, Fleischer had nothing to do with Komen’s strategy or decision on this matter. I use the word “pre-emptive” because it seems Think Progress and the left wanted to get this out there quickly, damn the facts, to distract from Brendan Daly.

Brandon Daly is Nancy Pelosi’s former press secretary. He now works at Ogilvy Public Relations.

According to people close to the Komen Foundation I’ve spoken to, it was not Fleischer who was involved in the strategy and PR related to the Planned Parenthood decision, but rather Nancy Pelosi’s former press secretary and Ogilvy Public Relations executive Brendan Daly.

Think Progress seemingly wanted to jump the gun and blame a Republican for a disastrous PR strategy when it was not just any Democrat, but one tied to Nancy Pelosi, who was quick out of the gate condemning the Komen Foundation.

Maybe Komen should have gone with Edelman instead.

The left and right can together admit that the Susan G. Komen Foundation has just had three days of horrible publicity. They did the right thing and should have mapped out a release strategy better. My suspicion is that they assumed the purity of their intentions would override the abortion lobby’s demands.

I heard today that while small donations are up more than 100% to the Komen Foundation, major funders have threatened to pull money allocated to Komen because of Komen’s Planned Parenthood decision. Killing children in utero is the sacrament of the Church of the Secular Left and any person or organization that becomes the slightest threat to abortion rights must be destroyed. Because the Susan G. Komen Foundation dared to stop giving money to an organization that kills kids despite its spin, major liberal donors of Komen decided abortion outranks curing breast cancer and Komen had to be stopped.

The media headlines today are that the Komen Foundation has reversed itself. If you gave a donation in the past few days and want it back, you should call (800) 996-3329. But I hope I can provide for you some rational explanation for a mishandled PR exercise.

As a Komen Board member told Life News, the reversal is not really so much a reversal as a clarification of Komen’s grants procedures, which will still impact Planned Parenthood’s future funding from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The major outrage against Komen funding Planned Parenthood came after an undercover sting of Planned Parenthood proving conclusively that Planned Parenthood does not offer mammogram services. Komen claimed it funded Planned Parenthood because of its mammogram services. Planned Parenthood’s dodge is that they referred women to places to get discounted or free mammograms, which itself is not true.

In walking back its denial of funds to Planned Parenthood, my understanding is that Komen will not cancel already approved grants to Planned Parenthood, but in the future will only fund organizations that provide mammograms themselves. That, in effect, still shuts out Planned Parenthood unless they actually invest in in-house infrastructures to give mammograms instead of just killing kids in-house.

This week is a career milestone for me. I appear in Time magazine writing about the state of the conservative movement. As a kid living overseas, my American history teacher subscribed us all to Time and U.S. News and World Report. So it is kind of cool to be in an issue of, between the two, the still printed survivor.

The point I try to make is that the conservative movement is going through a necessary transition after the Bush years. You can read the whole thing here but a really relevant part is here:

The internecine fights we are witnessing are about a conservative movement starting to separate itself again from Republican Party. Unfortunately, neither of the front runners have legitimate conservative integrity to claim the banner of conservative movement leader, but they will both try. Romney will hold the banner for conservatives within the GOP and Gingrich will hold the banner of the traditional alliance of conservatives with the GOP.

I see this playing out in, of all things, my friend Ann Coulter’s column defending Romneycare. Mark Levin offers the definitive rebuttal, which you can listen to here, but there is a point that too few are making that needs to be made.

It relates to the dangers associated with supporting Mitt Romney and Ann Coulter’s column is exhibit A on why supporting Romney portends disaster for the conservative movement.

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RedState Morning Briefing
February 2, 2012

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There are storm clouds on the horizon. A day after Mitt Romney’s massive win in Florida he opened his mouth and promptly told conservatives he was incapable of articulating conservatism.

Then Newt Gingrich found a bright line rule in the Republican rules that clearly and precisely states that all delegates awarded before April 1, 2012, must be proportional. There goes giving Romney all fifty delegates from Florida despite what Florida’s GOP Chairman says.

Then National Review and other Romney supporters , taking a bit of comfort in his secure win in Florida, decided they could finally express some buyers remorse, or at least now stop zealously defending him and criticize him some.

Then people really examined the exit polls in Florida. What they found was that turnout fell from 2008. But in counties where turn out was up, Newt Gingrich won. Where turnout from 2008 was down, Romney won. This pattern followed South Carolina. The base remains unexcited about Romney and his comments yesterday about the poor and the social safety net keep the base from getting excited.

What should have been Mitt Romney heading into February securing his nomination now becomes an effort to stave off a rear guard action to pick him off. Gingrich and Santorum now have the ammunition they need to keep the Great Coalescing from happening.

What should have been a clear path to the nomination is suddenly in jeopardy.

We’ll get into it all in the Horserace.

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RedState Morning Briefing
February 2, 2012

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