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Why conservatives can’t trust Mitt Romney: the Etch-A-Sketch analogy

By: Finrod (Diary)  |  March 21st, 2012 at 12:41 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

While I realize many books could be written with the subject I’ve chosen here, I’m referring to one thing in particular. It’s a sad, sad day when I’m forced to agree with the likes of whine factories like thinkprogress when it comes to the fellow that will likely be our nominee, Mitt Romney. His communications director just handed our opponents a dagger with which to stab him:

JOHN FUGELSANG (CNN): “Is there a concern that [Rick] Santorum and [Newt] Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?”

FEHRNSTROM: “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.”

The Stupid Party strikes again; first Santorum tells the country that he doesn’t care about unemployment, then Romney’s staff do their best to play into the ‘Mitt has no principles’ meme about him. Sigh.

Only 230 days until November 6!

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COMMENTS

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  • Bob_Frazier

    Romney can and will hit the reset button. But we have been here before. John McCain, Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush. The best question is when will we ever learn.

    As for Santorums comment, you know what he meant and he clarified it.

    This year, of all years, we have to run a real conservative. Time is running out. If ubamacare is not reversed, we are a socialist country. And if we lose our freedom as we are currently losing it, perhaps what Santorum said will register with you, although too late.

    • Finrod

      If Rick didn’t mean what he said, then he shouldn’t have said it. Do you really expect the MSM to give him a break at all?

      perhaps what Santorum said will register with you

      This is comedy gold. Santorum is not a conservative, his voting record was in the lower half of the Republican Senators he served with. Santorum has forgotten that you may be able to stand on one leg (social conservatism), but it’s awfully hard to run with any speed that way.

      • http://thethinkingvoter.blogspot.com abierubin

        omitting the beginning or end in order to create the impression the speaker had said something he hadn’t?

        The Romney Team publicized a partial quote from Santorum and totally took it out of context. here’s the end of Santorum’s statement:

        My campaign doesn?t hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It?s something more foundational that?s going on.?

        And this is the point he was making – that if the economy gets better than Romney can quit his campaign while Rick can compete on the economy + fundamental issues like health care mandates and stripping our freedoms – issues Romney can’t touch because he’s done the same as Obama.

        Romney’s communications director, on the other hand, slipped up and spoke the truth for once. He sounded like Obama when Obama speaks off the cuff – without his teleprompter.

        Big difference.

        • Finrod

          Goldwater’s “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” line was a great and memorable line, but it was also poison to the electorate at the time.

      • rednation

        Your point is partially correct, about Romney.

        Not 100% about Santorum.

        He meant several things that are easily clarified, and that his run was not one dimensional as per Mitt if the economy actually does improve or does so enough so that the media can credibly try to argue it has since with Romney, too many things are taken off the table and with him we have no credibility with 3rd parties going forward.

        It was the worst gaffe he’s made, though, and really, really, stupid in terms of how he said it which allows easy distortion for the ignorant. Really dumb move by Santorum.

        That said, the Romney etch a sketch issue is devastating, and the other side is ALREADY making ads.

        His history is so blatantly fraught with flip flops and 180′s the trust level is impossible with voters.

        In short, the odds of losing the general with him have gone up dramatically and there is no way to correct it.

        His team arguing it was about organizational aspects and not ideology is clearly bogus. In short, we are screwed…

    • rednation

      The trouble is GOP primary voters never seem to learn.

      In a contrast election with a weak incumbent, we could not even run a reasonable conservative (Santorum) or even Newt, and chose (apparently) somebody not even REMOTELY right wing to be the nominee if Mittens wins. Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, Dewey, Ford, Dole, McCain, etc.

      We never learn.

      If Obamacare is not reversed, we ARE a socialist nation. So, we put as the leader of the party the guy who fathered it AND agreed to nationally applied mandates no less? Insanity.

      Santorum is right. Even if his record is flawed to a degree, we are about to nominate somebody who does even try or cares a bit about anything other than his political future.

      Sad.

      You always go with the hardest conservative you can find in a cycle like this with a weak incumbent, and we picked a moderate possibly, out of fear, in the best chance for someone well to the right to win set-up.

      Amazing…

  • aesthete

    The only way that President Mittbot will make me happy is if someone comes out with the model that integrates the Three Laws of Robotics, and applies them to politics vis a vis the Harm Principle.

  • danielbdp

    Already on the table – though Newt continues to attack Santorum. That way we get the two legs to run with that Finrod is worried about.

    We need Marco Rubio in the Senate, next to DeMint, Mike Lee, Ross Johnson, and other Conservative reformers making the Senate constitutional again.

    • garfieldjl

      Face it, you’d want Newt to debate Obama. In all seriousness, Newt would be like a shark on a feeding frenzy if he were versing Biden.

      If you look at Gingrich’s critique of Santorum, it’s relatively tame compared to what he’s saying about Romney.

      Gingrich and Santorum go after each other on the issues.

      Romney just wants to smear everyone.

    • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

      Newt for something. Santorum for his first private sector job.

    • acat

      Bah.

  • garfieldjl

    Put Newt and Santorum on the stage and put up an “etch-a-sketch” on the podium where Romney would be sitting if he were Man enough to show up.

    • civil truth

      …and put the etch-a-sketch in place of Romney’s camera shots.

  • dajeeps

    Given the states left to vote and the make up of how delegates are awarded favors Mitt by a large margin. I’m not saying that miracles don’t happen, but it’s looking more and more like that’s what it will take to even take this to the convention.

    I wished that Newt would have done better than he did, but truth be told, he screwed himself by running a lousy campaign, letting all his supporters down in the process. For him, it’s over. And for Santorum, it’s all but over.

    It’s time to put the daggers away because we have an opposition out there that is far more formidable than Mitt Romney. We must defeat it as job one and worry about differences among ourselves latter.

    • garfieldjl

      Romney is counting on winning by default, if we don’t give up there is a good chance he can’t hit the magic number and then he probably won’t be the nominee.

      • demsaresatanic

        among conservatives, however I have to agree with daj that Newt and Rick have let us down by not agreeing upon a strategy to split the primaries between them and make it a straight up conservative vs Romney race in the various states. There are sufficient primaries remaining to kill a Romney first-ballot win in my opinion.

        • garfieldjl

          http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/22/santorum-maybe-americas-better-off-with-obama-than-taking-a-risk-on-an-etch-a-sketch-candidate/

          Ouch, I don’t think either one will come out of this unscathed.

          • demsaresatanic

            Newt has been beating around the bush lately on Romney from what I have seen, and Rick went at it head on. It is exactly the type of controversial remark that is needed to focus attention upon the issue.

          • garfieldjl

            I would like this to come down to Gingrich and Santorum competing against each other for the nomination over Gov. “Etch-a-sketch” and his smear merchants getting it.

            I think Gingrich/Santorum would be a hard ticket for Obama to take on (would prefer Gingrich/Palin to scare the establishment silly).

      • dajeeps

        Just pointing out it’s a huge mountain to climb, and that there’s a point at which we should read the handwriting on the wall and stop ripping each other apart as if there were no tomorrow if we intend to stay under the Republican umbrella. For now, that’s what I intend to do because I don’t see any other viable options. I haven’t seen any really good ideas being floated around that can solve the problem of having to tolerate egregious breeches of principle without being completely counterproductive. An almost constant stream of attacks on the likely nominee just doesn’t fit that definition, at least not in my mind.