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A Call for Sanity in the Anti-Romney Rhetoric

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  January 4th, 2012 at 01:47 PM  | 

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Let me just say up front that Mitt Romney is far from my first choice among the current field. I think both Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman would be far better general election candidates and Presidents than Mitt Romney and I don’t really “get” the joke the state of Iowa has clearly foisted on the entire country by essentially voting for Santorum, but macabre humor has never been my thing. However, all objective evidence seems to indicate that the GOP primary electorate does not agree with me and that Romney has the clear inside track to the nomination, with only Newt posing a serious threat to his chances. While I certainly get that Romney as a candidate has many, many flaws, I honestly do not get the gnashing of teeth I am hearing today at the prospect of a Romney nomination. In my view, if he were to win the nomination, he would be our most conservative nominee since at least 1988.

I think that some people have either lost a sense of historical perspective here or are expecting an unrealistically quick sea change if their contention is that Romney is unacceptably moderate to get their vote in a general election. Turning back the wayback machine to 1992, recall that our nominee (among other things) was most recently known for 1) raising taxes and 2) nominating a pro-choice justice to the Supreme Court. In 1996 we ran “tax collector for the welfare state” Bob Dole, whose cronies groused openly about removing the pro-life plank from the Republican party platform. In 2000, George W. Bush ran on an open platform of instituting the largest entitlement expansion in decades (Medicare Part D), amnesty for illegal aliens, and loads of other big government ideas. I mean, GWB wasn’t defending having done those things in the past, he explicitly told us that if elected, he would implement them as President. To say nothing of the fact that his wife was openly pro-choice and he flirted openly with the idea of selecting Tom Ridge as VP. In 2008, we ran a guy whose entire national name ID was due to the fact that he was, without a doubt, the handiest and most available useful idiot for the media to grab when they needed a Republican to criticize the Republican party.

Now, Mitt Romney has often been criticized (fairly and completely accurately, in my opinion) as a flip-flopper. I agree that this is less than a desirable trait and if I had my druthers I would prefer someone like Rick Perry who has been more or less consistently conservative for a relatively long time (an easier feat in Texas than Massachusetts, no doubt, but that is beside the point). However, the most salient point I can divine about this criticism, given the fact that Romney’s latest flops are all to the right, is that Romney is being criticized for accurately perceiving that he needs conservatives. Yes, I would agree that Romney would bear careful watching as President and constant egging on from Congress, but I would certainly prefer someone who panders to me for political reasons than someone who openly gives me the finger in order to pander to centrists and/or leftists, which is exactly what we have gotten in terms of Presidential nominees for the last 20 years.

I guess what I am saying here is that if Mitt Romney is the standard-fare establishment candidate who we would all only grudgingly settle for after all other options are exhausted, then we should recognize that we as conservatives have successfully moved the party significantly to the right over the last two decades, and it would be absolute infantile madness to disregard this fact and refuse to support Romney (if he is the nominee) in the general election against Obama because more conservative candidates were unable to convince GOP primary voters to vote for them.

COMMENTS

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  • usedtobelib

    Remember this when he was leading in the polls briefly?

    ?I don?t have to go around and point out the inconsistencies of people who aren?t going to be the nominee,? Gingrich said. ?I?m going to be the nominee. It?s very hard not to look at the recent polls and think the odds are very high I?m going to be the nominee.?

    And Gingrich thinks only PAC ads brought him down. Guys with delusions of grandeur never understand when others don’t see that greatness.

    It seems Mr. Gingrich will sacrifice a GOP victory in order to assuage the hit to his ego. I hope he never gets another job, never collects another check for his speaking or consulting fees.

    How in the world is any American voter to believe Mr. Gingrich could behave Presidentially in the face of conflict with world leaders?

    • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

      He still is.

      Besides, this diary is about accepting a Romney nomination. I’ll support him if he’s the nominee, but I still think there’s a chance to do better. I agree with Leon that Newt is the only one that has a chance to beat him, but I disagree with Leon that Romney is better than Newt. I think Newt would govern to the right of Romney, even given less executive experience (SoTH vs. 1-term Gov.)

      • renl57

        …as of this moment:

        Romney 26.0
        Gingrich 25.3
        Paul 13.0
        Perry 6.3
        Santorum 6.0

        Given the margin of error, it’s possible that Gingrich is leading Romney–but it’s just as possible that Romney is leading Gingrich.

        • jakeofalltrades

          It’s far more likely – if all you have is this poll – that Romney is in the lead.

        • flgal208

          and Newt 4% and the rest 1%…FNC owns the election. They know who they want and have been playing a game since the beginning…

          FNC: Romney, Romney, Romney, (oh crap Perry entered the race), ROMNEY, ROMNEy, ROMNEY (of thank the lord Perry didn’t fo well), Romney, Romney, Romney (oh, wait, 75% don’t want him, so lets pick a unlikely (anti-Mitt) candidate, focus on him/her, raise them up, get everyone looking at them and vet (trash) them, watch them sink, Romney, Romney, Romney, repeat to the next candidate (don’t look at Perry, nothing to see there folks, move along, move along). Then, pick the least able candidate of all and focus on him hoping he’ll split the vote with Paul and more will go to Romney, Romney, Romney…look at NH and see all’s well with the world, Romney, Romney, Romney, be ready to pounce on Huntsman if he mounts an effective attack, Romney, Romney (oh, crap, I thought we got rid of Parry–eeek) ROMNEY ROMNEY ROMNEY ROMNEY ROMNEY (come on people move along, nothing going on in SC) ROMNEY ROMNEY ROMNEY (hey, Karl & Dick, if Perry does well in the debate want a crack at him :) ????) ROMNEY ROMNEY ROMNEY

          • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

            Because I don’t have cable TV. But I’ve stated for a long time that candidates have to overcome media bias. It is what it is, and it’s only getting worse. If you want to win, and you aren’t their favorite, you better figure it out or go home.

          • supergirl2911

            I wondered if we should consider a media blackout day. Pick a day. No television no internet. I could and may do it on my own but no one would notice. Anyone game? Really what would we miss to go 1 day without constant substance less political goings on?

          • eldstenorge

            in Iowa. He is not Presidential material. This is why one of the most conservative Senators, Tom Coburn, has refused to support him.. And, his rants about Romney having 75% in Iowa rejecting him are quaint in comparison to the 87% of Iowa voters who “REJECTED” Newt.

            Our nation is where it is because of our moral decline and there is only only one candidate, and it is not Newt, who stands first for moral issues, Rick Santorum.. I totally support him. His book, “It Takes A Family,” is a masterpiece and so enraged Hillary and her “It Takes A Village,” crowd, that they have come after Rick Santorum ever since he published it.

            Remember the words of John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

            Instead of listening to the inspiration of the Lord in the establishment of this nation, listen to the libertarians, who will further erode and destroy Amrerica with their quips that only money matters, everything else is off the board. Vote for someone who understands the #1 basic of American history, that we must FIRST be a “moral and religious people.” God bless all of them, but God especially bless Rick Santorum-he understands.

          • timkellogg

            through legislation, and if you try, you might find yourself opposed by a lot of moral and religious people with guns who don’t like the government breathing down their necks. Santorum is a nut and a one-issue conservative.

          • JSobieski

            One of the key insights to conservatism is that a society cannot be reduced to its government and laws. Society and culture are far more than that. I don’t see how more laws is going to prevent culural or moral decline.

            Seems to me that we keep adding laws, but nonetheless experience societal decline. Einstein said something about the definition of insanity . ..

          • jakeofalltrades

      • joshdunn

        It’s a tremendous step down to go from Romney to Gingrich if we care about beating Obama.

        If all we care about is Erick’s crusade to stop Romney, then I suppose Gingrich could be considered “doing better”.

        Me, I just want to see our Gangster-in-Chief back in Chicago where he belongs.

        • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

          Its one of the reasons I’m supporting him.

          • bjames

            He gets hit with some (truthful) negative ads and becomes a petulent whiner. He has no money and little organization. Romney brought down his poll numbers catastrophically in a matter of a few weeks, and you think Newt is the strong horse here?

          • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

            Newt’s negatives will certainly hurt him in the primary, as we saw in Iowa. Those negatives won’t hurt him in the general because independents don’t care. If Newt can survive the primary and get the nomination, he will beat Obama. I don’t believe that’s the case for all of the remaining candidates.

          • don12345

            If Newt wasn’t a cry baby, then maybe he’d be a serious candidate to take on Obama, but as it stands he can’t take the heat so he better get out of the kitchen.

        • flgal208

          even if he’s creepy, because he’s a GOV who wasn’t defeated by Kennedy, who did some good in U-TAH and has a clean background. He’s no Perry, but he’s not radioactive like Newt…with that said, IMHO only Perry has the know-how and cojones to turn this country…the rest will give us more of the same big bloated government. We need someone to lead us when we slide into a bitter depression, a Calvin Collidge (Perry), not a FDR(Romney) or Ford (Newt) or Mr. Rogers (Santorum) or even Bush (Huntsman
          )

        • JSobieski

          There are different ways one can appeal to moderats. One is to be wishy washy and squishy—the Romney way. The other way is actually persuade the public to go with you—the Reagan way.

          Newt is actually pretty good at explaining things.

          Who would do a better job defending a private option in Medicare? Who would do a better job pushing SS reform? Tax reform?

      • don12345

        If Newt wasn’t the same guy that hurt Republicans everywhere in 1994, then I could agree with you, but he is the same guy. Newt has been whining for weeks about how the other candidates weren’t playing nice with him, and then did something never seen before, he threw a temper tantrum during a concession speach. Once Obama starts calling Newt names the crying won’t stop until somebody buys Newt a lollipop.

        Newt has shown just this month alone that he would be a disastrous choice as the nominee. Newt should drop out and let a real candidate like Perry or Romney take on Obama.

        • nabell87

          I don’t know if we were watching the same post election speech but Newt in no way shape or form threw a temper tantrum. He merely commented sternly about an opponent who had thrown millions upon millions of dollars of negative and false ads at him. Newt finally stood up to these attacks and now everyone wants to jump on his case about throwing a tantrum, it is absolutely laughable. It has been surmised perfectly; Romney can’t get more than 25% of the party to back him because he is and always has been a moderate at best. His only defense is to misdirect and highlite others’ shortfalls in hopes they will overlook his own. Newt is going to stand up to him and do it in a big way and Romney had proven he has no answer to it, he smiles continues his misdirection and gets all but a pass from the establishment and the media. I think the most hilarious endorsement was that of John McCain, How can that man be so hypocritical, Remember “tale of two Mitt’s”? Those attacks destroyed Mitt in 2008 and will do so again coming from Newt, Mitt was only second best in 2008 and that was to One of the most moderate candidates we Have ever had, what makes Mitt a better candidate now, what has changed? I argue nothing except party members are fed up with McCain-Romney moderates. Its time for a change!I’m excited to see Newt take it to him because no one has had the guts to do it yet.

          • http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Connie+Hair Connie Hair

            >>I argue nothing except party members are fed up with McCain-Romney moderates. Its time for a change!I?m excited to see Newt take it to him because no one has had the guts to do it yet.<<

            Couldn't agree more.

      • paco12348

        Newt is the only one speaking to the out of control Judicial system that if we don’t pull up short it won’t won’t matter which candidate is selected. The Left gets everything it wants because of the Activist Judges. THAT MUST CHANGE. Newt is the only one that will change it.
        Newt is the AUTHENTIC (I’ve heard that word so often I hate to use it) conservative and he WILL shake up Washington whih is necesary and needed if we want a true separation of powers. Congress has neutered itself.

        If Romney gets the nod I will vote for him but I think he’s status quo. I don’t think he will change anything in Washington.

    • nuclear139

      Newt in Iowa was torpedoed by Romney super PAC attack ads while he was trying to raise above the fray. They spent 2.8 million in negative ads against Newt but the problem now is Mr. Gingrich is out for revenge. He is more interested in bringing Romney down than he is in winning the nomination and he has the money to do significant amount of damage to Romney’s image of electability. Please expect there to be bones flying out of Mitt’s closet over the next few weeks.

      • lineholder

        to the reality that this nation needs someone who will staunchly defend fiscally conservative policy (not moderate or Liberal or just going with the flow of where the winds of politics blow them)…then I say more power to Gingrich. And I hope he does succeed.

        Even if it breaks him and knocks him out of the race, he will be doing all of us a huge service.

        • nuclear139

          Should Newt chip away at Mitt’s image he could prevent us from falling off of a cliff for a liberal leaning candidate.

        • flgal208

          and he used SS funds (which were solvent then) to say he and Clinton left a surplus, but they used fuzzy math to make it happen AND Newt balanced the budget on the BACK OF THE MILITARY—now I know Clinton was in for 8 and Newt for only 2 of those, but he signed off on the 411,000 reduction in troops, Also, the #1 group of people on public assistance was the military family!!! We military have minds like elephants :) and we don’t forget that, not for a second. That troop and asset draw down resulted in STARk, COLE, the embassies, the barrack and the first hit on the twin towers and set up 9/11. Newt as the CIC gives me cold sweats!!!!

          • aesthete

            “That troop and asset draw down resulted in STARk, COLE, the embassies, the barrack and the first hit on the twin towers and set up 9/11.”

            Al-Qaeda’s plan to hit the Twin Towers was in the works long before any troop drawdown or base closures, and had to do with the fact that radical Islamists are raving psychopaths, not any considerations of US strength. A couple of bases in Korea closing shop had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda’s actions over the past 20 years.

            (That’s to say nothing of the fact that the USS Stark Incident occurred in the 80s — you know, a decade before those base closures and troop drawdowns. Cause and effect, how do they work?)

          • jakeofalltrades

          • cwfoster

            Some of us are getting so rabid about who we don’t want, we start losing the very ability to be coherent! Newt was partly responsible for the Stark? really? the Clinton/Gingrich team was responsible for a missle attack that occurred in 1987? I’m giving you the benfit of the doubt about the barracks thing, assuming you mean Khobar towers, since any reference to ‘barracks’ is taken to be the Beirut Marine Barracks bombing in 1983! I served in the US military the whole 12 years of Clinton’s Administration, and while I have no affection for him, I can find plenty to gripe about without throwing out random events that occurred 10 years before he took office to blame him for. Ditto for Newt. My biggest complaint about Romney is he’s been on every side of every issue, and much as San Fran Nan said (to paraphrase her) “You’ll have to elect him to see how he governs” At WORST Romney would be exactly like Obama, but slower, and while that’s not much comfort, it’s better!

      • usedtobelib

        high profile of a Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, media presence gadfly (has been on tv for years on any news network for his opinion on myriads of things) in the caucus state of Iowa, a place touted for its people who familiarize themselves with the messenger and the message?
        That both time and ads and other candidates brought his temporary and inflated numbers down makes sense; that they brought him down to such paltry numbers doesn’t. Newt has a way of bringing himself down. Voters know that and don’t want it to happen in the general.

        • Adjoran

          yet can’t point out any. I haven’t seen the ads, but Newt’s record should be enough and is certainly fair game, isn’t it?

          Back to the mean, nasty, egotistical little man we knew and threw out of the Speakership years ago . . .

          And he claims Romney could call off the PAC ads, but that would be illegal coordination. Perhaps Newt doesn’t understand PAC rules any better than he understands Virginia election laws.

          Gingrich failed to win tenure as a history prof at Georgia Western College, not quite the Ivy League of the Appalachians. He is the average person’s idea of what a smart person should sound like, and the smart person’s idea of what an annoying, pompous twit sounds like.

          • supergirl2911

            He gave was mitt saying he was not behind the PAC ads.

          • flgal208

            because he’s an undisciplined egghead who gleefully signed off on downsizing the military and look what happened…STARK, COLE, etc…don’t be fooled by his words, he does NOT have a record up standing up for the military—take a look at what happened to the military during his tenure as the speaker…Iran knows…China knows…Russia knows…

      • joshdunn

        I knew he would eventually show up.

        Question: When, in recent history, has “the mean candidate” gotten the nomination? McCain wasn’t known for being “out for revenge”. George W. Bush used some nasty push-polls against McCain in 2000, but his character was always seen as sunny and positive.

        Have we seen the last of the sunny and positive Newt?

        • lineholder

          positions (or lack thereof) on solid conservative fiscal policy, our nation’s need for someone who will govern in a manner that is fiscally conservative, and the fact that none of MSM or Repub pundits seem to be willing to take on the challenge of pointing our Romney’s inconsistencies on this matters…Newt’s doing it.

          If it puts the emphasis back on making sure we get someone who is fiscally conservative elected in 2012, then I say more power to Newt.

        • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

          no—text

        • federalfarmer1

          newt wasn’t nasty, he was very effective, especially at getting gop squishes to take temporarily unpopular positions to advance significant legislation.

          • flgal208

            and the rest did to the military???? Want to know cause and effect about 9/11? Start there…411,000 less troops, 1/3 less assets….STARK, COLE, the embassies, the barracks, the trade towers the first time, military families #1 group on assistance—yeah, lets go back there, I’m sure we can afford another 9/11 with a more inept CIC than we have now! NONONONONON

          • bjames

            The fallout would be cataclysmic – his campaign would have been finished. Newt? Why, he’s the more conservative of the two!

          • JSobieski

            and Romney was running away from Reagan, the Contract for America, and any thought of conservative reforms.

            For the same reasons why Reagan could get away with raising payroll taxes, Newt gets a bit more leeway on issues like healthcare and entitlement reform.

            Does the phrase “wither on the vine” mean anything to you?

          • jakeofalltrades

            just from your printing that quote.

          • JSobieski

            JSobieski, January 4, 2012

          • jakeofalltrades
          • jakeofalltrades

            hmm

          • JSobieski

            nt

          • cwfoster

            USS Stark Incident was in May 17, 1987, The “the trade towers the first time” was in 1993, a year before the Republicans took control of Congress and Newt became SoTH. If I may impart a bit of wisdom… “It’s better to be silent and be thought a fool, than speak and remove all doubt”

        • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

          followed up by taking down Obama and as many liberals as possible (politically speaking, of course), then I’m all for nasty. I’m tired of namby, pamby, play nice, reach across the aisle to my good friends politicians like McCain, Graham, the Maine sisters, etc. I want someone who will fight to eradicate everything Obama and his admin have done.

          As for sunny and positive Newt, I never once got the impression that he wasn’t willing to fight. He was just doing a little dancing while throwing the punches. It’s time for a KO to Romney, and if that opens a path for Newt or Perry to rise, then as I said, I’m all for it.

          Of course, if Romney is the nominee, I’ll vote for him and have my talking points ready because they’re all better than Obama.

          • don12345

            Ah come on. Newt’s not the Grinch, he’s a big ol’ baby with heart two times too small.

      • flgal208

        Perry. You can bet that if Newt drops out, he will endorse Perry, NOT Mitt and Newt on your side could be extremely valuable!!!

        • reggie182

          He leads Perry by a significant margin nationally? He did better than Perry in Iowa despite spending far less money and being pounded relentlessly by negative ads.

      • antisesquipedalion

        i just that when he does bring him down, he does it with aplomb, not anger

  • Tbone

    and he has solid conservative credentials. I hope he gets the nomination.

    However, I agree with Leon that Romney bashing will do little good going forward as Romney is far more qualified to be President than Newt.

    Santorum is, of course, a non-issue going forward as he should be.

    while I think Romney is too moderate, he can certainly beat Obama. and that is what this really is about

    • Wubbies World

      … in the big scheme of things, he is not a disaster either.

      I am still pulling for Perry, and plan to vote for him in the primary, but at the end of the day, any Republican, with reservations about Ron Paul* as far as I am concerned, would be better than Obama.

      I will still keep up the fight for Perry, but will accept Romney if I have too.

      * I think the chances of Paul wining are as close to zero as it can get, but crazier things have happened.

    • nuclear139

      While we all hope that Perry will continue the fight but if the only lesson we learned from last night was that Santorum is not viable and we need to accept Romney than we have not learned much. Mitt Romney will be a big government Republican president and if we send him to the White House without a Republican Congress than pray to god that he does not sell us out to the liberals who only wants to spend this nation’s future into the hands the Chinese. Santorum although weak is still a social conservative that can still appeal to the working class blue collar independents that will be vial to a GOP win come November.

      • nancysabet

        Why aren’t we honest and tell the truth. We know who won last night, MSM and Obama machine wich destroyed Perry’s candidacy. They know Romney will lose in general election. Let’s support Perry all the way and make him the nominee, we know he will win against Obama. Please don’t let the Dems and MSM to pick up your nominee…

        • joshdunn

          The polls show that Romney would be our strongest candidate.

          I believe in faith as much as the next guy. But faith alone didn’t propel McCain past Obama and it will not be enough to propel someone like Perry past Obama.

          We need someone who is liked by the base AND those crucial swing-voters who decide elections every four years. If we can’t have that, then either the base or the swing-voters have to compromise by saying, “This guy may not have a perfect record, but he’s on my side NOW.”

          Keep in mind that when Reagan ran for president in 1980, he did not have impeccable conservative credentials. He had raised taxes as governor of California and had cut many deals with the California legislature as governor. Reagan didn’t say, “I’m an impeccable conservative.” But he did convince conservatives that he was better than 4 more years of Carter.

          If you had to choose right now between a President Romney or 4 more years of Obama, which would you choose?

          Which Republican candidate has the best shot of beating Obama?

          What do you base your answer to my previous question on?

          I base my position on numerous polls that show that independent voters and moderate Democrats are more likely to vote for Romney than any other Republican. These voters may have voted for Obama 4 years ago but they realize that this was a mistake and they want to correct that mistake if they can find the right Republican candidate to replace Obama with.

          • lightspeed

            Mitt does not have the best chance of beating Obama, as he will take several major issues off the table (Obamacare, etc.) and be a poster boy for greedy Wall Street. C’mon, open your eyes people! Obama is salivating at the chance to face Mitt!

          • joshdunn

            They show that Romney polls better than Perry or Gingrich in nearly every state. He polls much better than either candidate among independent voters, a crucial voting bloc.

            These are the polls I’m talking about.

          • redcal

            ..a consequence of all that flip-flopping.

            Want to undercut Romney’s conservative support in states with a lower % of independents? Run the “Mitt vs. Mitt” ad over and over, and get the advisor who worked on both Romneycare and Obamacare in some new ads talking about how honored he was to take his ideas from Taxachussetts to America. Talk about how Obama and Romney both define ‘wealthy’ as 250k+ and thus will NOT cut capital gains taxes for people over that boundary. Show his declining approval ratings during his one (one!) political job and then Massachusetts Republicans talking about how betrayed they felt by Romneycare, support for Planned Parenthood, increased taxes/fees, etc. After a few months of this, Romney looks like Obama-lite.

            Want to undercut Romney’s moderate support in states with a higher % of independents? Run ads highlighting his (awkwardly timed, convenient) conservative stands on immigration, abortion, etc. They painted McCain/Palin as right-wing extremists and that will be even easier to do for Romney, who has less of an actual political record (just 4 mediocre years) to disprove any statements than for McCain.

            lightspeed is totally right.

    • nepanyrush

      Perry is at 6% in the polls in South Carolina, 4% in the polls in Florida, and 2.5% in the polls in New Hampshire. He came in 5th in Iowa despite spending 5 million dollars (!), or about $300 per vote! The only thing supporting Rick Perry is doing is continuing to split the conservative nominees. His 6% in SC may not be much, but most of it would go to a conservative nominee.

      I like Santorum a lot (having supported him for years in PA), but I do agree with Leon Wolf — the rhetoric against Romney has been over the top. Just 4 years ago, he was the hope of conservatives to defeat McCain. He may not be as dependently conservative as several other nominees, but he is much more conservative than many are conceding here.

      • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

        so all those who say it cannot again are just projecting what they want people to believe.

        • nancysabet

          It is and it was very clear that Paul and Santy are not going to get the nomination and even if they did they will lose much easier to Obama than Romney. We know Romney will lose to Obama. Again and Again, Perry is the only one who can beat him.

          • bdirks

            You can say it all you want. But there isn’t a single poll, turnout model, electoral college scenario, and now, election result to support the idea that “only” Perry can win.

          • Mensch

            Truth

          • joshdunn

            In fact, it’s made up. Perry is not the only Republican who can beat Obama and there isn’t a single bit of evidence that he is the only Republican that can beat Obama.

            He’s not even the Republican MOST LIKELY to beat Obama.

            Romney is. Many polls support this.

          • gekster

            How’d that work out.

          • princessconsuela

            All of these “Romney can beat Obama” people think this would happen? They are one in the same. Keeping Obama 4 more years is better than having him 8 more (assuming Romney for 8). If (and electibility included I believe impossible for Romney) he gets the nod and wins against Obama is just more of the same. He has no record. The only thing he has ever been consistant on is flip flopping. If all you can sell is bs coming out of your mouth why would anyone care to continue to listen. He couldnt even bring in as many votes last night as last time in Iowa. Romney is an unqualified joke and why the establisment has decided its his “turn” is way beyond me. Not surprising though, they tried and lost last time too. The American people are showing he is not the “one”. Yes he likes to bs and smooth talk at crowds and debates, so what. Obama likes to hear himself talk n bs too, that got us here. I personally dont like “here” and we cannot afford 1 more year much less 4+. There are not that many true conservatives with records they can stand on that are running. However Rick Perry is, he has been consistant, he has been faithful and he has done all of the things he discusses. The other candidates always take his stuff and try to push it as their own, cant be done. Only one man stands alone in that crowd of people running. Its not, somewhat moderate Huntsman.. its not, closet full of crap Gingrich… Its not, porkbelly hypocrit Santorum. Its not, as already pointed out, i couldnt get reelected on the one election of the millions i paid to play in Romney.. its definitly not, super scary crazy uncle Paul (oh gahh with the scary)… It is Rick Perry, his record beats obama without one word spoken! His plans are simple, stated and proven to work. If you want to talk about electability, thats what it means to me.

          • joshdunn

            They underestimated Romney’s support and Santorum’s support and either over-estimated RP’s support or got it just right.

            They probably over-sampled Democrats who were not even supposed to vote in a Republican caucus.

            Democrats will be invited to the general election, so it is fair to ask them, even at this early stage, which Republicans they might support.

          • gekster

            Polls don’t elect, voters do.

            Remember this?

            “Romney is. Many polls support this.” < (this part)

          • Michael Dugas

            Every weapon we have to use against Obama, like Obama care, can be turned around on Mitt. Mitt nominated liberal judges as Governor. He didn’t fight for one conservative ideal while in office that I can see. Mitt will be portrayed as the Wall Street Healthcare mandate loving Republican….and it will be true. How’s he going to fight that? Will he want to? He’s even been talking like he might now support Obama care, he won’t even acknowledge the negative effects of Romneycare on healthcare costs and those dumped into medicare. You really want Mitt picking the next Supreme Court Justices? Not me. He has yet shown that he has any fight in him…he dodges every talk show or media event that might ask him tough questions. If he’s our nominee I’ll vote for him but God help us we better have the Senate under GOP control by then also. If Obamacare is not defeated our country is toast. We’ll be bankrupt with no ability to support our military at any sort of useful levels and the days as America as a powerful nation for good will be over. We’ll just be another soft weak ass socialist victim.

      • rec0n

        And has no cash in the bank – Perry’s got more left to burn and his record is better than Santorums.

        As long as he’s in, my vote is his.

        • joshdunn

          And lost. It is hard to describe Perry’s performance in Iowa as anything but a clear, unmitigated loss.

          Whether there are three tickets out of Iowa or four (four if you’re polling within the top 2 in New Hampshire, three if your name is Bill Clinton), Perry didn’t get a ticket.

          His candidacy helps Romney, so I’m not at all opposed to Perry staying in the race. But Perry got slammed by the media and now he can go consult Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin on the injustice of the MSM. But the point is, for all practical purposes, his ship has sailed.

          • texashistorian

            He’s got several farms in the form of money still to spend, and money still committed to him. He has as much chance as anyone left in the race. Where was Santorum in the polls 3 weeks ago? If Santorum drops and people migrate to ROmney, then you are right. However, if (when?) Santorum drops, and there is no Bachmann left, where do those people go if not Romney?

          • Tbone

            likeable, but fairly stupid to try to fool people with your crap..

            Paul didn’t get a ticket and Santorum has absolutely zero chance of staying around long enough to beat Romney. Newt is fading fast. Perry is the only one who can stay with Romney. Anyone with any sense could analyze that.

            We can see why a RomneyButt Romora would like for Perry to drop out. Don’t try to fool us. You’re just not that smart.

          • JSobieski

            Maybe thats a sign of imminent collapse, or maybe its just wishful thinking on your part?

          • thirstyboots

            From early to mid December, Newt was leading by 15-20 points in national polls too. Then, as it happened with others, he imploded when the scrutiny began – more in Iowa due to the ads and people paying more attention.

            Newt’s problem is that people will support him till they’re reminded of his heresies. Same that will happen with Santorum.

          • sunshinek67

            I participate in other forums, Twitter, for example and the real time reports that I was getting from several reporters that I follow is that there was a deluge of epic proportions in negative ads on Newt, one right after another.

            His numbers couldn’t sustain that kind of attack. Wish the 75% anti-Romney SuperPacs would go after him like that. That was the real winner in Iowa last nite.

          • joshdunn

            The three-tickets out of Iowa rule had to be amended when McCain took fourth in Iowa in 2008 and still got the nomination.

            Ron Paul did get a ticket out of Iowa. He’s still running for president.

            Santorum has zero chance of beating Romney. I agree with you on this one.

            I will disagree with you on the following: Perry’s chances of becoming the GOP nominee, your uninformed opinion that I am stupid, and your argument that Romney and/or his supporters want Perry to drop out.

            I really do want Perry to stay in. The minute Rick Perry drops out, South Carolina will probably become out of Romney’s reach.

            Romney can still win without South Carolina, but it will be much easier for Romney to get nominated if he does win in South Carolina.

            I’d like for Perry to stay in at least long enough to help Romney in South Carolina.

            I won’t respond in kind to any insults. I’m above that.

            Apparently, Romney is above that, too. It is one of the many reasons why I like him.

          • JSobieski

            Back when there was no alternative media and few debates, it wasn’t a bad rule of thumb.

            With frequent debates, talk radio, the Internet, etc. its not even less of a “rule” than it was before.

            Ron Paul will continue running for President until he runs out of money and runs out of the ability to get attention. He doesn’t need a ticket for that.

          • Tbone

            and has the same chance of winning as Paul.

            If you think we are going to believe that you think Newt is a stronger candidate than Perry over the next 3 months, you are stupid or think we are. I bet it’s both.

            The only thing Romney seems to be above is telling the truth.

          • JSobieski

            are really just observations of past occurrences.

            It used to be a rule that a divorced man couldn’t be president.

            It was a rule that a black man couldn’t be president.

            I could go on and on with such “rules” but it might be better to look at them as “rules of thumb” rather than rules.

            Obama was the first sitting senator to win the Presidency since Kennedy—almost 60 years prior and MANY MANY RULES AGO.

          • jakeofalltrades

            defined as random correlates with an imaginary causal link.

            I love Redstate. The minds here sharpen each other – and I’m being sharpened. Thanks!

      • rec0n

        “Romney is being criticized for accurately perceiving that he needs conservatives”

        this is true. I wouldn’t trust him farther than I could throw him, but he does indeed need cons, and that means we have leverage.

        If we’re smart, we’ll have the House and Senate too.

        At the end of the day it’s still ABO as far as I’m concerned. It has to be. Unless it’s Paul.

        • swkenobi

          Wow, never realized how in the tank for Perry you really are. Santorum a “macabre humor”, seriously. You must consider your job to tear down any R that is not your man. There are only a couple of candidates that I would have a hard time voting for under any circumstances (Huntsman and Romney) but would take either over Obama. Red State is slipping further and further from when it used to be, a more reasonable voice for conservatives.

          All I see lately coming from your or Eric is just pissing and moaning about everyone but your candidate. You are becoming less and less relevant with each and every post.

        • usedtobelib

          impress people with NEW and BOLD ideas that in reality would EXPAND government.

          Look. When you have a megalomaniac, you cannot possibly hope he will ever do anything which DECREASES his power.

          Ronald Reagan wasn’t impressed with increasing the power of the office he occupied. Do you really think a President Gingrich would be happy being George Washington?

      • texastaxpayer

        You want me to move past Rick Perry the three term most successful governor in contemporary America for a failed senator who has never ran so much as a lemonade stand during an election that is all about economics?
        You did get a card for what your smoking right? At least then you could claim its “medicinal”.

        • nancysabet

          honestly you think Santy who? will get anywhere after Iowa? sure, Romney and Dems will pour money on him to keep him around just to make sure Perry does not get the nomination.

      • evilleramsfan

        …not to say it can’t be done, but look at the following:

        1. Perry was at 6% or less in Iowa a month ago and ended up at 10%
        2. Gingrich was blowing everyone else away a month ago and ended up 4th by only a small margin.
        3. No polling updates have occurred since early to mid-December in both SC and FL. It is possible for Perry to be in the 10% area at this point.
        4. Bachmann has another 6% that is going somewhere….I don’t think Gingrich or Santorum have much money to be able to appeal to them.

        • bzip

          As I said before, I will support whoever the nominee is. However, unless it is Rick Perry I honestly can’t put my heart into defending anyone else or caring about anyone else.

          I will say that: Santorum is a light weight that would get his rear end tanned by Obama but mostly likely Romney will do it when the time is right. Santorum is a pseudo conservative, big gov’t insider. I suspect Santorum will be out shortly after SC. Santorum = Obama’s 2nd term

          Newt has so much baggage that the little bouncing that he got from Romney would look like child’s play in the general election. Newt like Santorum is another pseudo conservative, big gov’t insider. Newt = Obama’s 2nd term.

          Romany as a moderate (another pseudo conservative) that I truly dislike but “might” have a chance against Obama.

          Huntsman = I would be okay with but I have serious doubts he could stand up to Obama and more importantly I think he will be out shortly after NH of SC.

          Perry is everything that a dream could ask for true for in a conservative with governing experience a great record, great contrast to go against Obama with. I can’t in all honesty defend anyone or feel a connection to other than Perry,

          If the so called conservative base and Tea Party people would stop looking for that great debater or the tingle in the leg or the “latest fashionable candidate” and open their eyes we might actually stand a chance – but I doubt it. This country seems bent on following the latest fashion and fads and presidential candidates seem to be no different.

          So in the end I would say: Perry, Huntsman, Romney forget anyone else but personally I won’t be defending or doing anything for anyone – except for Perry.

          Perry News:
          Rick Perry Moves Forward, ?Here We Come South Carolina?
          http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/rick-perry-moves-forward-here-we-come-south-carolina/

          • usedtobelib

            that the qualities you perceive in Perry are not coming through to others?

          • pdawk

            and Perry’s first impression (and 2nd and 3rd) were of him bumbling away on state at a debate looking completely out of his league. Most people don’t sit on the internet all day and research their candidates. They make decisions based on 30 second soundbites and debate performance.

            I live in South Carolina. I live in a part of South Carolina that is very conservative and very evangelical. I don’t know anyone that wants to jump on board with Perry. Most people I talked to see him as GW without a brain. His coming from Texas is actually a negative as it reminds most of the Bush presidencies to much.

            The only way in hell that Perry wins South Carolina is if Jim Demint comes out and endorses (Tim Scott could probably move the needle to a lesser degree). Romney got Haley’s endorsement, but no one here likes Haley as governor so it doesn’t carry much weight. Having said that, Demint isn’t going to jump on board with Perry or any other candidate so it probably comes down to Newt, Santorum and Romney.

          • bzip

            I don’t think Perry is using the right strategy, at least in Iowa. I think he focused too much on the “value voters” as a opposed to his record (jobs, economy, down sizing gov’t, taking out regulations, constitution, etc).

            I also think as some pointed out 1st impressions. I think it is wrong and I think he can turn it around. I surely have had my share of bad 1st impressions of various people in my life but thankfully I gave them another chance or I would have missed some of my best friends and perhaps even my wife.

            If people are that self centered, that so focused on 1st impressions that they don’t give someone another chance then this country is hopeless as “sometimes 1st good impressions” come from the very same people who you don’t want are are the most dangerous in the end.

            I also think we have a screwy sense about us. Once we have walk away from one candidate, nobody wants to look again till they have made “all” the rounds through all the candidates.

            If that is the case then it makes a stronger argument for Perry to stay in the race cuz there is a good chance that Santorum will go down once vetted and attack by others leaving Perry an opening for a sound second look. I don’t think Perry was really given a fair sound second look because as soon as Newt was attack and went down people moved to the “next non vetted candidate”.

      • jgge

        achievement of Mitt Romney.

        • federalfarmer1

          How do conservatives compare romney and Newt and favor romney? It’s all bandwagon. There’s nothing in romneys accomplishments that is conservative, or very impressive. He’s got Herman Cains business experience and a failed governorahip. Had he run in 06, he’d have lost worse than santorum.

          Newt showed leadership as speaker. He led the gop opposition to Clinton and accomplished more than the gop did when it controlled all branches of government.

        • joshdunn

          An easy accomplishment if you’re the governor of Texas. Much more difficult if you are the governor of Massachusetts.

          Why the hang-up over a candidate’s record all of a sudden? Herman Cain was practically cannonized on this site back in October and he had no conservative achievements whatsoever.

          He said that he was a conservative and that was good enough for his grassroots followers.

          Mitt Romney calls himself a conservative and he has just as much right to that title as Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum.

          • lineholder

            that was written into the diary you’re responding to, correct?

          • JSobieski

            Anything else might be overselling.

            Does anyone expect that Romney will deal with the challenging issues of entitlement reform? Spending? Tax reform?

            One serious question:

            What was spending like under Romney? I realize that government budgets rise each year, but how did Romney impact spending in Mass?

          • jakeofalltrades

            What if he buys his own hype and actually tries to be Reagan? He certainly seems to have studied him extensively. For all we know it changed him.

            There’s a sliver of a gnat of chance, right?

            I’m for Perry till the end, but if the end comes…

          • JSobieski

            more genuine in being who he is. He will not pull a Dole (I can be Reagan if you want me to be).

            If Romney wanted to be a Reaganite, he would have embraced the Tea Party. Romney has made a specific decision to run as a business savy technocrat, and I respect that since that is what he is.

      • uncmike

        http://news.yahoo.com/santorum-surge-brings-ethics-questions-152702229.html

        • keven

          Name me one truely conservative thing Mitt has accomplished in his entire life? One? When has Mitt spent politcal capital fighting for a conservative thing in his entire life? Never, thats when. And these FACTS should continue to be pointed out.

          Mitt Romney was arguably the most liberal Republican in the country 10 years ago. The idea he has changed is laughable. I would LOVE the chance to vote for Scott Brown for President over him. Atleast I like, respect and trust Scott Brown. Atleast Scott Brown voted against Obamacare. He fought once atleast. That is how bad Mitt Romney is.

          The fact the establishment continues to shove Mitt down my throat makes me want to fight him that much more.

        • tyman

          nt

        • bzip

          Good, Santorum will get the vetting he so deserves. The corrupt t big gov’t flunky is going to go down in the near future.

          I wonder whatever happen to the Plaats endorsement scandal anyways;

          Iowa group calls for FEC probe of Vander Plaats and Santorum
          http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/23/iowa-group-calls-for-fec-investigation-of-vander-plaats-and-santorum/

          http://signon.org/sign/tell-the-fec-investigate-6.fb1?source=c.fb&r_by=1852678

          Rick Santorum Fails to Get One Endorsement, But He?s Grilled About Another
          http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/rick-santorum-fails-to-get-one-endorsement-but-hes-grilled-about-another/

          Iowa Conservative Leader Mired in Controversy After Rick Santorum Endorsement
          http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/iowa-conservative-leader-mired-in-controversy-after-rick-santorum-endorsement/

          • pttx333

            it begin for those who have been unscathed so far by not being vetted.

            As the for Plaats thing, the only thing I can figure is that it must be totally insignificant by Iowa standards! Bah!

        • uncmike

          Santorum, like Gingrich, has a long record, both while in office ( House, later Senate) and afterward. Such records are fertile fields for those who want to mine dirt of any kind. The media seems to have no interest in Obama’s dirt or that of the rest of the Democrats, but you can bet they will go to any end to dig up things on Rs–recall the media feeding frenzy caused by the emails of former Governor Palin. I suspect they will hold their fire on Romney until he gets the Republican nod, if he in fact does.

      • supergirl2911

        Seriously is the last poll in sc from december18?

  • gipper823

    He’s probably the most conservative republican we’ve ever had. He’s also the most liberal. Depends on which Mitt Romney you’re talking about. Currently he’s pretty conservative. Of course, he’ll switch to being more liberal when he needs more of the center votes.

    Romney is a well-styled blur of a candidate. Who knows who he really is or what he would look like as a president.

    • nancysabet

      they have a reason, they don’t know which Romney they’ll be voting for.

    • joshdunn

      I agree with this part of your comment.

      I’m going to have to disagree with most of the rest of it.

      Romney said that he’d give states the right to opt out of Obamacare, thus defeating this expansion of federal power. That’s pretty conservative.

      He said that he’d lower capital gains taxes and corporate income taxes. Also very conservative.

      You don’t feel that you can trust him. Why? The only ones he “betrayed” as governor of Massachusetts were the liberals who voted for him in 2002 and then boo-hooed as he blocked their single-payer health care plan, rallied Congress to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, investigated Big Dig fraud, and refused to raise taxes.

      I’ll take a president like that over Obama any day of the week.

      • keven

        He refused to raise state income taxes, but raised buisness taxes and state fees instead. Whats the difference? I think raising fees is worse myself.

        He was against gay marriage? Great. Of course back then 60% of the country was against it and EVERY voting public in the country has been against it since. Oh yes, not to mention Hillary and Barrack are against gay marriage to this day. Whoopee.

        He investigated fraud? Thats nice.

        And Massachussetts is as close to single payer as one can get.

        If this is the best you have to promote him, its incredibly weak.

      • gipper823

        with Romney and see if you still feel all warm and fuzzy about Romney.

        Yes, we’ll all get together and vote for whoever the republican nominee is…whoever it is, it doesn’t matter. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking Romney is some sort of consistent conservative.

        • JSobieski

          should want Romney toughened up a bit.

          if Romney can’t handle a question about Romneycare from the good natured Bret Baier, Romney isn’t such a strong candidate against a MSM that will actually be gunning for him.

          If Romney is to be a backup candidate (and that is all he is to me at this point), he needs to show that he can actually HANDLE certain basic attacks, such as anything relating to Romneycare.

          • lineholder

            I’m glad that Newt has made the decision to challenge some of Romney’s inconsistencies.

            I’m ultimately a realist about the fact that we may not get what we want where a more Conservative candidate is concerned. But in all honesty, simply based on how Romney has responded to the few situations where he HAS been challenged, he won’t survive the MSM if he gets the nom! Not responding as he has been. They will eat that man alive!

          • carolynr

            nt

  • rharrison

    and something myself and many others who prefer Perry need to absorb.

  • justonevoice

    If he chooses a pro-choice runningmate, I will not vote for Romney.

    If he chooses a moderate runningmate who is nominally pro-life, I will vote for Romney but won’t be very excited about this election.

    If he chooses someone with tea party credentials, it will light my enthusiasm.

    • rharrison

      If he goes with a Tea Party type pick he’ll bring conservatives over; even much of Ron Paul’s support.

      • justonevoice

        Sarah Palin was entirely correct last night that the GOP should not marginalize the Ron Paul supporters. The hostility on this site has befuddled me.

        A Romney nomination means that the tea party movement of the past 3 years as well as the excitement that came with the Palin VP nomination will have been lost. Romney represents a continuation of Dole, McCain, and the misguided second term of W. Turning out the base hinges on the VP nomination. So….will he “play for the independents” and media perception with a moderate VP pick who is “safe,” or will he pick someone who has credentials on the right and actually believes in something?

        • usedtobelib

          This is true. My experience tells me that Paul the most mixed bag of voters. Among them are white nationalists, isolationists, libertarians, anti-war voters, deficit hawks, the unemployed, a large and devoted group of those who want drugs legalized (this, I feel, is how Ron Paul originally made in-roads with college age voters), gold-standard voters who are still alive, and just plain contrarians.

          Most of Paul’s supporters are one-issue voters who care so much about that issue that they don’t care where he stands on other issues.

        • usedtobelib

          This is true. My experience tells me that Paul the most mixed bag of voters. Among them are white nationalists, isolationists, libertarians, anti-war voters, deficit hawks, the unemployed, a large and devoted group of those who want drugs legalized (this, I feel, is how Ron Paul originally made in-roads with college age voters), gold-standard voters who are still alive, and just plain contrarians.

          Most of Paul’s supporters are one-issue voters who care so much about that issue that they don’t care where he stands on other issues.

          Sarah is right that there are those among Paul voters who are hurting because of the economy and we can’t afford to make them feel that their vote for Paul was the vote of a looney.

    • Flagstaff

      If you do not vote against Obama, even if we nominate John McCain again, you will be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Never a pretty sight. And voting for a sure-to-lose third party candidate does not count.

    • Tbone

      May as well make your decision on which NFL team the VP nominee favors.

      Please Google “Lick of Sense” and see if you can buy some somewhere.

      • justonevoice

        And even more than that, it sends a signal about Romney.

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

          And just hope she doesn’t check the history tab and find out how utterly stupid you are.

    • usedtobelib

      his anti-abortion stand and message would do nothing to effect a change regarding its legality.

    • joshdunn

      He cannot pick someone who, like Tom Ridge, has had a mixed record on abortion.

      He must pick someone who is solidly pro-life. Someone like John Thune, Tom Coburn, or Haley Barbour.

      Nikki Haley would also be a good choice. She is solidly pro-life, very intelligent, and she adds a bit of ethnic diversity to the ticket. Hell, I’ll just say it: she adds “sizzle” to a ticket that desperately needs it.

      Let the dems and the liberal SNL has-beens make fun of her ethnicity if they dare. It will come back to bite them. Hard.

      • lineholder

        opinion of Haley may have changed a bit since she was elected?

        • joshdunn

          Has she governed South Carolina as a liberal? I don’t think that she has. She has so much going for her. Why would she try to pull something like that?

          • lineholder

            We have someone who posts relatively often here at RS who is proactively involved in the Tea Party in SC, and she’s made it very plain that the Tea Party faction in SC has not been pleased with Haley’s performance so far.

  • goodgovernance

    Because conservatives won’t be his critical constituency then – the independents in the middle will be. You’ll see the way he distances himself from conservatives quickly enough, it’ll start happening once the nomination’s locked up and he starts campaigning for the general in earnest.

    And heaven help us if during a Romney administration the Congress tilted back toward the Dems (which frequently happens, as the public likes splitting the power balance between different branches of government). If two years into a Romney administration the public decides they want to move toward the Left, Romney will scurry so hard and fast to get himself over there, it’ll make your head spin.

    We shouldn’t have to put up with a nominee who will need “constant monitoring.” We shouldn’t have to be there constantly reminding the guy what the right direction for the country is. It’s not enough that he’s just not Obama.

    What we do need is a leader who can change the System. Instead, if you look in his high school yearbook, you’ll see Romney was the guy voted most likely to be captured by it.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      but the fact is that right now we more or less do

      • goodgovernance

        Are you saying that the government should buy our gas for us?

        Or are you trying to argue that accepting a timid, unprincipled leader is an unalterable fact of life and there’s no use pretending that any other possibility exists?

        • justonevoice

          If we are Republicans first, then conservative principles are already lost.

          I may change my tag line to your quote: “It?s not enough that he?s just not Obama.” That sums it up.

        • Leon H. Wolf

          that you can’t just wish away with a snap of the fingers. You can either accept the fact that gas costs over 3 bucks a gallon or you can walk everywhere. You can either accept that the most conservative guy did not win the primary or you can help Obama have another 4 years in office.

          I am not saying to stop trying. People say all sorts of insane things like “the establishment is forcing Romney on us.” No, they are not. The “establishment” is not voting in primary elections, your fellow Republicans (and a smattering of Paultards) are. If a guy like Romney wins then it is because (at least in part) we all need to do a better job of convincing our fellow Republicans that a more conservative guy is valuable (the other part is that we need a candidate who can carry a significant part of that water for us).

          The point of this post is that the evidence is that we’ve had some success in doing that and the answer here is to keep trying harder for next time, rather than cutting off our noses to spite our face.

          • avagreen

            like it or not.

          • supergirl2911

            Nt

    • nuclear139

      Your absolutely right about Romney and the sad thing is we are going to lay down now and hand him the nomination because he won Iowa by the slimmest margin in history. Please tell me where we lost our fight at so I can find it?

      • goodgovernance

        There?s no reason to stop fighting so long as Mitt has yet to reach the 1,144 delegates it takes to win!

        There?s still time to keep Romney from becoming the nominee. We shouldn?t fall into the trap of already accepting his inevitability ? that?s what he?s wanted, all along.

      • nancysabet

        we lost our fighting spirit, and this is not the America I know.. If Perry is ready to fight I am fighting with him …all the way to the end brother….

    • joshdunn

      And I see him as being a lot more transformational than you do.

      We will never know how conservative McCain would have been as president because he didn’t win.

      George H.W. Bush was rumored to be more liberal than many of the other Republicans who ran against him in 1988, but he governed relatively well.

      Not well enough to fend off both Clinton AND McCain in 1992, but well enough to get Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court and well enough to prevent the type of federal health care system that Obama just pushed through Congress.

      Oh, and he finished Reagan’s job of bringing down the Soviet Union and presiding during the biggest transformation of Europe during the post-war era. If he had followed Carter’s strategy of appeasing the Russians, we’d still be in a Cold War today.

      I have confidence that Romney will change the system. He will make it fairer and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

  • http://UnitedConservativesofVirginia Cargosquid

    “I guess what I am saying here is that if Mitt Romney is the standard-fare establishment candidate who we would all only grudgingly settle for after all other options are exhausted, then we should recognize that we as conservatives have successfully moved the party significantly to the right over the last two decades,”

    This says it all. Newt Gingrich is right on one thing. Change to the right has to come incrementally. And this is what it looks like. We may not get a Tea Party candidate THIS time, but if we don’t, its not a reason to throw in the towel and decide to vote for Obama and pray for gridlock.

    Because that gridlock won’t happen. We may win a majority in the Senate, but those Senators will STILL BE ESTABLISHMENT Republicans. They WILL cave.

    • joshdunn

      Change in America generally comes gradually with a few exceptions.

      The Weekly Standard had a recent article on the quiet progress that the pro-life movement has had while the media has been captivated by the gay marriage issue.

      We are winning the war against infanticide and this is part of the reason why the MSM has decided that it’s time to change the subject. Abortion was only fun for them to talk about when they were winning.

      Americans are more pro-life now than they were in 1992. This is causing even the Democrats to realize that they must accept this reality or be condemned to minor party status.

  • Flagstaff

    Yes!

    Thanks, Leon, for saying it so well and so briefly.

    My addition is that of all our candidates, Romney seems to be the one who knows what he’s doing and how to run a campaign. I like Newt’s conservative tendencies, but he keeps talking at cross-purposes to his campaign. I like Perry’s conservative tendencies, but he hasn’t yet shown he knows how to run a national campaign. I like and agree with

    …the fact that Romney?s latest flops are all to the right….

    I guess what I am saying here is that if Mitt Romney is the standard-fare establishment candidate who we would all only grudgingly settle for after all other options are exhausted, then we should recognize that we as conservatives have successfully moved the party significantly to the right over the last two decades, and it would be absolute infantile madness to disregard this fact and refuse to support Romney (if he is the nominee) in the general election against Obama because more conservative candidates were unable to convince GOP primary voters to vote for them

    .

    • goodgovernance

      There’s no reason to stop fighting so long as Mitt has yet to reach the 1,144 delegates it takes to win!

      There’s still time to keep Romney from becoming the nominee. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of already accepting his inevitability – that’s what he’s wanted, all along.

      • goodgovernance

        nt

    • avagreen

      “It’s in turn” and crap like that.

      THAT IS THE ONLY THING HE HAS GOING FOR HIM.

      • avagreen

        “It’s his turn”……..

  • lineholder

    is pandering to Conservatives. But one of the most significant traits that is repetitively and consistently displayed in the man’s attitude and actions is that he will go where the political winds blow him for the sake of political expediency.

    This being the case, even though he is pandering to Conservatives now, I see no reason to believe that if elected he will govern conservatively, especially not pertaining to fiscal policy. If the winds of Congress blow the left the slightest little bit, that’s where he’s likely to go!!!

    It’s just not consistent with the man’s character to expect that he will draw hard lines pertaining to much of anything and hold to them.

    If it ends up that Romney is the nominee, then we need to put that much more emphasis on making sure we get Conservatives elected to Congress, because that’s about the only hope we’re going to have to keep Romney from drifting too far to the left.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      So I assume you’re agreeing with me. :)

      • lineholder

        He’s got his strengths, but taking a stand and holding to it just isn’t one them. He’s a pliable as a wet noodle in that regards.

        • goodgovernance

          I think Leon has made the mistake of looking at Romney’s trend line, and thinking that pattern’s going to hold up no matter what.

          It’s more important to look at the motivations behind Romney’s flops and flips. And if you do that you realize the man is just too eager to try and please everybody. It’s been a pattern throughout his life.

          That’s not a leadership strength. That’s a weakness. We’ll all be slapping ourselves on the forehead if Romney ever becomes POTUS, as he tries to have it both ways so he doesn’t offend anybody.

          • thosjefferson

            Romney changed his mind on one issue–the legality of abortion–while Newt has changed his mind on every issue. The absurdity of the flip-flop charge is demonstrated by Romney’s continued support for the state-level Romneycare, which Newt once strongly supported but now supposedly strongly opposes. Given that many conservatives oppose health insurance mandates, which of these two has changed his views according to the political winds?

            The best Newt can do is hearken back to his past, conveniently skipping over the last decade when he has been lobbyist-in-chief for a host of clients who thrive off big government contracts and carefully contrived legislation that Newt earns big fees promoting.

          • lineholder

            there may have been a change in Newt’s mindset on issues such as socialized health care practices or global warming? Because at the time that he supported them, the evidence that was being presented supported these as being effective policy choices to address broad-spectrum issues.

            Since that time, there has been other evidence presented to refute those claims. In fact, as far socialized health care is concerned, an entire book could be written substantiating that this type of policy has major systemmic flaws that ultimate result in failure of the system as a whole, particularly in regards to costs.

            Romney supports it and defends it anyway, even to this day, regardless of the new evidence that has come to light. Newt has taken the new evidence into context and altered his position.

            Tell me again which of the two is showing greater common sense and wisdom?

          • thosjefferson

            Every one of Romney’s positions has been fully explained and is consistent with the facts. The people of Mass. support Romneycare by wide margins, so who is Newt (or any other non-Mass resident) to say they’re wrong?

            Newt is the most “flexible” living politician, possibly the most “flexible” in our nation’s history. Amazingly, Newt’s positions are consistent with those of his clients’ who pay him..

            End of story.

          • lineholder

            to look at new evidence and take into consideration in light of the situation our nation is currently facing.

            What Romney has said is that he intends to “get rid of the bad and keep the good” pertaining to O-care. In other words, he intends to leave the structural foundation of a socialized health care system in place, which will undoubtedly be used further by the Dems if and when they get the chance.

            O-care needs to be repealed. Period. And because of the progress that Obama et al. have made in the past three years to move a fully-integrated socialized health care system into place and the type of damage that has been done in the process, this hideous piece of legislation needs to be replaced with something that places greater emphasis on the principles of free-market capitalism rather than state managed capitalism.

            As to which of the two is more likely to stand their ground, Newt will. He’s already proven that he can and will. Romney will not. He will go wherever the winds of politics blow him, and in doing so, he will be putting what it politically expedient ahead of what is in this nation’s best interest in the long run.

            If Romney does get the nomination, all of us should be looking at this factor of his character and personality very realistically and respond appropriately to it.

          • joshdunn

            He will give states the right to opt out of it. When he does that, states like Texas, Florida, and pretty much all of the South and the sagebrush states will opt out of it.

            Then, the liberals will complain that there isn’t enough money to fund their boondoggle. That’s when Romney and the Republican Congress tell them to move to Canada if they want free health care.

            Everyone must pay for their health care in America. There cannot be anymore free lunches here.

          • Tbone

            Romneycare.

          • lineholder

            Meaning that the foundational structure for this socialized health care system will still exist legally, which the Dems will make use of when they get a chance.

            And given the reality that Romney still very openly supports a socialized form of health care, such as the one in Mass, and there is and has been plenty of evidence that has been presented by other nations (such as Australia, Germany, and France, to name just three) proving that the system itself is faulty and economically unsustainable…I don’t see any reason to believe that Romney will put for the effort needed to pursue full repeal of this legislation.

          • lineholder

            when exactly it was that Romney would allow an opt out option to kick in? 2017, wasn’t it? That will be long after the 2014 date for the public exchange occurs, won’t it?

            The healthcare industry currently consumes 18% of our GDP. Under Obamacare, it is projected to reach 25% of GPD. And that’s a conservative projection that doesn’t fully take employer dumping into context either. If a large number of employers dump their employees on the Public Health Exchange, then we can count on seeing the costs of Obamacare in relation to GDP increase because of subsidy costs.

            But then again, Romney was proactively involved in helping to develop and establish the exchanges in the state of Mass. and he still has of yet to say one word indicating that he disapproves of socialized health care. So maybe that doesn’t matter so much to him.

            I can tell you for a fact that in the nations of Germany, France, and Australia, each of these nations went gung-ho for implementation of socialized health care, only to find themselves consumed with a greater burden of cost passed on to gov’t, which of course was ultimately passed on to the citizens of those nations via tax increases. And each one of these nations has struggled to come back from the brink of that burden of debt, and now have systems in place whereby government actually subsidizes private health insurance to offset the costs to gov’t.

          • joshdunn

            Romney knows exactly how unpopular Obamacare is. He wouldn’t make states wait 4 years to opt out of it.

            They would be able to opt out of it immediately. This puts states back in charge and puts the federal government in its place.

            Give me a source if you’re going to allege that Romney wouldn’t allow states to opt out until 2017. That doesn’t sound remotely plausible.

          • lineholder

            http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/12/08/385098/to-explain-illegal-plan-to-waive-away-health-reform-romney-points-to-lawyer-who-claims-gop-opposes-equal-protection/

            http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/12/08/385098/to-explain-illegal-plan-to-waive-away-health-reform-romney-points-to-lawyer-who-claims-gop-opposes-equal-protection/

            http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/07/romney-on-obamacare-relief-waiver-i-dont

            When Romney said “opt out”, he was referring to state waivers, which under the law, won’t begin until 2017. That’s how it stands. And he said he would have to get back with his lawyers on it.

            But by 2017, it will be too late. Way too late. The public health exchanges will be in place, and socialized health care will become America’s reality.

          • lineholder

            The simple fact that he supported socialized health care in Massachusetts, saw nothing wrong with then, and still doesn’t.

          • Flagstaff

            on the part of those who just don’t like Romney. Which they’re entitled to do.

            But the double standard is obvious. If Romney sticks with a position they don’t like, he’s wrong. But if he comes over to their side (years ago), he’s blowin’ in the political wind.

            I like Newt, but he can’t even stick with his vow to treat other Republicans humanely for a single campaign, once it got nasty towards him. So, a Romney PAC slung some mud. Romney has been smart to stay away from. Newt jumps into it with both feet, being forced to do so because he has neither the money for the organization to have a PAC that will do it for him. The result is that Romney still appears benign and Newt is again being called “the grinch.” However,

            The best Newt can do is hearken back to his past, conveniently skipping over the last decade when he has been lobbyist-in-chief for a host of clients who thrive off big government contracts and carefully contrived legislation that Newt earns big fees promoting.

            Now that’s a sentence worthy of a truly well-paid PAC itself. Near as I can tell, Newt was a lobbyist like the Heritage Foundation is a lobbyist. Unless you can find some instances where Newt went to members of Congress or the administration and tried to convince them to vote a certain way (which is what lobbyists do), get off the Newt Lobbyhorse.

          • lineholder

            Romney has proven beyond any shadow of doubt that his preference for specific type of policies (which BTW do happen to lean left fiscally) is so strong that he can not and will not look at new evidence in the context of evaluating whether the same type of policy that is currently being implemented on a national should be fully repealed. The reason he’s made no mention of pursuing repeal isn’t that it could NOT be repealed…it’s because he has a tendency to support these kinds of policies. Just like he did in Mass.

            And he does take the path of least resistance where political expediency is concerned. The approach he’s taking in his campaign in NH proves that. So do many other things. He goes where the political winds blow him. That’s just part of who he is. Where it could end up being dangerous to us is if he’s elected President and the winds of Congress blow to the left during his 4-year term, because our nation is pretty close to the point fiscally that we just can’t afford someone who continually and repetitively takes the path of least resistance where economic and fiscal policy is concerned.

            Unless, of course, you want greater debt and higher taxes????

          • Flagstaff

            “The reason he?s made no mention of pursuing repeal isn?t that it could NOT be repealed”

            Romney has in fact clearly stated that he will repeal Obamacare. Not modified by “parts of it.” I acknowledge that such a statement is a change for him, at least I think so. But he now says “repeal all.”

          • lineholder

            just prior to the beginning of the year where he said he would “keep the good and eliminate the bad”? Please be sure about this Flagstaff. No offense, but Romney backed socialized health care in Mass and he’s been known to change positions.

            If you have a link to his comments, I’d appreciate it. And if I’m in the wrong, I’ll own up to it.

          • lineholder

            http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Romney-on-Obamacare-Repeal-the-Bad-and-Keep-the-Good

            And it looks like I may have been wrong on this point. He said he would “keep the good and repeal the bad” in 2010. Then said he would repeal in Dec. 2011.

            Another position change. Hmmmm….this is what makes it really tough about Romney. He’s said nothing whatsoever to indicate that he acknowledges that socialized health care has major systemic faults. I don’t know if he’s just trying to play a bit of CYA by failing to do so. Perhaps.

            But thank you for pointing this out.

          • Flagstaff

            I’m not sure that I would have been able to. I’m glad my memory is still good back to December. (^:^)

            I’m not sure what the anti-Romney faction wants; that is, nothing seems good enough, there is always something lacking. Maybe there is always something lacking, and maybe the demands just get racheted up after the fact.

            It appears that Romney can’t say quite enough, but IMHO, Newt has said quite enough already, thank you. As in, he doesn’t seem to know when to stop answering a question.

            It is a problem for both of them, of course, but Romney is erring on the side of “if I don’t say it, it can’t be twisted by Obama into ‘let all the poor schoolchildren become janitors and pay their way through Harvard that way.’”

            I believe that nobody’s perfect, and that we have to accept some of what they say on faith, not faith that they’ll do just what we want, but faith that their intentions are pure. You obviously don’t believe that about Romney, so it doesn’t matter what he says, even if you agree with it, does it?

          • lineholder

            is that given his history and his education, he’s more of an elitist in the context of policies than he tries to let on. It’s like buying into socialized healthcare. At one time, that was one of the top policy fads and all the policy big wigs bought into it, even Heritage Foundation.

            Since then, there has been evidence to prove that the foundational basis for the system is faulty, and a lot of people have changed their positions as a result of it. There still are a few die-hard policy elitists that hold to supporting socialized health care in the context of policy, but most of them are on the LEFT, Flagstaff.

            Romney is more of a centrist/moderate than a Conservative, and I’m pretty realistic about that point. What’s more, the point Leon made about Romney pandering to Conservatives for the purpose of garnering their voters so that he can win the primary is basically true.

            Romney has defended the socialized health care system in Mass repeatedly. And because he has, personally, this indicates to me that what he said in 2010 is probably a much more accurate statement of the viewpoint Romney personally has re: O-care and a national socialized health care system in America, and his comments in Dec. 2011 were more an act of pandering to Conservatives for the sake of getting our votes.

            It’s just very difficult to tell with Romney whether or not we can rely on him.

            If it makes any difference, I’ve had questions of one kind of another about all of them, including Gingrich.

            There are a several things that I respect about Gingrich, but the quality that he has (and it’s probably one of the qualities that ticks a lot of people off about him) is that he can be really stubborn and opinionated, to the hilt!

            But if what he’s stubborn and opinionated about is following through with fiscally Conservative policy decisions, Flagstaff…you know what, we really need a fair amount of that right now, because we aren’t getting it from the Repub leaders in Congress, that’s for certain.

          • Flagstaff

            In fact, I agree that all of them have warts, and some of warts would make Fiona jealous.

            What I’d really like to see would be for us to stop for a few days, gather our wits, and then start to focus on the ObamaWarts.

            So, RomneyBots, don’t tell me how nasty Newt was to his former wife(wives), tell me how Romney is going to be nasty to ObamaCare, federal regulations, et al.

            NewtronBombers, fuggedabout whether you think somebody “lied” about you or whether somebody would be a senior partner or a junior partner; set the record straight if necessary, then tell us how you will lower tax rates to energize the economy.

            Cognoscenti of the InnerSantorum, don’t bother with how bad somebody else is, tell us how good you (or your guy, Rick) is. I don’t mean about your background, but about your future. Don’t bother to defend a right-to-life position for unborn babies, point out that State Senator Obama opposed a bill that attempted to protect the life of already-born babies who survived the executioner’s knife.

            Thrust and Perryers, clear up the misunderstandings that are still lying around then spend some time and money informing us about your plans to reduce the size of the federal government, and why it is imperative to do so.

            Long Ron Pauly Shoremen, explain his foreign policy positions to us–not just the top-level assertions, but the consequences that will surely follow those policies. Explain how you differ from Barack Obama in this area. Explain the Fed, and the Gold Standard, and how we can support a growing economy without the first and with the latter.

            You guys can ALL talk about these things without mentioning any blemishes on other Republican candidates.

          • Flagstaff

            I know that the candidates all try to present their cases as often as possible. What I meant to call for was that they make extraordinary efforts to ignore the questions about the “horse race” and other candidates and what somebody else might have said, and stick completely to their own positions. Don’t even respond if told that a position is “out of the mainstream.” Just state the position and explain it if necessary.

            When they get sidetracked onto those peripheral issues, that is what gets reported and talked about the next day. The business Gingrich had with the question about Congress and federal judges is such a peripheral issue. It isn’t central to his plans, nor to the solution to our current problems. Because he decided to talk too long and provide too much information in answer to a question intended to trap him, he was trapped, and it has hurt him, even though it is completely irrelevant to everything important.

            They need to stick to their talking points, but do it in a way that doesn’t sound like it (a problem Santorum has, and it was a great big problem for Bachmann–she often sounded like she didn’t even understand a question but just answered with a rote response about her family or law practice).

          • lineholder

            The one point that bothers me most about Romney is that where actually implementing fiscally conservative policy is concerned (which is something this nation is badly in need of right now), he’s as unreliable as they come. He can pander until the cows come home, and it won’t change the fact that the man is as pliable as a wet noodle.

            There is no basis on which Conservatives can believe he’ll be trustworthy where fiscal policy is concerned. And neither do I think we should delude ourselves into believing such a thing either.

            When I first read Leon’s post, it seemed be to saying that we should just ignore reality on this matter. After reading it back over, he’s presented the reality of this fairly plainly. That’s why I said I agree.

          • federalfarmer1

            Who do you think is bankrolling him. Voting romney is giving up on capitalism for permanent fascist entanglement between the federal government and the finance entities that leech onto it, sucking money from usefully employed taxpayers to fund crony pals. Newt knows how this works and is our best bet of the remaining electable candidates to stop it. Though I admit I’m not convinced he will.

    • renl57

      …the public will judge the GOP–and conservative policies–by whether they *work*, not all this gassy rhetoric about freedom and liberty. That’s been the history of American electoral politics.

      And by “work” I mean Reagan’s famous test: Will 4 years of the new Republican president’s policies leave the nation in demonstrably better shape? More prosperous? Stronger? Safer?

      As I’ve said before, the best advertisement for the GOP–or even for conservatism–is to pass that test.

      If in 2016, President Romney can face the public and say “We succeeded in restoring full employment after Obama’s liberals failed,” that will be the best way to cement long-term Republican dominance. The public will let the GOP keep on keeping on. And over time, more and more of the conservative agenda can be implemented.

      The strategic mistake that the Obama folks made was they thought that the election of 2008 itself signaled an ideological realignment. Elections never do. Only successful Administrations do.

      • Flagstaff

        Sorry it took me so long to note it.

    • usedtobelib

      abortion. You don’t really think he was opposed to its legalization, do you? The man chose to work in Hollywood, chose to make his living among friends and colleagues that many on this blog would reject offhand as anti-Christian in a variety of ways.

      All pols pander. Reagan in his personal life was the conservative as you wish to portray him. He was a “live and let live” libertarian regarding abortion, homosexuality, etc. Why is it you ignore this?

      • usedtobelib

        Change to “Reagan in his personal life was NOT the conservative you wish to portray him as.”

      • joshdunn

        This is why he didn’t try to pump a lot of money into the whole AIDS epidemic. He realized that most of the people who caught AIDS in the 80′s had made bad choices which led to them catching the disease.

        So, although Reagan didn’t hate homosexuals or heroin addicts, he also didn’t feel that it was the government’s responsibility to find a cure for a disease that still kills fewer Americans than heart disease, cancer, or car accidents.

        Reagan took the centrist path on this issue.

        On abortion, I saw Reagan as being firmly pro-life. I don’t think he passed any legislation as president that created more access to abortion. I believe it was under Reagan that the Mexico City doctrine became law and they got the Hyde Amendment passed which banned the use of any federal funds on abortions.

        • pttx333

          to this very day is this: For every choice we make, there are consequences. Making a good choice produces good consequences, and the same for your bad choices producing bad consequences.

          There is always a consequence, one way or the other.

          • joshdunn

            I’d rather spend money fighting cancer and/or heart disease than AIDS. But that is just my personal opinion. It would probably get me kicked off of a liberal blog.

  • asleep06

    “he would be our most conservative nominee since at least 1988″

    No, he is pretending to be the most conservative nominee since at least 1988. There is a big difference.

    “Romney is being criticized for accurately perceiving that he needs conservatives.”

    No, that is completely wrong. He is being criticized for displaying his modus operandi of changing views whenever it suits his electoral prospects. The obvious point being that he will probably change his views again and create policy based on those views.

    “we should recognize that we as conservatives have successfully moved the party significantly to the right over the last two decades, and it would be absolute infantile madness to disregard this fact and refuse to support Romney”

    I am at a loss. You just went through a litany in your historical perspective of how in the last 20 years the expansion of government has progressed through not merely Republican presidents but Republican legislators. We have not moved the GOP to the right. If we had, the federal government would be smaller. At best, we slowed the movement to the left. And this is debatable.

    But I am not okay with a strategy that continues to result in the GOP being Democrat-Lite. “absolute infantile madness” is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Following your strategy would be that madness.

  • seanl

    love or hate George H.W. or Bob Dole they at least have values. Romney’s only value is getting elected at all cost for Pete’s sake.

    I can at least respect George H.W. and Bob Dole as human beings. I can’t think of one redeeming quality Romney has other than he happens to belong to the Republican party.

    Romney is an unprincipled, cynical, politically driven “progressive” Republican. No, I will not go easy on him. I have conservative principles – heck I have principles period, and I’m proud of it.

    • goodgovernance

      Couldn’t agree more with what you wrote.

      The “electability” argument seems to be Romney’s strongest argument, but it’s a joke. Because independents and swing voters are going to see Romney doesn’t have any real values, either. And they’ll reject him.

      • Flagstaff

        They would call that “pragmatism.” The 60%+ who don’t believe Obama can find his economic assets with both hands tied behind his back would pick a pragmatist over a dogmatist.

        • seanl

          jumping back and forth between diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum on important issues to please whatever constituency you happen to be courting at the time.

          • Flagstaff

            “jumping back and forth between diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum on important issues”

            What would that be? Which issues has Romney gone from A to Z and then back to A?

    • Tman8

      between George HW Bush, Dole, McCain, and Romney is that each ran for the GOP nomination more than once (in the case of Dole, three times). This may or may not suggest folks that are primarily interested in themselves – that they have something to prove to themselves – some sort of obsessive need for power for their own ego, etc. Or it could mean that they are men who love their country and have the determination to accomplish greatness on behalf of the nation – a great quality to have in a president. Call me cynical but I generally believe the former to be true – especially about Romney.

      The fact that Rick Perry hasn’t had some sort of life-long plan to make it to the White House is actually a plus in my book. Mitt strikes me as a guy out to make the Romney name the next version of the Bush name in politics – after all, Romney’s dad ran for president too and that could have something to do with Mitt’s need to be president in his mind.

      • avagreen

        thing to put faith into.

        It’s taken him THIS long to find the right mixture of things to say to get votes??!!???
        Gaw!

    • usedtobelib

      “I can?t think of one redeeming quality Romney has other than he happens to belong to the Republican party.”

      I mean, seriously?

      Wow, for this site supposedly having a lot of “values” voters, I have a really hard time understanding how you can say this about a guy who has been married to the same woman for 40 years, gave to his God and his church, raised four great sons who are productive citizens, is a loving grandfather to many, was a devoted son himself, established a business and grew it in the American spirit we wish to promote…all these things we Americans wish other men and women were in a society that no longer promotes the values of family and community, yet you can find no redeeming quality in this guy??

      Jeeeeez.

      • seanl

        We might as well nominate Michael Vick. LOL.

    • joshdunn

      Romney is a family values guy who practices what he preaches. He has stood by his wife through successes, through failure, through good times and through hard times.

      He has abstained from drinking, drugs, cocaine, porn, bribes, embezzlement, etc.

      He actually has very strong values.

      He doesn’t have a gaggle of women running around saying that he tried to fondle them, etc.

      He has been very disciplined and his values show in the way that he conducts himself.

      He is also a devout Christian whether people believe that or not.

  • Tman8

    in that you are comparing what Dole, McCain, and Bush 41 did prior to being the GOP nominee (in Bush 41 case, prior to being the nominee for re-election) with what Mitt Romney says he would do as president to argue that Romney is more conservative than the other three guys. But the real comparison would be to say that just like Dole and McCain, with Romney we would be nominating a candidate previously known for pandering to liberals/centrists (running twice statewide as a pro-choicer, signature accomplishment is increasing government involvement into the delivery of health care and insurance at the state level, openly touting his progressiveness and distance from Reagan, etc.)

    On the other hand, the contrast you draw between Bush 43 running in 2000 on a more moderate platform by your definition and Romney running in 2012 with a conservative platform makes more sense as an argument. But if you are looking for someone who panders to those of us on the right for political reasons rather than pandering to centrists and giving us the finger as you say it, then Dole in 1996 was actualy a pretty good example of that. Even though Dole is not regarded as a stalwart of the conservative movement, people forget that his campaign in 1996 was centered on such proposals as an across-the-board 15% personal income tax cut and abolishing the Dept. of Education. There is an argument to be made that the Dole 1996 plan was actually much farther to the right than the Romney plan of today – which proposes absolutely nothing in terms of reducing personal income tax rates on individuals and small businesses.

  • mike90815

    I honestly do not understand how you offer Mitt Romney as evidence for your claim that: “we should recognize that we as conservatives have successfully moved the party significantly to the right over the last two decades.”

    To be sure, I agree, happily, with your claim when you state that the party has moved significantly to the right over the last to decades. I take issue with your qualification of “successfully moved.” I would not offer the possibility of Mitt Romney’s nomination as proof of “success”: Romney is more liberal than John McCain.

    Romney has supported abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, ?amnesty? for undocumented immigrants, and combating climate change. He has distanced himself from Reagan, attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers, and helped create the blueprint for the Obamacare. He supported taxpayer-funded abortions and taxpayer-financed medical care for undocumented immigrants.

    I’m sorry, but it’s very difficult for me to see Romney’s ascendancy as evidence for the “successful” moving of the party to the right.

    I’m just waiting for Romney’s speech when he accepts the nomination: “You like me, you really like me.” I agree with EE that Santorum is just a Republican statist. Love Newt when he’s on fire, but he’s really too intemperate to govern. Perry’s my conservative candidate. Hope he can pull together an anti-Romney coaltion in the coming weeks.

    • bogeyman

      amnesty? Where did this come from? Romney is the strongest anti illegal immigration Republican ever, not that this is saying much. Romney was endorsed by Tom Tancredo in 2008, who Rick Perry called a “racist”

      Both Bush and McCain were overt amnesty supporters. Romney is the only candidate ever to actively oppose this.

      Illegal immigration is eroding our country. If you want to see what is in store for you, take a look at California. Once many conservatives flourished such as Nixon, Reagan, Pete Wilson, B1 Bob Dornan etc, Now California is solidly blue and no conservative can get elected statewide (do not tell me Arnold was a conservative)

      The growing Hispanic population represents a solid Dem votng bloc, almost as solid as the black vote. We cannot afford to have an ever increasing anti Republican group. Wake up conservatives !

      I did not vote for McCain in 2008, I voted for the constitutional candidate. I will gladly vote for Romney.

      • gekster

        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

        I can’t have illegals wotking for me. I’m running for president for petes sake.
        (if I wasn’t running, it would be ok)

        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
        Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

        • bogeyman

          There I said it.

          • jakeofalltrades

            There I said it.

          • joshdunn

            I thought that your big beef against Romney was that he’s not a Christian.

            And then you chime in with comments like this?

          • jakeofalltrades

            1. You’re in no position to judge Christians
            2. Christians are sinners
            3. I have no problem with Romney other than his flip-floppery
            4. Romney is my number two choice
            5. I told you not so long ago that anyone who doesn’t support Romney because of his religion is a RINO
            6. My comment was satire intended to discourage juvenile insults

            Untwist your panties and grow up!

          • gekster

            That gives me an excuse. ;)

            What’s yours.

            Drugs.
            Public school educated.
            Just plain brain dead.
            All of the above.

          • gekster

            If I am retarded, and can plainly see that Romney is not the strongest on immigration, as you say, well, I’ll leave you to figure that out about yourself.
            (that should keep you busy for a few hours at least.

          • bogeyman

            Where did you go? To a prep school? You really must be a liberal elitist.

          • gekster

            I’m going to have to get volume II for the names I get called.
            and that’s just this week.
            That’s a new one boogerman.

            You post something funny.
            I actually laughed.
            I posted my reaction.
            You get your pampers in a wad.

            Get over it and yourself.

          • jakeofalltrades

            Is that like an English proficiency exam? And what would make one “liberal”?

          • gekster

            But it seams I are one now.

            As far as liberal, it looks to be that if you post a reaction to boogermans comments, you just might be a liberal.

            (h/t to J Foxworthy)

          • joshdunn

            Whatever your cause is, you’re certainly not doing it any favors by acting like this.

            I don’t know what your age is, but try and act like it for once.

          • gekster

            If there is a problem with the way I am ‘acting’ I am quite sure the mods will let me know.
            You let me know when you bcome a mod.
            Oh, wait. You have to at least be out of the fifth grade to be a mod.
            Nevermind.

            And if you would have read the whole thread, you would of seen I laughed at him saying Romney was strong on illegal immigration, which caused him to respond with him calling me ‘retard’.
            You either have a reading comprehension problem, don’t pay attention,
            or just comment on things you know nothing about.
            Either way, go away little boy, ya bother me.
            And I said this without calling (the rest is redacted) ;)

          • pttx333

            can write a diary about it later so all of us can see! ;-)

          • gekster

            What really got me was the other day I was called Romneybot, and then a Romney-hater, on the same day in the same thread.
            I guess I just have an unknown talent, like eating jalopenas. LOL :)

          • http://www.changeforrickperry.org louisianapatriette

            joshdunn just got a little too big for his britches, methinks. You did well, gek.

            Just a friendly bit of advice for you newbies (especially ye Romneybots and Paulbots)–anyone who takes on gekster had better watch it! You’re playing with one of the sharpest wits on RedState and you wouldn’t want to be…shall we say, lacerated.

          • gekster

            I am flattered, but I try not to type with mighty wrath.
            I tried that once, and the next day when I read what I wrote, I was so disgusted with myself, I gave myself a 1 month ban.
            I beleive it was April 09.
            Since then I have tried to use charming wit, dull wit,and when that don’t work then use out and out stupidity.
            (I do bear the monicur of site/village idiot, which I am happy with)
            But I have learned one thing, is to not type angry.
            It’s like argueing with someone who is just ticking you off, just walk away.
            (and then ambush them later ;) LOL)

          • jakeofalltrades

            It makes you more careful in the future.

          • gekster

            ;)

          • http://www.changeforrickperry.org louisianapatriette

            I will try to be more accurate in the future ;) Thanks for all you do here–you’re a great American and I’m honored to stand with you on RedState!

          • pttx333

            called both a Romney-Hater and a Romneybot on the same day and in the same thread! That is hilarious!

            But, doncha see – eating those jalapenos make one stronger than Superman and faster than a speeding bullet! ;-)

            Mom

          • aesthete

            Perhaps it is not that conservative rhetoric concerning Romney is too volatile — perhaps it is that conservative rhetoric concerning our past Republican nominees was too tame. We are in the twilight of the so-called “Reagan Revolution”, and have little to show for it in terms of concrete policies. The Contract With America was the last gasp of elected Reaganites, and occurred during a liberal administration — everything since then has been an attempt on the part of Republicans to carve out a big government fiefdom in the hopes of more votes and more power. In large part, conservatives of all stripes are unaware of or conciliatory to the cabal of corrupt kleptocrats, and have consoled themselves with the weak assurance that at least our corrupt, evil leaders are marginally less so than that of the Democrats.

            I would generally agree, and have voted to that effect. However, our attempts to cover for terrible leadership are by no means necessary, and have not yielded the desired results. Standing on the precipice of a crisis and economy created by Republicans and Democrats, I would prefer to try something different in the hopes of averting crisis — such as primarying bad leadership, and actively speaking against un-conservative acts or leaders. This is, by and large, the strategy that the Tea Party has attempted. While it has done so imperfectly, it has also accomplished more than the beaten wife syndrome strategy which has conservatives assuring themselves and others that their elected “leadership” is sufficiently conservative to face the challenges of today, and that we should just support them — lest we provide “aid and comfort” to Democrats.

            If rhetoric concerning Romney’s missteps and un-conservative, duplicitous nature seems excessive, I would suggest that one review the permissive rhetoric concerning the Bush Presidencies, and tell us what it yielded for conservatives. Perhaps a more forceful conservative response to their elected leadership, and more vigilance, is an appropriate and warranted response to conservative movement’s absolute failure to be enacted into policy by supposedly friendly administrations.

          • JSobieski

            We have had mediocre (at best) conservative leadeship since Ronald Reagan left the White House. That mediocre leadership occurred in 1995-1996, and was quite short lived.

            We had a tea party earthquake in 2009, with significant election results in 2010.

            Despite all of that, we have a 2010 roster of candidates (with the exception of Perry in my view) who UNDERWHELM.

            It is as if the Tea Party never happened. It is as if the public revulsion to TARP, auto bailouts, $800B stimilus packages, trillions of Fed loans, $1T annual deficits, Obamanation-care, etc. NEVER HAPPENED.

            Say what you want about GHW Bush, Dole, W, or even McCain, but the country wasn’t ON FIRE at the time they were campaigning.

            The fact that people of good faith can disagree as to where our likely 2012 nominee falls with respect to past post-Reagan nominees is a huge indictment of the political health of our nation.

            When people like Reagan and Buckley stuck out like sore thumbs, they changed the political culture in many ways. They gave birth to talk radio, conservative Internet, conservative media, etc.

            In terms of actual policy results, we have almost NOTHING to show for it. As dominant as the Reagan revolution was and is in the minds of America, we have very little to show for it . . . and virtually nothing to show for the intervening years.

            We win a lot of the policy arguments, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

            The best thing about a Romney Presidency is that House Tea Party members won’t be deferential to him like the R’s were to W. Hopefully they will treat him as another Clinton and proceed to push and push and push.

            State of the nation in a nutshell:
            $16T in debt

            no structural reforms looking likely on the horizon

            inability to even shave $10B in real reductions in growth

            PC military that can’t even identify pro-Jihadists in their own mist

            Regulatory dictatorship that we can’t even keep up with, much less restrain

            So yes, we should vote for the R.
            Yes, Romney (or any other R) is better than Obama.
            But no, none of this is sufficient to actually change the trajectory of the country.

          • aesthete

            The rhetoric is different because the times and constraints are different. Had the rhetoric been different before when times were better, perhaps times would be better now.

            I do feel that much of the conservative angst in recent times is rooted in the feeling that there were many lost opportunities in other administrations.

          • lineholder

            But we can’t wallow in past failures. If we do, we’re doomed.

            Another possible point is simply adaptation and acclimation…that’s how most living creatures respond to changes in their environment, isn’t it? They adapt, and the heat of fighting those changes dies down to a slow simmer.

            Same phenomenon has been happening for the past two years, since O-care was passed. We’re becoming acclimated to our new “environment” when we need to stay on fire!!!

          • aesthete

            We just have to make sure to keep our passion for Constitutional governance, no matter how many Republicans hold power and how many pundits tell us that they’re doing a great job or “the best job they can”. I think we’re starting to learn this lesson, but I fear that pundits can un-learn it for low-information voters. That requires some knowledge of what has come before, which is why I harp on the issue so much! Hopefully it is clear that I am angling for positive change, and to maintain the positive direction that the Tea Parties have been going in away from Bush-era excess.

          • JSobieski

            Is precisely why mankind is perpetually in trouble.

            Not to argue the Israelites in the desert thing again, but the same people who were delivered by God to freedom with so many miracles started worshipping a statue of a golden cow at the drop of a hat.

            I am not picking on Judaism in referring to this example. I believe this is one of the critical lessons in the study of human beings.

            Tolkien wrote something similar regarding LOTR. Something about people dressing up in Orc-garb shortly after Aragorn died.

            In other words, I agree with you—the need for vigilence is eternal, and we will certainly fail to a significant degree.

          • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

            Well said. While I give credit to President Bush for his appointment of Justices Roberts and Alito, who knows what might have been accomplished had conservatives been more active and outspoken.

            Further, I think the point can be made that Cold Warrior’s and others’ efforts to convince us that we must be involved (and stay involved) from the local level up is an additional safeguard and is crucial if we want to actually prevent damage rather than just react to damage already done.

          • gekster

            Correcting mis-information in both cases.

            As far a superman goes,
            after eating jalopenas,
            I don’t know,
            but faster than a speeding bullet,
            let’s just say sometimes,
            and leave it there just to be nice. LOL

          • pttx333

            n

          • joshdunn

            Empty kettles clank the loudest.

          • jakeofalltrades

            But I don’t denounce hypocrisy, so carry on.

      • izoneguy

        You said:
        The growing Hispanic population represents a solid Dem votng bloc, almost as solid as the black vote. We cannot afford to have an ever increasing anti Republican group. Wake up conservatives !

        After you said:
        Romney is the strongest anti illegal immigration Republican ever, not that this is saying much. Romney was endorsed by Tom Tancredo in 2008, who Rick Perry called a ?racist?

        Perry understands that the border must be secured before talking about what to do with the illegals already in America. Romney’s father was born in Mexico. Did he get a green card before coming back into America?
        Read up on Romney’s family history. Romney will be even worse than Obama on illegal immigration. Romney did not even kick Obama’s aunt out of Mass. when he had the chance as Gov. of Mass.

        Romney is not even sure if he could/would deport Obama’s uncle.

        “If instead he’s here on asylum on some other basis or has a visa or qualifies for a visa, then we should follow that law,” he said. “We follow the law for family members just as we do for everyone else in this country.”

        • trickamsterdam

          Assuming he wins the nomination (which I now think he almost certainly will), he’s the best since Reagan. And the most electable.

          Unfortunately for him, he isn’t the best candidate in this group….and won’t be until Perry and Newt drop out.

          But seriously, I think he’s better than McCain, Dole, and both Bushs. It’s arguable, but I would certainly argue it.

          I don’t buy the moderates lose thing either:

          Ike (liberal R) – two terms
          Goldwater (conservative R) – landslide defeat
          Nixon (liberal R) – two terms
          Ford (liberal R) – defeat but under truly bizarre circumstances (not elected, Watergate)
          Reagan (coservative R) – two terms
          Bush (moderate R) – one term (but it’s hard to hold the whitehous four times in a row)
          Dole (moderate R) – defeat
          Bush 43 (moderate R) -two terms
          McCain (moderate R) defeat

          The moderates/liberals have essentially the same chance as winning or losing as the conservative (according to actual history, and not people’s biased emotions).

          PS – I think Wolf is the most well thought out and fair front page writer, although moe lane may be the most purely informative.

          • usedtobelib

            is on target, but there are those who will not see.

            The reason people didn’t vote for McCain was not because they saw him as a moderate. Can’t the rest of you get that through your head?

          • texashistorian

            You are leaving out Wendell Wilkie, and Thomas Dewey- two moderates who got pasted by FDR and Truman in turn. They just were not sufficiently different from the Dems. MOderates lose more than they win. Starting with Hoovers failed re-election, they are 6-9.

          • texashistorian

            in 1988 H,W, Bush told us he was a conservative and an appropriate successor to Reagan. He lied. Had he run as the moderate he was, we would have others in the primary- hell, even Pat Robertson would have done better.

            Ford I agree shouldn’t count, that was just overall weird. Ike tried to brand himself as a conservative, too- Dynamic Conservatism was the slogan. Nixon made attempts- the Silent Majority campaign. Even G.W. Bush pandered to conservatives.

            That tells me something more- why bother to ACT conservative if it doesn’t matter. They do it because they have to. Generally, if they run as pure moderates, they lose.

          • trickamsterdam

            Look, my basic point is it’s more about the candidate than people like to think (and the circumstance).

            I’m not saying moderates win more, I’m saying it doesn’t matter. Run a conservative like Paul Ryan, and he might lick Romney and then Obama.

            He’s really the one I look at that I wish had gotten in the race (more than some of the others that are named, who are also either moderates or have other problems).

            But he didn’t. Young kids. That’s just the way it is.

            You are a very good poster. I know that because I remember you, w/out looking up your name. So I think maybe you’ll understand this:

            Romney won’t win the nomination and beat Obama because HE’S A MODERATE. He’ll do it because he doesn’t make ANY MISTAKES.

            Perry and Newt, who I love, do. The VA primary. I haven’t seen any polls, but every instinct in me tells me that hurt them in Iowa. It made the people feel they’d make similar mistakes in the general.

            You can also look at a moderate who’s a terrible campaigner: Huntsman. Do you know I saw a poll where a plurality of Republicans actually thought he was pro-choice (even though he’s always been pro-life)?

            If he fails to message on that basic issue, how could he ever message against Obama’s billion dollars and the MSM. It doesn’t matter if he’s a moderate: he makes mistakes.

            So it’s competence more than ideology. People want to believe ideas matter more. I understand that desire. It’s just: it’s never been proven by real-world evidence (for either party).

          • texashistorian

            The candidate matter tremendously. So, no Quayle could not have likely replicated Reagan’s success. Goldwater was never going to beat LBJ. However, I would argue that candidate quality and circumstances being roughly equal, conservatism will beat out moderation every time. We almost never get that, I concede, so it is more of a theoretical point.

            This primary, though, now that Cain and Bachmann are gone, I don’t think we have a problem of basic competency. Errors will happen, even to Romney should he become the nominee and thus the lone target of the media, but I haven’t seen anything among the remaining candidates that are crippling as in Quayle-esque, or Fordish when he claimed that there was no Soviet domination in eastern Europe.

            In Perry, Gingrich, Romney, and Huntsman (I leave Santorum out because he is only just now going to have withstand sustained pressure) we have four candidates who are generally competent politicians from the standpoint of campaigning. Not all of their strategic choices have been good, I agree, but I feel there is a level of parity between them. If that is true, then the worst thing the GOP could do in trying to beat Obama is to go with the moderate. It’s a losing message, thus my point that even the moderate election winners in the past had to pretend to some sort of conservatism to win.

            We’ll see over the next few weeks. It may well be that Romney wins the war of attrition, but I am not persuaded about his chances against Obama because he’s a moderate squish. We’d fare better with a strong conservative message. However, it will depend, as you say on the candidates. It’s a long process, and things change as we’ve seen.

          • trickamsterdam

            ,,,against Obama, because he’s a moderate squish”. But as you said in an earlier post, he’s running as a conservative.

            I agree, he’s fibbing. Although, I do think he’ll keep more of his campaign promises than people think…it’s the businessman in him….you got me in the Oval Office, fine, I’ll try to give you what you want.

            To be honest, what bitterly disappoints me are the Iowans and that result. If you had a top three of Romney, Newt, Perry…no matter what order, I think you would have had something. But they wanted to make their protest vote w/ Paul and then reward the guy who’d visited everyone’s living room (literally) Santorum..

            I don’t care if this primary drags on till June, I just don’t think it will.

            Santorum….I’m like a broken record on him, but I’m from PA, and he simply is not electable either in the primary or general (and knowing he’s not electable in the latter will affect the votes for the former).

            I am not telling anyone in these primaries that they should give up and vote for Romney. But I do stand by my statement that if he gets the nomination, he may be the best since Reagan (yes, damning w/ faint praise…but it’s that kind of world). ;)

        • Flagstaff

          What is the point of this statement? Without reading up on it, I assume that, if it’s true, the elder Romney was born while his parents were on a mission in Mexico. There is a sizable (figurative) colony of Mormons in Mexico; for all I know they may be living there to establish a foothold of some kind. But it has nothing to do with Mitt’s suitability to be president.

          “Romney did not even kick Obama?s aunt out of Mass. when he had the chance as Gov. of Mass.” Well, no, that isn’t what your link says. In full it says,

          December 22nd, 2011…

          Lancaster, New Hampshire (CNN) – Mitt Romney was more nuanced Thursday when questioned about radio show comments he made regarding deporting President Barack Obama’s uncle.

          According to The Hill, the former Massachusetts governor was asked by radio host Howie Carr if Onyango Obama, who is allegedly in violation of his immigration status and was arrested for drunk driving this summer, should be deported.

          In the Wednesday interview, Romney said the law must be followed.

          “Well, if the laws of the United States say he should be deported, and I presume they do, then of course we should follow those laws,” he said.

          Asked to clarify those comments in a press conference Thursday, Romney said his stance was not affected by the man’s relationship to the president.

          “I’m not suggesting that they should be given any more punitive treatment than anyone else, but that we should follow the law,” he said about family members of government officials. “I don’t know the circumstances of his uncle. If the circumstances would, under our law, mean he should be deported, then he should be treated like anyone else.”

          Romney said since he was not familiar with details of Obama’s uncle, there could be another proper legal outcome.

          “If instead he’s here on asylum on some other basis or has a visa or qualifies for a visa, then we should follow that law,” he said. “We follow the law for family members just as we do for everyone else in this country.”

          So, he wasn’t governor of Massachusetts when he said it, and he didn’t say it in quite the way you imply. Other than that, you got it right. What is wrong with, “We follow the law for family members just as we do for everyone else in this country,” anyway?

          If you want to make a case, do it honestly, please, izone. Don’t be like the CNN Obama groupies who commented below the link.

        • bogeyman

          “Perry understands that the border must be secured before talking about what to do with the illegals already in America”

          Yes, that is his position and that is one of the major reasons why I do not support Rick Perry. This is just a clever way of saying he will not enforce the law.

          “Romney?s father was born in Mexico”

          What in hell does this have to do with anything?

          “I’m not suggesting that they should be given any more punitive treatment than anyone else, but that we should follow the law,” he said about family members of government officials. “I don’t know the circumstances of his uncle. If the circumstances would, under our law, mean he should be deported, then he should be treated like anyone else.”

          Can’t you read? He is saying that we should follow the law and that IF he is not here legally he should be deported. Has any other candidate in the history of the US ever said anything like this? Imagine that, we should actully enforce the law when it comes to immigration. What a novel approach!

          • izoneguy

            Romney Family Files: Fled to Mexico Due to a Polygamy Ban Making Them ‘The First Displaced Persons of the 20th Century’

            Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather fled with his three wives to Mexico so they could continue their polygamist lifestyle with a multitude of other Mormon polygamists and settled there, cutting land deals with Mexican president, Porfirio Diaz using funds that came from The Mormon Church. President Diaz was happy to have the Mormon settlers there as a buffer against the Apache Indians. Mitt Romney’s father, George S. Romney was born in Mexico in the Colonia Dublan colony in 1907.

          • texashistorian

            Who cares? I will echo: What in hell has that to do with anything in 2012?

          • joshdunn

            If you have to go back in time over one hundred years to find a reason not to like Romney, that’s stretching the scope of the investigation a lot further than it needs to be stretched.

          • jakeofalltrades

            In other words, its only relevance is to the irrational prejudices of a minority of voters who say they cannot support a Mormon.

            I guess there could be some sort of natural-born-citizen Mexican-jus-sanguinis argument that would be relevant, but really this was just thrown out there as a grenade.

          • texashistorian

            Because I generally like Red State’s posters and commentators, even when we disagree. This is like the tripe that passes for discussion on the Townhall forums. Nice, eh?

            I guess I’ll just say it, since Jake, you seem to be correct, it is just silly bombthrowing: Izone, with all due respect, that is lame. The only way I care if Romney is a Mormon is if he tries to mandate multiple marriages. Otherwise, I could give a rip, and probably 95% of the people on here feel the same way.

  • krysztof68

    Here’s why:

    His judicial appointments, taxing internet transactions, hiring Mass Health Care Connector workers for 100K+ salaries….. Don’t forget the “Affordable” healthcare law.

    “1 member appointed by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts…” AN ACT PROVIDING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE, QUALITY, ACCOUNTABLE HEALTH CARE.
    http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2006/Chapter58

  • thosjefferson

    Most of the so-called conservatives who oppose Romney rely on cynical talking points detached from reality. Their anti-Romney psychosis cannot be remedied by facts or argument, so there’s not much point trying.

    This is the same mentality that gave us six more years of Harry Reid by nominating Sharon Angle, a hopelessly weak candidate who appealed to a minority of voters even in conservative Nevada.

    Let’s hope most conservatives assess the candidates based on their actual record, considered in context, and recognize that whoever the nominee is, he must appeal to a majority of Americans and eventually become the President of all Americans. If they do so, they’ll recognize that Romney will be the most conservative nominee and President since Reagan.

    • Flagstaff

      have been elected with just a bit of help from the Nev. ‘Pub establishment.

      • renl57

        It would take more than “a bit of help” to reverse a landslide loss.

        • joshdunn

          voted for a “Tea Party” candidate who was not actually a Tea Party candidate.

          She also made a decision late in the campaign to use surrogates to go after Harry Reid because of his LDS religion, a decision that probably ended up costing her votes in a state that has a lot of Latter-day Saints.

        • texashistorian

          Overwhelming the Reid machine, which means a turnout large enough to overcome the SEIU drones, illegals, and homeless that Reid pays off and buses to the polling places.

          Angle would have needed far more than help than the GOP could have provided against Harry Reid. She would have needed to be a more appealing candidate beyond that Tea Party borders.

          • Flagstaff

            I guess it would take more to defeat a bought and paid for election.

            It takes an informed electorate willing to get out and vote.

    • usedtobelib

      “This is the same mentality that gave us six more years of Harry Reid by nominating Sharon Angle, a hopelessly weak candidate who appealed to a minority of voters even in conservative Nevada. ”

      That and the kook from Delaware.

      • Flagstaff

        my first comment applies in spades to Christine O’Donnell. She certainly could have won, and probably would have won, had the Delaware ‘Pub party supported her instead of refusing to do so.

        • texashistorian

          Flagstaff,

          I have to say, just as with the Angle situation, O’Donnell just didn’t do much to give herself appeal beyond the Tea Party and some hardcore conservatives which, in DE, is an even lower per capita group than in NV.

          I agree she, like Angle, should have gotten more support from the GOP- after all, they have been more than willing to throw all in for candidates who had tough, and probably losing races in the past. They are shameful in that respect, but even with full on GOP backing, what are you going to do with an absolutely terrible candidate with a terrible campaign strategy?

          She was running for the SENATE. That kind of buffoonery would have been hard in a House race, let alone a statewide contest. I am not surprised she didn’t win, and I don’t think it had too muc h to do with it- she lost by 17- yes 17 points.

          • Flagstaff

            The old-line Repub she defeated in the primary actively campaigned against her, at lest actively enough to hurt her with many Republicans, and it had to be devastating to her with independents. After all, if they see high-profile Republicans rejecting her even after the party had picked her to run, are they not gong to think “this is not my person”?

            But that aside, I responded because of this statement by thosjefferson upstream:

            This is the same mentality that gave us six more years of Harry Reid by nominating Sharon Angle, a hopelessly weak candidate who appealed to a minority of voters even in conservative Nevada.

            To blame a “mentality” for these losses, or even to blame the nominees for the losses, is ludicrous. In fact, O’Donnell had been supported by the party for a state-wide office in the previous election, so she wasn’t that far from the ‘Pub establishment. The blame lies in a party establishment that doesn’t recognize it’s falling apart from the inside and that couldn’t find a more “mainstream” candidate who could beat the Democrat. If “their guy” couldn’t win among Republicans, why would they think he could have beaten the Democrat, either? (This omits consideration of the primaries being contaminated by crossover Democrats voting as Republicans.)

            I’m perilously close to saying that it takes a crook to win an election in Delaware or Nevada, but….

  • volunteerstate

    Wow. Leon, I hope you are correct in thinking he is such a man but it does not show in his background. Born of Liberal parents, a liberal family, from liberal Michigan and liberal Mass. The man just does not sound like Bachmann, Santorum, Perry , Cain, or Newt. I do not trust him a centimeter…. I hope the trend of the party toward the right strengthens and the party does not end up handing him the nomination.

    • OCBill

      Mitt is the poster boy for “country club Republicans”. He just had the good sense to fool the rubes about being pro-life, a subterfuge he announced in advance when he was running for office in Massachusetts.

      • usedtobelib

        a reeeeealllll Republican ought to have a battered pick-up truck, an old worn-out Bible (the right version, of course), and guns, lotsa guns. And you think a reeealllll Republican ought to cling to all of ‘em too, right?

        You and Barry Soetoro would be best buds.

    • dajeeps

      “…most conservative nominee since at least 1988…” At least?? More Reaganesque than Reagan, huh? My rear.

      If the Dems thought they could have gotten something like RomneyCare out GHW Bush, they would have been all over it. What about the pro-abort, gun-grabbing, command and control markets, and bankrupting the state with healthcare reform makes Romney so conservative anyway?

      • Leon H. Wolf

        Betrayed by my callow youth, I guess.

  • OCBill

    How long before someone in the mainstream media asks him this question. “Governor Romney, aren’t most of your policy differences with Obama just rationalizations for Mormonism’s long history of antipathy toward blacks as reflected by the .16 percent black enrollment at Brigham Young University, a number almost ten times lower than the black enrollment rate at historically racist Bob Jones University?”

    I’m not saying Mitt’s racist. It’s extremely apparent that he’s not. The LDS church has also changed its party line on blacks a long time ago. However, it will be one of the ways Obama’s hit men in the media go after Romney if he’s nominated.

    • pdawk

      Who would ask that and why would it be answered. That kind of question may actually help Romney as it would piss most people off that it was even asked. You think blue collar workers in the rust belt give two cents about the admissions practice of the Mormon church?

      • trickamsterdam

        They are going to blame their TV reports and specials on Christian conservatives.

        Since liberals are the beacons of tolerance, they could never attack a man’s religion just to help out their chosen candidate (Obama), could they? That would be appealing to “fear”…and only Republicans do that.

        So they’re going to dig up some Christian conservatives that have a problem w/ Mormonism….then the MSM is going to say “we have to cover this because this is what Christian conservatives” think.

        Then they’ll bring up any weird rumor, or true things that have long since been changed…then they’ll put it in heavy rotation.

        They get to have it both ways…attacking Christian conservatives for intolerance while also trying to scare independents about Mormonism….all the while helping you know who.

        The way Romney needs to counter it, is to get prominent Christian conservatives to endorse him and go after the MSM hard…openly accuse them of only bringing these things up about Mormonism to to help Obama and hurt Chritian conservatives. Openly accuse the MSM of bigotry.

        And if the MSM wants to not take the hint: Rev Wright. Bringing up Obama’s church will shut them up.

        But this is the thing: w/ the MSM, the best defense is always a good offense.

  • okpensfan

    I’d rather not have to choose between the guy who will stab me in the front or the guy who will stab me in the back. I have to be cynical of Romney. I am not yet convinced that he will do anything that will make things better, not worse.

    • cbartlett

      Given the choice between the guy who will stab me in the front and the guy who will stab me in the back, maybe we should try for the guy who doesn’t stab anybody at all?! This is so depressing….

  • http://politicalwoman.wordpress.com politicalwoman

    I’ll be upfront here, I’m conservative to moderate in my views, depends upon the issue. And I like both Romney and Newt ( but leaning more to Newt). But my eyes are are on the prize. And I’ll be darned if I’m going to do the Democrats work for them and tear apart Romney or Newt.

    Yes, I believe in constructive criticism, and we only make the candidates stronger. Romney’s no fool. He knows the demographic groups he needs to win. What I’m noticing though more and more is that underneath the so-called millionaire, patrician exterior, is a tough-minded, focused street-fighter.

    I wondered months ago in an earlier post whether Romney would be able to withstand the Obama machine assault. After watching his campaign’s reaction to each and every contender’s surge, if he’s the nominee, we’re going to be in for one heck of an election season.

  • jgge

    Presidential elections. There is no way a Wall Street Banker and CEO of Bain Capital a company that sells and buys company and in the process many loses their jobs is going to win the Presidential elections in this environment where the majority of voters despise Wall Street. Obama is going to run the most vicious class warfare re-election campaign in history of American politics and he could not dream of a better opponent than Romney a very rich Wall Street Banker. Romney and his supporters are totally delusional to ignore this most obvious and most important fact, you CANNOT WIN.

    • nancysabet

      that is why MSM , Dems want him as our nominee.

      • joshdunn

        The White House has launched at least weekly attacks on Mitt Romney ever since about October.

        The White House has given almost all other Republicans a pass because the polls show that only Romney has a strong chance of beating Obama.

        Donna Brazille just posted something on thehill.com about how happy she was that Santorum almost beat Romney in Iowa.

        She wants to keep Republicans from rallying around Romney because Romney will probably kick her “boyfriend” out of the White House.

        • jgge

          However hat is typical with Romney supporters, you and Romney are totally disconnected from the real world that you cannot see that a Wall Street Banker could not be elected President in this environment. The polls you are talking about are meaningless because the vast majority of voters do not even know that Romney was a Wall Street Banker and his company Bain Capital sells and buys companies and in the process many people have lost their jobs. You are going to see many of those people interviewed by the media and used in Obama political ads and the majority of voters are going to hate Romney in a way you would not even imagined.
          In the meanwhile keep living in your delusional world.

  • jgge

    if Obama wins re-election, not even close. We as a nation were in much tougher times than Obama and not only we survived but we have prospered than any other nation in history and have become more powerful than other nation in history. Focus on Congress, if we keep the House Obama cannot do anything with his destructive socialist agenda. If we win the Senate it will even a huge plus.
    I will not vote for Romney if he is the nominee, not under any circumstances. I will simply leave the President section blank. I will vote for my Republican candidates for Congress (House and Senate) and give my donations to the Congressional elections committees. I am not advocating that any person do what I am intending to do as described above if Romney is the nominee. If you wish to vote for him so be it.

    • joshdunn

      Do you like Obama that much?

      • jgge

        I would not vote for Romney just based on principles. Unlike Romney who has no core principles I do have principles. As I said before I am not asking anyone not to vote for Romney. Do what ever you want to do.

  • Paul_Zummo

    But Romney’s actual record is what should be scrutinized, and his record is not that of a conservative.

    • joshdunn

      I respect Romney for what he did: fought against gay marriage, blocked the funding for human cloning (aka “stem cell research”), blocked the single-payer healthcare system the Democrats wanted, block all tax increases.

      That is a conservative record.

      Newt Gingrich supported tax-payer funding for some abortions, supported the environmentalists on global warming (not just once but over the course of his career), supported the creation of new rights for gay couples in the District of Columbia, caved in to Bill Clinton on the budget.

      That is not a terribly conservative record.

      And Herman Cain had no record whatsoever.

      I feel that I can trust Romney. I can’t say that about most politicians.

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

        Romney ran as full-bore pro-CHOICE candidate in 1994 and 2002. His Romneycare includes taxpayer funded abortions. His prolife roots are an inch deep.
        Newt OTOH has a pro-life lifetime rating near 100% and maintained the Hyde amendment while Speaker.

        Romney FAILED to stop gay marriage and let gay marriage take over in Mass. I dont blame him for it, but its absurd to give him ‘credit’ for being governor in the first state to adopt gay marriage.

        There were $1 billion in ‘fee’ increases under Romney, he didnt stop them all. More importanly, Romney’s tax plan is the most TIMID of the tax plans out there – Santorum and Newt have stronger ones.

        Newt passed welfare reform, balanced the budget, CUT taxes in 1997, and stood up for cutting massive govt spending.

        Neither candidate is perfect but its fairly evident that Rick Santorum is more conservative and Newt is more conservative than Mitt.

  • uncmike

    As I recall, Bachmann was hot, then fell to earth. Then came Perry who zoomed to the top, only to slide back. This was followed by the Herman Cain boom, and we know now how that ended. Then Newt, whom most had dismissed, suddenly became the heartthrob of numerous Republicans, based largely on his debate acumen and his, initial, reluctance to bash other candidates. For whatever reason, Newt took it on the chin when he was headed to the top and now he’s fading fast, replaced by Santorum who lost badly to Casey in PA and whom most pundits had dismissed as bottom tier material. Now he too is a hot item. My guess is that Santorum also peaked in Iowa and will find it hard to parlay his sweater vest image and evangelical message into further gains down the road, especially after he is barraged by the remaining candidates and especially in more sectarian states. Meanwhile, Romney, who thus far has been largely immune to media attack and the slings and arrows from the other candidates, may find a snarling mad Newt going after him. Where Santorum and Romney will be after all this transpires no one knows. I’m prepared to wait until it’s my turn to vote. If Romney is all we have in the end, I may hold my nose and pull the lever for him. But I’m not there yet, and I expect a lot of other Republicans aren’t there yet either.

  • joeyjojoshabadoo79

    I hope Obama loses, even if its to Mitt Romney. That said, the nomination of Romney can only be seen as a failure. Sorry. Im with jgge all the way on this one.

  • joeyjojoshabadoo79

    On either side.

    • omegared5

      Lawrence O’Donell. Google his histronics on the McLaughlin back in 2008 regards the LDS church and African-Americans. How long before a super pac starts a president “big love” whisper campaign, and let’s not forget Romney and the tax returns.

    • omegared5

      Lawrence O’Donell. Google his histronics on the McLaughlin back in 2008 regards the LDS church and African-Americans. How long before a super pac starts a president “big love” whisper campaign, and let’s not forget Romney and the tax returns.

      • joshdunn

        I don’t think they even let him on talk shows anymore.

        It is obvious that Obama will try to use bigotry as a means of bringing down Romney. I expect that to happen. It will be hypocritical when it happens, because Obama has been playing the race card his entire adult life.

        But it will happen. When it happens, it will make him look petty and as long as Romney reacts to the attacks with the grace that he has shown so far every time his beliefs are attacked, he will rise above it and attract more independents with his class and maturity.

  • ctredstater

    Nice sentiment. Maybe someone should send this over to Mitt and His Minions.

    There wasn’t any of this feeling while Perry was being flayed on Gardasil, immiigration, the rock, etc. Now that the nomination is “his to lose”, sorry. I don’t think this is the time to tone down the rhetoric.

    Those of us who believe, as I do, that Romney would be a sitting duck for the Obama Machine – believe that a Romney nomination leads to an Obama re-election, which has, in my view, nearly apocalyptic results on the country.

    Go Governor Perry.

    • jgge

      and cannot destroy our great country. We as a nation survived much worse than Obama, civil war, great depression, two world wars, etc… and not only we have survived but we have prospered more than any nation in history and we have become more powerful more than any nation in history. Obama is weak and luckily too incompetent to implement his destructive socialist agenda the way he wants it. He could not even stop the extension of the Bush tax cut, again luckily, even when he had huge majorities in Congress. Let us focus on Congress, just in case Romney is the nominee, because just keeping the House under our control would basically make Obama a lame duck. Do not despair, We are Americans.

      • curtmilr

        Yes, we survived all those horrific events in history. But in none of those were we in debt to the extent we currently are as a nation, nor did we have a huge percentage of the population supported by vote-buying entitlements. Those issues are both game changers.
        I have full faith in the constitutionalist Americans still here, but they are now a minority.
        The union conspiracy undermining our education system has rendered the electorate incapable of critical thinking. It is more apparent every day, as Iowa is a clear example!
        We are already involved in a new civil war between the producers and takers. The takers hold the White House presently, and like the proverbial frog in the pot are slowly raising the flame to finish cooking it. This election is our chance to jump out of the pot.
        Romney is not even concerned about the gravity of the situation. He’s only in it for resume padding and righting the “wrong” done to his dad.
        Obama will destroy him, and those of us on the frog side have little reason to ever support him, because he has never fought with and for us. We’ll vote against Obama, but not for Mitt!

        • jgge

          more debt as of ratio of debt to GDP during the great depression. Our system of economics and politics is vastly more powerful than any President or party or unions or group of people can change whether they are on the left or the right or the middle. We still have a very long time to remain the world most prosperous and most powerful nation.

          • texashistorian

            until the point in which there is no practical distance between Dems and Republicans. A Romney nomination just hastens that eventuality. When your choice is between full lib and not quite as lib, we are in deep scat, my friend.

  • mkozikowski

    Has once again selected the candidate for us.

    We really have to get out of this cycle of letting the liberal media select our representatives. It is bad for Conservatism

    • joshdunn

      It is hard to do because the term “media” also includes Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the New Hampshire Union-Leader, and RedState.

      But if you meet with other conservatives face-to-face, you can talk to them about how you feel. You can help them identify when their view of a candidate has been jaded or shaded or colored-in by a false media depiction.

      We need to get very low-tech to beat the liberals. They control most of the means of mass communication.

  • joeyjojoshabadoo79

    Those are just the most glaringly obvious flips. There are several more Im afraid.

    • joshdunn

      And he has said that he’d end Obamacare.

      Let them bring up Romneycare all they want. The more they bring it up, the more votes Romney will get from independent voters and moderate-to-conservative Democrats who are sick of Obama.

  • loganyung

    I don’t think that there is any question that the 2002 Olympics were in big trouble and that Romney’s leadership was instrumental in turning the situation around. The problems were a microcosm of what we’re facing now, corruption, mismanagement, budget deficits, etc.

    Question: Which, if any, of the current list of Republican candidates could accomplish the same feat? Could Obama accomplish the same feat?

    For me, the answer is probably Huntsman, maybe Perry, but that’s about it.

    • jgge

      winter olympics to running the most powerful nation in history of mankind? Come on humans.

      • loganyung

        Shouldn’t the executive ability to do something even at this scale be a minimum requirement for the job?

        What killed it for me for Gingrich and Perry were that they were incapable of running an organization that was even able to get on the Virginia Primary Ballot.

        Conservative, yes please. Incompetent Conservative, no. They can be very damaging to the cause.

        • jgge

          and that is in the Republican wave of 2002. He did not run for re-election in 2006 because he was certain to lose.

          • turningtables

            We should all just accept another crap sandwich…

            … and then we can have a squish GOP president who will maintain the status quo.

            Oh, and status quo means demise of the Republic.

            That should do us in for good, huh?

            I hope everyone can take a step back and read what you’ve written the last few weeks and see what type of “conservative” you are.

            Squish.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            You should go vote for Obama. That will be better for the country.

            I’ll go commit ritual suicide for my unforgivable error now.

          • joshdunn

            Was he the darling of the far right? No.

            Was he a hell of a lot better than Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton? And how!

            Romney can beat Obama. Romney proved as governor of Massachusetts that he does not take orders from liberals and is more than happy to veto their crap sandwiches. That’s good enough for me.

          • JSobieski

            I figure I can only go up from there.

        • jgge

          He only won ONE race.

      • usedtobelib

        was akin to a governor balancing a budget, paying the bills of most states.

  • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

    I’m a Massachusetts Republican.

    In the Republican party, we’re not used to candidates who literally will say anything to get elected. So we’re not entirely sure how to address a Mitt Romney, who is behaving like a Democrat in that he’s saying exactly what he thinks we want to hear.

    Mitt Romney is not conservative. There is no evidence that he’s even a moderate Republican. Mitt Romney is a Progressive. Not only has he said so, he won an election in Massachusetts saying so — and then he governed as though we were one.

    So far as I can tell, he would differ from Obama as President in that he would administer competently. Also, I think he would be far less likely to appoint unaccountable bureaucrats to invented positions in order to bypass legislative oversight. Those are advantages; but I do not see any indication that his policies would be significantly different from Obama’s on most other subjects. I am especially doubtful regarding health care, where he implemented a system remarkably like ObamaCare, and continues to defend it as a good idea.

    • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

      I’ll add this:

      Mitt Romney has not received the MSM slime assault because the Obama White House wants very badly to run against him. Why? Because he, alone among all the Republican candidates, personifies the figure that Obama is planning to demonize in order to win re-election: he’s a 1%er, born into privilege, a Wall Street fat cat, with a history of racism. The 1% position is obvious; the racism will come from recitations of Mormon history. The entire Republican establishment will be tainted by the history of the Mormon church.

      As with McCain, the slime assault against Romney will begin the day after he wins the nomination. They know a good thing when they see it, and will not disturb the process of nominating Romney — because they want Obama to win. Far from being the BEST candidate to beat Obama, he is very nearly the worst; only Ron Paul would be easier for the Democrats to defeat in November.

      • gabs

        Romney has no personal history of racism. To go after him because his religion and its history would backfire as being anti-faith and people across the spectrum who don’t even like him at the moment would support him just on principle. Go after him because he’s rich and his campaign can say “See? Democrats hate successful people.” From a purely strategic point of view, Romney is a nightmare for Obama. However anyone feels about Romney as potential nominee, Obama would rather face anyone else in the field. Romney is made of Teflon (the upside of blandness for a candidate) and has money to burn, two things no other candidate can say. He’s unsubstantive and wooden and not much on “the vision thing,” but someone that ill-defined is a lot harder to take on.

      • nancysabet

        MSM and Obama basically destroyed Perry’s candodacy since the beginning.. Perry knows it but he is fighting and I will fight with him all the way. I will not let the Dems and MSM select my nominee, how about you all?

  • WA_Cowboy

    if Romney is the worst we end up with — and we could likely end up with him — we should remember that it could be worse.

    I can buy that. Don’t think he would be worse than McCain or Dole

    But Hopefully I don’t have to. Don’t think he’d be too much better than them either.

  • clowngirl

    Speaking for myself, I have serious doubts about whether Romney can even win the Presidency because he has a lot of artificial advantages in the primary (contests being moved up sooner, having more money than the other candidates, and the MSM going easy on him while trying to eviscerate anyone who looks like they can beat him) where he would have sharp disadvantages in a general election.

    There’s also a long list of other things that I don’t like about him — but I think he’d seem much more tolerable, if I didn’t feel like he was being shoved down my throat.

    It’s tiresome to see this guy who was an unpopular one term Governor who paved the way to Obamacare constantly referred to (in the MSM) as if he’s the only serious candidate while a very successful three term Governor and a former Speaker of the House with a history of stunning acheivements are routinely treated like some kind of joke.

    To put it another way – when I’m hit with blatant propaganda- there’s an automatic resistance.

    I would support – or at least vote for – Romney over Obama – but only as the lesser of two evils. Not because I would expect big improvements.

  • Thomas Crown

    While I’m horrified by Santorum’s sudden round of support, I would note that the divergence between your perception of the Mittster and mine is, as a mutual friend of ours puts it, the difference between judging by what someone says and what someone does.

    • izoneguy

      I dedicate this to Mr. Hannity and Mr. Santorum

      • quill67

        Bachman had a chance. She understands the choice before us and many people who want to make a stand. But she did not win because she was too busy attacking Perry, Gingrich and everyone else. This is what I call “Bachman Stupid” Thinking that attacking someone else will elevate you without articulating your own views.

        Perry is in danger of the same dumb strategy. STOP IT. I love Perry as governor and as a candidate. But the only reason he is in trouble is his debate peformances. Attacking everyone else will not change that. Just go out and debate and speak until voters recognize that you can be a great candidate.

    • acat

      Since Willard has come down on both sides of so many issues, on camera, it just seems a waste of effort.

      I much prefer to judge him by what he’s done. I find the below example inexcusable.

      Mew

      • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

        nt

        • acat

          but after I realized I should keep it handy, I stashed a copy here:

          http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums/dd432/mijacat/romney-judges.gif

          Mew

          • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

            …

      • usedtobelib

        of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts only gets to approve or disapprove of the names given him by the legislature, as I recall (or is it by a panel appointed by the legislature)?

        • acat

          Your argument is that Romney had the option to approve or disapprove. Why not just disapprove *everything*? After all, that’s the tactic the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee use…

          Mew

      • macphisto96

        Seeing that judges had to pass an elected body made up of SEVEN liberal Democrats, how is this unacceptable?

        I think Romney should be lauded for getting 9 Republicans on the bench . 87% of the state legislature is Democratic. Romney got 25% Republicans on the bench for his nominations. I’d say that’s pretty darn good considering he doesn’t just get to make appointments.

        But, of course, he can’t be forgiven for knowing exactly what he could do in such a fiercely Democratic state. It’s worth noting that pretty much all of these judges are CRIMINAL judges that have had reputations of being tough on crime.

        Romney tacked as far right as he could in Massachusetts because, well, it was Massachusetts. He was lauded by many (Erickson, Rush, Levin) as THE conservative choice in 2008 but because Obama has taken a state solution and nationalized it, Mitt is the devil. Yet Mitt never advocated the Federal Gov’t take over healthcare. Not EVER. He’s always advocated that the states experiment.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      I tried to be painstakingly clear that I realize that Romney is nothing but a panderer. But he’s pandering to me instead of people who think adding a prescription drug benefit onto Medicare is just what the country needs. That counts for something with me, but mainly because I start from the assumption that all politicians usually lie.

      • Thomas Crown

        My point is simply that I take pandering to me, after pandering to my enemy, as the logical and inevitable result of having no core principles whatsoever, aside from the belief that dogs enjoy car rides most from the hood. It counts as nothing to me, because I fully understand that when and if the need to pander to me is outweighed by the need to pander to my opponents, I am toast.

        • Leon H. Wolf

          I would think, however, that it would be a highwire act we would be used to by this point. And it is a darn sight better than being in the position of having the guy start by pandering to the other side.

          And it is loads, loads, loads better than being in the position of keeping the current occupant in the White House another four years.

          • jakeofalltrades

             

          • Thomas Crown

            And in the only (limited) data set of actual actions we have, he pretty relentlessly acted for the other side at almost every opportunity.

            Look, our disagreement on this goes back to late 2007 or so. I see only marginalization and electoral crushing if we do anything other than holding our noses and voting for his rear end come the general.

            And that’s if he wins.

            I agree that he’s not even the Prince of Insufficient Light. I just don’t see the point of not slamming him good and often, if fairly, from now until his acceptance speech.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            I guess I am just baffled to some extent by short memories. I mean, GWB came right out and told us, “I am going to massively increase the size and scope of the Federal government,” and we all went out and voted for him. Then he went out and massively increased the size and scope of the Federal government, and we voted for him again (by a larger margin!). I can’t really say that the nomination of Romney would be the Final Indignity and keep a straight face.

      • jgge

        Wait until the general elections start and you can see him flip flopping on so many issues to appease the moderates who he is not going to win anyway because once they would know his record as a Wall Street Banker and CEO of Bain Capital there is no way a majority of them would vote for him. His flip flopping and pandering in the general elections would be one of the most disgusting and pathetic things in history of American politics.

        • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

          the only people who would not vote for him because he was an investment banker are people who were not going to vote for a republican anyway.

          That is a pretty silly thing to say when you think about it.

        • Leon H. Wolf

          So just in case you’re wondering why I’m not going to respond to this, that’s why.

  • jgge

    Romney would start flip flopping again like no one else on so many issues if he ends up being the nominee in order to appease the so called moderates who are not going to vote for him anyway when they know about his record as a Wall Street Banker and CEO of Bain Capital. It will be a very pathetic scene, very pathetic.

  • http://www.neoavatara.com/blog neoavatara

    I don’t think there is anyone here that would pick Romney. Period.

    That said, he may be the choice hoisted upon us. That is life. Life sucks sometimes, is imperfect. You don’t usually get the hot blonde model as your life mate, but you love your wife all the same.

    Look, if Romney becomes President, Conservatives must be on notice: this is a person who could betray us. That said…at least he is not Obama. He has a few conservative ideas. Yes, we can’t trust him 100%. Trust but verify will be the name of the game.

    So let the nomination process take its course. But if Romney (who I basically support now, because there is little choice) is not ideal, by a large margin, but we must defeat Obama at all costs.

  • http://online.logcabin.org/about/ suzieQ

    First Michelle Bachmann ends her campaign, and now I have to be nice to Mitt Romney – the Schridenger’s Cat of candidates.

    • jakeofalltrades

      When Romney is observed to determine if he is conservative he becomes conservative. When he is observed to determine if he is a liberal, he becomes a liberal. This is not a contradiction or a lie – it’s a principle of RINO physics.

  • jonerik

    What sort of leader does the nation need right now? America is in a time of great peril and perpetual crisis. Presently, we have an outright Socialist in the White House, pulling the levers of power, leading to the nation’s destruction.

    Most of the angst regarding Mitt Romney isn’t about whether or not he is Conservative per se (a designation with many interpretations), but whether or not he is the sort to right the wrongs of the current administration. 75% of the Republican electorate consistently shows that it believes Romney is a ‘status quo’ participant, not a reformer, and certainly not an iconoclast that will dismantle the excesses of the current regime, or the past bad practices of Washington generally.

    With Obama, we know intuitively the country is on a path of destruction. Our problem with Romney is that he will leave us on the same path but on a less steep grade.

    And so we find it necessary to proclaim this in plain but un-mistakenly fearful language and vitriol. After all, our country, our very way of life is at stake.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      I mean, if you can point out where I said that Romney should beat anyone else who’s currently in the field then I’ll be happy to engage in the argument you’re having with that strawman right now.

      • johnt

        at least until he meets The O on stage. By that time he will have been drawn and quartered by the media, inundated with smut by Axelrod, and prepared to defer & curtsy to our midget president. Which won’t stop O from extra dollops of slander and filth.

      • jonerik

        Your post is a screed of appeasement. Its overall message says, ‘Don’t worry folks, if Romney’s the nominee its not THAT big of a disaster.’ As a basis for your argument you point to Romney’s Current Conservatism and compare it with the Conservatism of candidates from the recent past. As if the issue of Romney’s Conservatism, vis-a-vis former GOP candidates, is somehow dispositive of the issues at hand.

        The candidates you mention were not subject to the issues of these times. Your argument basically infers that it’s OK for us (the GOP) to fight the last war. Of course the battlefield is completely different now. Our country is in real peril – not the sort of ‘normal’ perils Presidents have had to deal with in softer times, like the 80s and 90s.

        We are in the sort of mortal peril the country has faced only a few times in its history and we need a leader who is willing to face the horrific challenges laid before us as a people, as a society, as a nation.

        The GOP primary season has just begun. We cannot step off the field and tell our people, ‘Don’t worry folks, Hitler only wants the Sudetenland.’ We must continue to point out the myriad flaws of a Romney – a man who we cannot trust to tear down the Socialist banners flying over Washington if he is elected.

        Leon, you write, “…if you can point out where I said that Romney SHOULD beat anyone else who’s currently in the field..”. I haven’t posited that your post infers Romney SHOULD. I’m objecting to your post’s clearly stating its OK if he DOES.

  • acat

    We’re going to need quite a conflagration to hold Romney’s feet over, so he doesn’t go slidin’ across the aisle making deals….

    Better start gathering kindling now, I suppose.

    Mew

    • texastaxpayer

      Surely that could provide the requisition heat necessary to keep Mittens on track.

    • Justin Spagnolo (standardcandle)

      the practical alternative would be to ensure that all down ticket races are filled with competent tea-party based conservatives, preferably former CEO’s

      push the house and the senate as far to the right as possible… and do your best to ensure that the GOP holds the house and senate majorities.

      do that, and the nominee is marginalized on all squishy agendas.

      • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

        instead of the blame game going around. I and other tea partiers are doing what we can at the local level and up through our local Tea Party and county GOP to promote conservatism and convince voters to stack Congress with as many conservative as we can get to run. My local Tea Party doesn’t endorse candidates but which works to educate voters, stop voter fraud, etc., leaveing the choice of candidate up to individual voters).

        • acat

          Kindling. Good, solid, Reagan’s three-legged stool-type conservative candidates.

          Works for me either way.

          Mew

  • Marcus_Traianus

    It never cease to amaze me what passes for so-called “screening” in our party nowadays.

    To wit, Republicans, the MSM and Democrats feed off each-other- with pedantic, nonsensical, fallacious or superfluous details about our candidates. In the process, we lend credence to prattle such as the importance of what Rick Perry said at a prayer meeting.

    Meanwhile some of those same participants dismiss the importance of Reverend Wright in Mr. Obama’s life. Really?

    The importance is judging how someone will perform in the job they are running for. Holistically. Not cherry picking events from 10 years ago in an attempt to force an image which fits someones personal agenda.

    Will Mitt Romney be Mr. Super Conservative and wear the shiny Red Cape emblazoned with a “C”? Hardly. But he will be light-years more conservative than the current White House occupant. So it’s about time we stopped throwing the cryptonite rocks which impede his quest and only serve to keep our evil overlords in charge. That’s called self-defeating.

    • Common_Cents

      Much of it right here at RS too.

      It was political expediency for ones pet candidate. No context. No nothing.

      Oh, and it was ALL in the name of properly “vetting”. yeah right.

      There is a big difference between intellectually honestly discussing differences with CONTEXT of time/situation and outright cherry pick sniper shots.

      We even had a front page on hoping Ron Paul would win.

      Gee, and we wonder why we are at this point?

  • http://www.baseballcrank.com Dan McLaughlin

    “Turning back the wayback machine to 1992, recall that our nominee (among other things) was most recently known for 1) raising taxes and 2) nominating a pro-choice justice to the Supreme Court.”

    In other words, we elected a guy who ran as a conservative in 1988, and that’s what we got in return.

    It’s silly to suggest at this late date that anything Romney says has any meaning whatsoever. I get your point about pandering, but I also see that everything in Romney’s primary experience and strategy right now is telling him that the secret to success is to sow division among conservatives and sideline us.

    If we run that as our standard, it will be a very long time before anybody believes us again. I’ll get behind him if I have to, but I see no basis for believing he’s a better general election candidate than Perry, Newt, Huntsman, or maybe even Santorum, so we really should be trying to stop him with every tool we have now.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      I really don’t want this post to be taken as an endorsement of the idea that Romney should win or deserves to win. The entire point here is that if he does win, as he seems likely to, is there any defense to the position that says a conservative Republican should stay home or vote for Obama to spite him?

      I think you would agree that’s preposterous.

      • jakeofalltrades

        A Republican who doesn’t vote with his party is only nominally so.

      • http://www.baseballcrank.com Dan McLaughlin

        But I do think there are good, valid reasons to pull out all the stops, rhetorical and otherwise, against him/

        And I do think he’s less conservative than Bush. Bush, we could at least trust on some issues, e.g., social issues, taxes, national defense. The trouble with Romney is that there’s no issue where you can be sure you can trust him.

        • texashistorian

          I am for anyone but Romney, but if he is the man, I cannot, and I don’t see how anyone who is conservative could, even contemplate four more years of Obama. Leon, you are right in that, but I don’t think it could really be any worse for the party if Romney wins the nomination.

          Will we have to live with it and vote for him? Yes, but I disagree that it could be worse, If Romney is the nominee, it could not be. Here we are, faced with the biggest philosophical crisis moment since at least 1932, maybe earlier, and the GOP will have nominated someone who might have some conservative policy ideas, but is essentially a status quo politician. Romney will be no Obama, but neither is he made of the stuff to fundamentally change the country’s trajectory.

          That, to me, is a recipe for becoming irrelevant in the future, when the GOP does not stand for anything but “just a little less” of the status quo than the dems, and why would anyone vote for the quasi libs when they can get the real thing (see Roosevelt, Teddy, 1912 election).

        • Leon H. Wolf

          People can threaten to stay home in 2012 as long as they don’t mean it?

          I guess that’s fair enough, given that it pretty much encapsulates Mitt Romney’s entire political career.

          • jakeofalltrades

            is that nothing could possibly go wrong.

        • lineholder

          You’ve pointed it out yourself in the Red Hot column yesterday…how much our debt has increased. I think we all realize that we need someone who is to some extent reliable when it comes to fiscal issues.

          I’m finding it extremely difficult to believe that Romney will prove to be that person.

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

        Republicans are loyal TO A FAULT. If and when Romney gets the GOP nod, he’ll get our support.

        I held a McCain sign on 2008 election day for hours. Why I shilled for McCain was more about my spidey-sense of how bad Obama would be than about McCain. Machiavelli reminds us that fear is more powerful than love. We dont have to love Romney, just fear more Obama to get behind whoever the GOP picks.

        Romney over Obama would be good for USA but would leave conservative activists frustrated at the coming Romney cave-ins. For those reasons, lay your concerns aside for now and focus on whether we should give up on a conservative alternative (Santorum or Newt) and ‘settle’ or not.

      • hls87

        It doesn’t matter what you think is preposterous. Many conservatives won’t vote for the Republican nominee unless he plausibly promises to fight for a significant change of direction in Washington. Romney can’t do that. What passed for a conservative in 1992 or 1994 is no longer even close to good enough in our current circumstances. If the GOP nominates Romney it will make itself irrelevant; it will take itself out of the fight for national survival. Why bother voting for the irrelevant nominee of an irrelevant party?

        The GOP urgently needs to reject both Obamunism and the Bushism that set the stage for it. If Republicans are going to earn conservative support they have to do much better at the top of the ticket than they have done at any time in the last century except for 1920, 24, 64, 84 and 88. Romney is a clear step down even from GWB who would be laughably inadequate in 2012. The very worst thing America could do would be to follow Obama with a progressive Republican who would consolidate Obama’s victories as Eisenhower consolidated the New Deal and Nixon consolidated the Great Society. Conservatives need to fight that result with even more determination than they need to fight for Obama’s defeat.

        • hls87

          n/t

    • Marcus_Traianus

      NT

  • Tman8

    they usually point to his family life, business career, love for America and its National Parks, thriftiness, involvement in church, reasoned ans sober mannerisms, etc. etc. If this is their argument as to why Romney is a conservative, then there are a hell of a lot of Democrats out there who are also “conservative”.

    There is a huge difference between being conservative in terms of politics and policy and being conservative in terms of one’s personal life. I know many Democrats who lead completely clean family lives who support atrocious liberal government policies and candidates. Does this make them conservatives too?

    • seanl

      LOL.

      • pttx333

        Forget politicians – there are few people anywhere who would do that! And I’ll never forget seeing a reporter asking him about it – Romney was just laughing and thought it was funny. You don’t even want to know what I think about such a person. Would he also tie his family members to the top of his car if he didn’t think they were suitable to be inside his car? Well, a dog is supposedly a family member, but not so much in Romney’s case. Pfft and patooey on him!

        • avagreen

          …..with a family that really doesn’t care for him that much, and………well, you get the drift.

          I’m enjoying the pictures in my mind.

          • avagreen

            You can tell the character of a person by the way he/she treats those beings less powerful and fortunate as he/she is.

            He’s a disgrace to his religion even.
            http://themormonworker.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/what-does-mormonism-say-about-animal-rights/

          • pttx333

            Romney. He has to be the epitome of “empty suit” – there is absolutely nothing inside the man except himself. Nothing. I believe that he will reap the things he has sown, and that is quite significant in my view. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who will mistreat/neglect those who are defenseless (human or animal) is in for a special hell far beyond the normal hell we envision.

            By the way, I did go over to that Faux site and did get to vote. Bah, what a big joke. Left them another snarky comment … would have left one far more incendiary, but I’d probably have be thrown off the entire internet! ;-)

          • pttx333

            that Romney did tell the reporter about having to hose down the dog and his car while en route because of the “mess” the dog left. Well, ain’t that just special! Then the poor baby was tied to the top of the car, driven at high speeds on the highway and was not only terrified but freezing! Monster!

        • jgge

          in addition to be a man with no principles who cannot be trusted.

        • usedtobelib

          I’ve seen family dogs and cats placed in their dog houses or metal cages, which are then bolted or tied down to the sides when the pick-up trucks were filled with other belongings.

          • pttx333

            But I’ve not seen what you describe. And I’ll bet anything that the scenes you describe didn’t involve a 12-hour drive.

            No, what I’ve observed is dogs in the backs of pick-ups having a blast on a ride into town. They love it – that is not the same as being tied down for a 12-hour drive. Or, most times, the dogs will be in the pick-up cabs patiently waiting for their master to come back after going into town to have coffee and run a couple of errands.

          • jgge

            to rural area people? Is this a joke? The SOB has hundreds of millions of dollars and he can certainly afford to transport his dog in much better way than tying him to the roof of his car. You Romney supporters are something else, really pathetic and come up with the funniest crap to defend him. Yeah poor Romney, he could not afford to transport his dog in another mean but to tie him to the roof of his car for 12 hours. Send the Romney’s some cloth and food because they really need it. LOL…

      • Tman8

        Sounds like something a thoughtless liberal would do!

      • Kyle-MI

        So what you are saying is that it is better to reelect Obama who will appoint liberal activist judges and use federal funds for abortions?

        If the only reason you are against a candidate is because he put the family dog on the roof of a car, then quit wasting everyone’s time. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be against Romney but focusing on the family dog incident shows you have a pea for a brain. Most of the people here want to intelligently discuss politics and the future of our nation. Most of us left junior high a long time ago.

        • seanl

          I hate him for multiple reasons. Mainly, he has no values or principles.

          • Kyle-MI

            And after the activist liberal Supreme Court rips to shreds what is left of the Constitution, you can keep your head held high. All those babies who get aborted can live on your principles, too.

          • seanl

            another Souter.

          • seanl

            nt.

          • Kyle-MI

            So if it comes down to voting for Romney or Obama, conservatives must vote for Romney.

        • avagreen

          How one treats something helpless is a window into the soul of that person.

          Get over yourself.

          • Kyle-MI

            Do you seriously think Obama would be the better President because he never strapped a dog to the roof of his car?

          • avagreen

            http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FalseDichotomy

            You can look up “red herring” for yourself.

            Try again.

          • Kyle-MI

            It is very likely that the choice in the generally election will be between Romney and Obama. How is this a false dichotomy?

            You are basing your argument on one single incident that has been poorly reported with little background. You are basing it on your perception of the incident. You are basing it on your feelings. Swiss cheese has fewer holes than your argument. We are suppose to follow your lead to vote for the leader of our country on this?

          • avagreen

            Your question as you posed it is the false dichotomy as if the only qualifications anyone is considering between the two men is their treatment of animals. Not! There are many other reasons to consider in addition to that one, as seanl stated after your question.
            Ergo, you set up a false dichotomy:
            Do you seriously think Obama would be the better President because he never strapped a dog to the roof of his car?

            I can see my analogy went over your head slicker’n snot.

          • Kyle-MI

            And you have never mentioned anything else except disparaging Romney because he strapped his dog to the roof of his car.

            Your quote: “How one treats something helpless is a window into the soul of that person.”

            And how this part of the thread started out: “How many politicians tie the family dog to the roof of the car while stewing in his own feces? ”

            I am complaining that this is an absolutely trivial reason on which to base a decision for the leader of our country. I am trying to emphasize how stupid this argument is. But you already know this, because instead of acknowledging the stupidity, you avoid it by attacking the question. You would make a great politician (and I don’t mean that as a complement).

      • joshdunn

        I couldn’t stop her. She would chew on them for sheer pleasure.

        I can’t judge Mitt. Not for something that happened over 20 years ago and has no bearing on his ability to be president. After he’s sworn in, Perry can attend to all duties that have anything to do with the First Dog.

  • renl57

    Let’s try this:

    Whom is your *second* choice, if your first choice won’t be the nominee?

    Perry supporters: Whom would you prefer if Perry proves nonviable?

    Gingrich supporters: Whom would you prefer if Gingrich proves nonviable?

    And as a Romney supporter, I’ll start off:

    If Romney doesn’t get the GOP nomination, then I hope that Perry does.

    After Obama, I want someone with executive experience as President this time.

    And sorry, Newt, Speaker of the House is not an executive position.

    • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

      Newt
      Huntsman
      Perry
      Romney
      Santorum

      • joshdunn

        Huntsman
        Romney
        Perry
        Gingrich
        Santorum

    • keven

      Newt
      Santorum
      Perry
      Huntsman

      • texashistorian

        Perry
        Huntsman
        Newt
        Santorum
        Romney

        • federalfarmer1

          Drink heavily…

          Santorum….

          Drink a lot more….

          Decide in the voting booth between romney and Gary Johnson…

    • dpmapper

      My preferences for nominee:

      Huntsman
      Santorum/Romney (not sure in which order)
      Perry
      (big gap)
      Gingrich

      My preferences for president:

      Huntsman/Perry (I think in that order, but it’s close)
      Santorum
      Romney
      (big gap)
      Gingrich

      • quill67

        Santorum/Gingrich/Perry–Does not matter. Happy with any of these. Each have strengths and weakness.

        Then Huntsman (Kinda milktoast don’t see him being effective campaigner)
        Then former Republican turned Libertarian Johnson (If he is not polling in 20s and is not Ron Paul on defense) then
        Romney

        I supported Romney in ’08 because he was not McCain. Boy was I wrong. Look at their records not words.

        Gingrich, like him or not does what he says he will do.
        Perry has proven record.
        Huntsman is sensible.

        Johnson is a goof but better than Romney.

        • treeofliberty

          Real easy:

          Perry
          Romney

          That’s it….if you put a gun to my head for another name I’ll say

          Perry
          Romney
          Huntsman

          But I’m generally too pragmatic to consider people with absolutely no chance…though yes I concede it’s looking like a long shot for Perry at this point, though still doable IMO.

  • drfredc

    One of the problems with our current election system is it’s my way or I’m taking my toys home with me…

    Successful politics don’t work that way… Other than being pretty close to an oxymoron, “good politics” is closer to how some polls ask folks where on a scale from 1 to 10 do you rate this or that candidate. Many of the top GOP candidates (including Romney) typically poll in the 6s to 8s, with everyone putting their preferred candidate a point or two higher. Which means, when as choices are narrowed, Romney is likely to emerge on top — way above where most anyone on the right side would rate Obama.

    Folks, don’t get lost in the trees without losing track of the forest we are in. The forest is dominated by Obama and Harry Reid, plus the GOP Senate LOSERship. Romney will do fine in the White House, if he gets there. Not a first pick for many, but then this isn’t the NFL where only losers get to pick LUCK first.

    If Romney isn’t your lead guy, fine, move on and work hard to dominate Congress with your type of politicians… There’s at least as much work to do turning Congress around as there is winning the White House… You can also bet that Democrats and their union buddies are going to be going full on to hold on to the Senate as well as take back the House. A Romney WH isn’t going to be shaped by Romney as much as it will be shaped by Congress. So if Romney isn’t your guy, move your toys into the adjoining Congressional sand box next door and have at it… Hint — Think out of the box. You can support candidates closer to your vision who are running in other districts and states other your own… It’s what the Unions do…

    • cbartlett

      I plan to support Perry as long as he lasts but if the stupids choose Romney, at least he has money to whip Obama. That would free up our funds to support true conservatives running for House & Senate seats. If we can get enough of them in both places, maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to light enough kindling (thanks, acat!) to hold Romney’s feet to the fire. There is so much that needs to be done if we are going to save this country for our kids……

      • aj_0000

        Don’t delude yourself. Get ready for “four more years”.

  • Justin Spagnolo (standardcandle)

    I agree with you…

    We should take the victory and drive home the fact that we’re moving the country right, and forcing our candidates to pander to us, rather than ignore us.

    Although we shouldn’t accept a run to the middle. Vigilance, and no more compassionate conservatism.

    The saber rattling has to end, the foaming at the mouth, the playing chicken/russian roulette with a magazine -vote for Obama threat, and all other forms of ridiculousness.

    The fact is, if Romney wins the nomination, it’s because either he won it, or we lost it by failing to consolidate and coalesce around a conservative.

    I think that’s the problem conservatives that scream at the mention of the possibility of a Romney nomination.

  • Adjoran

    TWO men, and only two: Obama and the GOP nominee, whoever that is.

    Given the incumbent advantage of using taxpayer funds to pay for “official” campaigning and the ability to extort donations from businessmen facing regulatory nightmares, anyone who does not vote for the GOP nominee is in effect voting for Obama.

    Third party, write in, leave the top line blank – it’s all just another way of voting for Obama.

    Hey, it is a free country and you can vote how you want to. Just don’t fool yourself about what it is you are doing if you fail to vote for the GOP nominee.

  • lawson

    nt

  • lawson

    nt

  • seanl

    Tweety and the Union-Leader Publisher asked Gregg to name one conservative thing Romney has done. He couldn’t name one thing. It was stunning.

    How does a long time politician go on a show for the purpose of shilling for a particular candidate and be totally incapable of answering a basic question? Either Gregg is an idiot (which he is not), or Romney really hasn’t done anything conservative (which is more likely).

    • treeofliberty

      Supported Marco Rubio over then GOP Gov Charlie Crist in 2010.

      Even if you wanna say it was becoming an “easy” call by then it was still a conservative (as well as the right) thing to do

      • seanl

        very very few people were supporting Crist. Give me a break.

        • texashistorian

          You should give us a break until you get the story straight. Crist was the Establishment guy all throughout the primary process, until he realized he couldn’t win and dropped out. Of course the GOP supported Rubio in the general after when he was the nominee, but didn’t want him prior to that.

  • randgeek73

    I sincerely believe that the Republican establishment leadership has absolutely no intention to repeal Obamacare, even if it survives the Supreme Court, and they want Mitt to be the nominee so that he can “administrate” this abomination to liberty should he take office. That’s why he’s their guy.

    • Kyle-MI

      As a first step. The next step being the actual repeal.

      • lineholder

        under the law, as it currently stands, those waivers will not become effective until the year 2017. The public health exchange is scheduled to be up and running by January of 2014. What is being predicted at this point is that when the Public Health Exchange kicks in, we’ll see a lot of employers dump employees into the exchange. Subsidy costs for the exchange will skyrocket, far beyond what was originally projected when O-care was passed into law (with a bad economy like this one, you can bet employers will get out from under both the costs and the regulatory measures).

        2017 is too late. Romney has yet to indicate any changes to the type of approach that he said he would be taking on this issue.

        • Kyle-MI

          It was my impression that there were already organizations that have been waived from Obamacare.

          As I understood it, the Romney waiver offer was not an end in itself, merely a stopgap measure until full repeal could be achieved and a fallback in case of filibuster by Dems.

      • randgeek73

        Politicians have been known to lie…from time to time.

        • Kyle-MI

          has he ever campaigned one way and then governed opposite?

          Also, we know Obamacare will not be repealed by Obama. We have a chance for repeal under Romney. Any chance is better than no chance.

          • cbartlett

            Surely Romney wouldn’t be stupid enought to veto a repeal if we can manage to get both houses of Congress to actually pass the legislation! Any Republican that tried that just might be hung out to dry permanantly.

  • http://lukos.com Ed54

    All successful presidential candidates pander to their base to win the primary, than tack back to the center for the general. Always. No matter who you pick, they are going to do that if they want to win.

    Getting pounded from the right by Newt will ultimately help Romney make the sale to independents in the general. He doesn’t even have to say “see, I’m not a scary conservative, I’m a nice friendly one,” because Newt will do it for him.

    But I agree with Leon, it would be best if the attacks were rational and policy based. Vindictive personal attacks just make us all look like cranky folks by association.

    • treeofliberty

      Lost in all this as Newt is about to declare jihad against Romney…is that Newt, especially outside (very) conservative circles is not at all popular and has pretty high negatives even among Republicans. I can easily see this backfiring against a slick Mitt Romney.

      Meanwhile, Santorum has just passed Newt in NH for 4th place and the Newt is just 1 point ahead of Huntsman. Personally I’d be surprised if Huntsman doesn’t catch him but think what a consecutive 4th or 5th place finish would do to any kind of momentum and fundraising ability for him. More attacks from him will be seen as desperate attacks from a “loser” than anything else. And with money drying up fast it will be all bark and no teeth as Romney and even Perry saturate the airwaves in SC and FL.

  • politicalgal1

    I was one of 500 Perry strike force volunteers from 30 different states who descended upon Iowa to help with caucus events. As I was killing a little time in a Barnes and Noble store before the caucus began, a gentleman saw my Perry sticker and struck up a conversation. I asked him if he was going to caucus that evening. He said he was going to caucus but was not sure whether he would caucus with Democrats or Republicans.

    He was a rabid Obama supporter and staunch democrat. He said many of his democrat friends were attending the Republican caucuses because they didn’t have a dem primary. In Iowa, they can change their voter affiliation, as well as register to vote in the presidential preference poll. I asked him who the Dems were likely to vote for in the Republican primary. He said Romney mostly but some of the anti-war dems would vote for Paul. I arrived at my assigned precinct before any voters arrived. I knew it was going to be a long night when so many young voters walked in with Paul stickers and asked for voter registration forms.

    Glad Perry decided to stay in a little while longer. SC will be the real conservative test.

    • tyman

      My fear is that this is going to be a problem this year.

      I heard on CNN as the caucus started that in Indianola, there were no representatives for Perry or Newt (the reporter said that NO ONE spoke for either). I’m sure Perry’s campaign was strategic about where they felt they could win and that’s probably a non-story. Just curious if you have any insight on this.

  • cajunchosid770

    I am perry follower but see this:

    Wasn?t Rick Sanatarium voted most corrupt Washington pol in 2006 by “Citizens for Ethics”?

    http://www.citizensforethics.org/index.php/press/entry/crew-releases-second-annual-most-corrupt-members-of-congress-report/

    • jakeofalltrades

      There is no way Santorum was the most corrupt. In fact, as long as McCain is in Congress, he can never earn that title.

  • hobiecat

    You want a government healthcare program? Mitt’s got RomneyCare. You’re against government healthcare? Mitt will repeal ObamaCare. You were all for the war with Iraq? Mitt was, too. You’re against the war with Iraq? Mitt will move it to Iran. You’re for ?gay rights?? Mitt’s the guy who promised to do more for ?gay rights? than Ted Kennedy. You’re against same-sex marriage? Mitt proposed a constitutional amendment to ban it in Massachusetts. You’re for same-sex marriage? Mitt’s administration said, don’t wait for the Legislature to act, just order the town and city clerks to start issuing marriage licenses to ?Party A? and ?Party B? to satisfy the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and never mind that the law says otherwise. You’re against judicial activism? So is Mitt, when he’s not bowing and genuflecting to it.

    You’re against the next government bailout of those companies too big to fail? So is Mitt, even though he was for the last one. You want a balanced budget, but are opposed to defense cuts? Mitt’s with you. We’ll cut taxes and grow our way out of these deficits.

    You want to preserve every department, bureau, and agency of the executive branch, while continuing to complain of ?big government?? Again, Mitt’s your man. Mitt wants to eliminate waste and duplication. Why have 13 federal programs to prevent teenage pregnancy? Why not just one or two? Mitt asks. Why not none, since it is not a federal responsibility and there is no constitutional warrant for it? Mitt hasn’t a clue.

    You don’t like No Child Left Behind, but want education ?reform? at the federal level? Mitt thinks that’s cool. He’s not one of the barn-burners who would eliminate the federal Department of Education, just because his party’s platform promised for 20 years to do just that. You want a candidate who won’t read the platform and doesn’t know a principle from a pothole? You want another Bob Dole? Mitt’s your man.

    Dole also had the endorsements from the political bigwigs in New Hampshire. Dole also stood for next to nothing. But this did not stop Dole from becoming the Republican nominee for President, only to lose against a less-than-honorable incumbent ? Bill Clinton. Assuming the presumptive GOP standard-bearer for 2012 becomes the actual standard-bearer, Romney will very likely do the same against Obama.

    But Romney brings back memories of another Republican who ran for President, not because he stood for anything, but because he looked good, sounded good, and people thought he could defeat the incumbent. Romney could very well come out of the Republican convention with a big lead like that candidate did. If so, he would almost certainly try to sit on that lead and run out the clock like that candidate did. Much of America would go to bed on Election Day thinking the Republicans have won back the White House, as was the case back then. They would then awaken to discover otherwise. Romney is a taller Tom Dewey. He has Dewey written all over him.

    And Mitt Romney will defeat Barack Obama when Tom Dewey comes back from the dead and finally defeats Harry Truman. And not before.

    Obama is landslide beatable by a consevative. Why cant we get behind a Santorum, Newt or Perrry? Word has it, Perry may stay in. But I would rather go down in defeat than supporting the status quoe!

    • jakeofalltrades

      • acat

        Are you ready?

        Mew

        • jakeofalltrades

          I’m pro-life – especially mine.

        • cbartlett

          LOVE the picture!

  • unsk

    Romney ran as a Progressive in the past. What serious person would believe he has now changed his stripes and is now a conservative?

    Leon, the criticism of Romney is not insane; it is the only sane position.

    A Progressive , just like Obama did, panders and lies to get elected and when necessary, fixes elections. That label seems to fit Romney to a Tee. No matter how he now panders judging from his past record he would:

    * Raise Taxes a Ton – he has already supported a VAT, and has a long record against tax cuts.
    ? Enrich his Crony friends
    ? Not cut – only raise spending
    ? Implement Obamacare
    ? Appoint Leftist judges
    ? Support more environmental laws and block more oil drilling despite he says now.
    ? Only enact more regulation – not cut it -dooming small business.
    ? Would coddle the TBTF , not prosecute them, and in fact would support the continued bailout of the TBTF.

    There is no realistic evidence that he would be able to end this Depression – his proposed policies just don’t attack this root causes of this recession. He like Obama, thinks this is just some cyclical recession which it is not.

    Yet, there would be a marked difference between Obama and Romney. Obama is a spent force. He could never get a VAT, Immigration Reform, more environmental laws and more regulation passed, while Romeny could easily forge a RINO/Progressive Coaltion and accomplish all those things.

    The RINO Squishes would love to join hands with the Progressive and pass a crap load of Progressive legislation with Romney providing cover as President. That is why Ronmey is far more dangerous to the future of this nation than is Obama. The only sane choice is to never under any circumstances vote for Romney. His election to the Presidency will likely mean the end of America as we know it.

  • hobiecat

    ???

    • jakeofalltrades

  • hobiecat

    Heard on Limbaugh show today that Perry may still be in. I personally think Mitt will be a close election, if not a repeat of 2000/2004 hanging chad scenerio. I believe we have a golden opportunity with a weak POTUS to win big with a true conservative. But folks in the national media and the RNC don’t agree. These primaries have Karl Rove’s stink all over it.

  • hobiecat

    Heard on Limbaugh show today that Perry may still be in. I personally think Mitt will be a close election, if not a repeat of 2000/2004 hanging chad scenerio. I believe we have a golden opportunity with a weak POTUS to win big with a true conservative. But folks in the national media and the RNC don’t agree. These primaries have Karl Rove’s stink all over it.

    • pttx333

      and Perry announced around 11:00 today that he is definitely in (in fact, he never left) and is on the way to NH and SC.

      Yes, I do get a whiff of Rove’s stench, particularly in the case of Perry – just like Rove, et al., stunk up Texas in our last Governor’s election. But, joke’s on them – guess who won anyway??? And now they are really, really mad. Oh, well … Perry will win again, watch and see!

    • acat

      Yes, the gutless D.C. wing of the GOP want Romney. “It’s his turn!”… never mind that he lost t McCain, who lost to Obama.

      I don’t see how Santorum could win the general, and I’m not sure about Gingrich…

      I’m quite sure Romney would lose as his northeastern milquetoast mien is not one that inspires.

      Mew

      • jakeofalltrades

        Nothing sharpens the mind quite like a noose. I envision Schindler’s List type imagery for those commercials.

        • acat

          (with apologies to Issac Asimov)

          The problem, jake, is Romneycare. Wafflin’ Willard has yet to say he was wrong to implement it, and yet .. it’s got its’ own rationing-by-government, i.e. death panels.

          Palin’s shot cuts Romney just as surely as it cuts Obama.

          Mew

          • jakeofalltrades

            Death Panels are too strong an argument to just let slip away. I want a bumper sticker that says,

            “Vote for Perry – Or Obama Will Kill You”.

      • hobiecat

        Bachmann being out is a pluss. I think Gingrich’s willing to take Romney out is a bonus because he has the credentials to do it, and it willl help solidify the consrevative base behind whoever the anti Romney is, and up until now nobody has been willing to do it. The Santorum win in Iowa only proves that Mitt is a weak candidate. I think Ron Paul hit his zeneth in Iowa and will not be a factor in NH. or SC. It’s really Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Perry lastnight.
        I think Perry knows he really came in @ fourth place yesterday.

  • AceInTX

    You didn’t go way back enough Leon.

    I see parallels with Nixon. In fact, what I see shaping up in this election cycle is what we got just after the failed single term of the Johnson administration that brought us the great society…followed by an establishment Republican Liberal in Richard Nixon who seized on the great society ideas and built on its foundation.

    Nixon expanded the Great Society, Expanded the EPA, the NEA and every big government leviathan agency Johnson handed him…and I see nothing in Romney that would do anything but all te above…only this time he Romney will be building on Obamney Care, CPFB, and other power grabs by the Dummycrats.

    And he’ll be assisted by RINO Republicans at the RMSP who are openly professing that they want to keep the best of Obamneycare on their web site….we’ll have a full frontal collusion with big government democrats to expand and institutionalize the worse of Obama/s statist agenda…and the shut up and get in line crowd will be in full voice that we just HAVE to support our REPUBLICAN President in advancing a big government statist agenda.

    Can anyone here point to ANYTHING in Romney’s history as a failed political candidate and governor that would indicate Romney would do ANYTHING other than what I’ve laid out here?

    and I ask…is the the first of many “Shut up and get in line” front page posts?

  • Scope
    • jakeofalltrades

      I got a rash and about fifty troll bites just by clicking on that link.

      • Scope

        I got a Tardasil vaccination. I’m protected from mental retardation. Now if there is a strain of Townhallitis, that’s another story. How long is the incubation period? and is there any antidote? other than not reading there? if that is what you mean.

        • jakeofalltrades

          Townhallitis is known to physicians as necrotizing encephalopathy – basically gangrene in your brain. And remember: brain cells cannot grow back.

  • aj_0000

    Romney would be the most liberal nominee since at least Gerald Ford. The difference between him, the Bushes, Dole and McCain is that he’s dishonest about his positions and record, which makes him doubly unacceptable.

    • aj_0000

      If he is the nominee in November, I will not vote for him. Electing RINOs who pass themselves off as conservatives and then govern from the elite center/left do immense damage to the public image of conservatism by confusing what it really is, and damage the Republican Party, which is the only viable vehicle for conservatism at this time. It’s better to have a clear contrast with a far left president than to have a phony “conservative” president who enacts most of the same policies and fails in the process.

      • acat

        If he is the nominee in November, I will not vote for him.

        Idiot.

        Mew

        • jakeofalltrades

          heh heh heh heh

          • acat

            Heh. Maybe after Santorum crashes and burns – as he must do – I can get some of the socks for my pit bulls to play with. Tug-of-old-gym-sock is one of their faves…

            Mew

  • http://www.writeinryan.com ragnarthepirate

    First, he’s actually a flip-flopper. Just look at this site I found:

    http://www.RomneyFlops.com

    Second, his current positions are not desirable for conservatives.

    In one recent debate he specifically said he wanted to avoid talking about what caused the financial crisis. If you look at how much Goldman Sachs has donated to his campaign, you’ll understand why. I do not believe Romney was a crony capitalist at Bain Capital, but he’s given every indication that he will stand aside and let someone like Hank Paulson do whatever they want if we have another 2008. Therefore, his campaign should be a non-starter for any conservative serious about shifting away from crony-capitalism to real capitalism.

    His current position with respect to healthcare is similarly untenable. Any conservative serious about shifting us away from a welfare state will be disappointed by Romney’s record.

    • macphisto96

      is to repeal Obamacare and empower the states to innovate in the field. The one thing he’s said he’d be inclined to do on the Federal level is allow competition across state borders. That’s an untenable position?

      Fact: Romney has never backed a FEDERAL mandate, unlike Newt Gingrich. He was on record as stating back when Romneycare passed that it would be something for other states to look at and decide if it or something similar would work for them.

      So Romney is an advocate of states’ rights. That’s bad, right? You want more Federal solutions like Gingrich?

  • Uma Richie

    When you all see him in South Carolina, please ask him if she was really worth the Presidency, if not the future of Western Civilization.

    Thank you for letting me use your bandwidth to vent.

    • aesthete

      I was watching Sanford talk to someone in the media the other day, and wondered why he couldn’t run for President. Then I remembered.

  • marktx

    Leon says –>”I honestly do not get the gnashing of teeth I am hearing today at the prospect of a Romney nomination. In my view, if he were to win the nomination, he would be our most conservative nominee since at least 1988.”

    LOL

    Even though GW Bush was a big spender, he didn’t support socialized medicine at the state level. Nor did he oppose the Reagan agenda. Nor was he a flip flopper on abortion. For that matter, neither was McCain or Dole.

    To suggest Romney would be the most conservative nominee since 88 is to rewrite history.

  • sowa1

    will beable to get the Independants etc. to vote against Obama, whereas they will not vote for a right wing candidate this time. The need to get Obama out and to save this country is far more important this year. Obama is going around Congress which is Unconstitutional. All of us need to rally around Romney and enthusiastically support him to win. If not, this Country is destroyed.

  • williamjameson

    and he’s fearfully hoodwinked full of the liberal propaganda that we must move left and cave in for a moderate whom Leon admits isn’t acceptable. WOW!

    So we shouldn’t take him seriously when the insults are clearly aimed at RS members while he panders for something he doesn’t deserve, cave in my arse.. Ignore such people as they are agenda driven after one election an clearly think we must settle rather than fight for the someone better.

    The party is far more centrist than Leon cares to admit so don’t trust anyone who is clearly out to manipulate and fearmonger as if we are out of time. Leon is the infantile one and no one should take him at face value considering the last 3 years of Obama Mania Media have scared him into the corner. Time to start slamming people who beclown themselves one day after the worst choice wins one election.

    Dems elected a more liberal candidate who is clearly far left and we should settle, talk about infantile. Don’t get personal or you’ll face even more scrutiny, we will not settle so soon. Sorry but sometimes it necessary to speak so boldly.

    • BigRedConservative

      If you have nothing useful to contribute, don’t spend your bandwidth insulting the mods. If and when you are shown the door (perhaps not today, but it will happen) please reconsider your actions.

      • williamjameson

        describe members of RS. I’ve seen people calling each other far worse and I only do it when I see others doing it first. Point is, I used the same words as this guy. I was not aware he’s a mod but I think I was fair considering he’s out of line and a little early on calling for everyone to support RobamaCareMan. I did contribute the call for fighting the need to consolidate and I did say “sorry”.

  • williamjameson

    so don’t fear this race is far from over. Newt and Perry have been vetted, Romney has yet to face full scrutiny and its emphatically clear that the Obamabots are hold back facts to drive voters away as they see what a modern day robberbaron Romney is plus they are already saying he sent jobs to China. Remember the truth doesn’t matter to the media, its only what the candidate can effectively disprove. Romney has skeletons that have yet to surface.

  • blarman

    … for giving a realistic look at things. Is Romney another George Washington? Probably not. Is he better than another four years of Obama? ABSOLUTELY!!!

    This author finally hits the nail on the head in pointing out that at least Romney is moving right and not left. With the two Bushes and every nominee since (Dole, McCain), we had RINO’s. Dole and McCain were classic examples, as was GW. Newt Gingrich fits this category as well even though his supporters don’t want to acknowledge his history.

    I completely agree with the author – Huntsman or Perry might be more conservative choices, but let’s give Romney his due.

  • aj_0000

    Keep spitting on conservatives, just like the Republican Party establishment and the media. You’re going to find yourselves very lonely in November. But we know all of you would rather lose with Romney than be governed by those “hayseed hick yahoos from flyover country”. Government of, by and for the people is officially dead when Mitt Romney is nominated.

  • SFDennis

    I can only say that I–very, very reluctantly–agree completely. But, let’s hope it does not come to that.

  • ihateliberals

    We haven’t had a Conservative nominee since 1980. GWH Bush was a RINO and he hated Ronald Reagan. If you remember correctly Reagan never endorsed Bush for the Nomination when he left office. Then in 1996 after Bush had started pulling the Party to the left that good ole boy Robert Dole won the nomination and the Party was pulled further to the Left. Then we come to 2000 and we are on the slide even further to the Left with GW Bush. the Party now has moved so far to the Left that it elected Michael Steele as the Chairman of the Party and the first thing he did was banish Conservatives. he made it a sin to even talk conservative. Low and behold we arrive at the 2008 election year and what happens? The Party again lambaste any conservative running and when John (I;m a poor POW) McCain was about to leave the race the Party came through and pushed him back into the running and the Party handed us Barrack Hussein Obama on a silver platter.

    Time passes and the Democrats shut the Party out of conversations on Obamacare and pushed it down our throats. For the first time in 26 years the conservatives finally get angry enough that they rose up and through the Democrats out of the House. How were they rewarded by the Party? They, even though they handed the House to the Republicans, were branded as radicals and not representative of the Party. They were branded as the Tea Party and then helped the Democrats demonize them. Now we arrive at the most important election since the 1789 election of George Washington and the Party has chosen what they promote as a conservative but in reality is a Moderate at the very best but everyone knows is a Liberal Republican from Mass. Once again the true conservatives were demonized early in the race like Michele Bachman and Tim Pawlenty. The Party made itself know to the candidates and most of the conservatives either didn’t even try to run like Huckabee or like Tim and Michele were beaten down and their Poster boy Romney was chosen.

    Now here once again the Party of Reagan that actually hated Reagan But could not overcome the people’s choice is pushing a non-conservative down our throats. Bush called Reagan’s plan to lower Taxes and Raise revenues “Voodoo Economics” yet this Voodoo delivered us from the Carter years of 21% inflation and a failing economy a typical democrat position aimed at enslaving the populous and creating Liberal voters.

    Have we forgotten that Mitt Romney was the original architect of Obamacare and when ask by the Obama administration to assist in with creatng Obamacare he wass very proud of it. Now he proposes to repeal Obamacare. How can we believe a Father would murder his own child? You, Eric, are trying to lead us to believe that Romney, a Mass. Liberal under the skin, would be better for America than Obama? Like it or not most true to the core conservatives will not waste their time on a Romney nominee. what good is it to change a lame horse mid-stream for another lame horse. Not only will Romney alienate the conservatives even further he won’t be able to attract the independents the Party has to hve to win the election. What should have been a shoe-in for the Republicans is turning into a one man race again for the Democrats.

    Politics in America are on the verge of one of the biggest upheavals since the 1856 formation of the Republican Party and it’s objections to slavery in our nation. While i dont believe the new Party will be called the Tea Party a new Party is in the making and after November of 2012 the move wil begin for conservatives to abandon the left leaning Republicans and once again move to lead the nation in freedom and to free the slaves of entitlements and government dependency. The new Party will bring back the spirit of Reagan, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower just to name a few of the great Conservative Republicans.

    Any of the other candidates are much further to the right than Mitt Romney and will have a better chance of attracting conservatives as well as independent voters. A Romney nomination is an assurance that there will not be an improvement in the American economic state and that Obamacare will take over the greatest health care system in the world and destroy it. I would rather lose the election with the right candidate than to win with the wrong one.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      -nt

      • ihateliberals

        I ws tryng to chew gum and walk a the same time. Sorry Erick.

    • acat

      If you’re interested in paying, I would be willing to proofread the rest. Contact me for rates.

      Mew

      • ihateliberals

        I had just read an article by Erick and his name was on my mind. so I can’t chew gum and Walk at the same time. My points still stand, Romney is the worse choice ever for the Republican nominee.

        • acat

          It’s a close call between Ron Paul and Willard Romney.

          I’m willing to vote for Romney in the general, but don’t look for donations or other support.

          Mew

  • bob570

    Most of the victories the Republicans had in 2012 were Conservatives. That should tell you something. So why do we need to put a Rino in the White House , when the Nation is swinging right. I think you’re out of touch with America.

  • krish

    The basic flaw in thsi argument is he has moved to right! How do we know that he has really changed? He took positions to get elected in Massachusetts & now he is taking positions to get nominated in primary. If you want to know who the real Romney is, see his first reaction to issues when he is not prepared! for example, the Ohio vot, he did not support John Kasich position but when Rush & other s pointed out that, he said he misunderstood & was supporting the OH governor!
    Your arguments that he is more conservative than McCain or Dole are really weak! Obamacare = Romney care. DO not beliwve his words, look at all his actions! Republicans are quick to point out a flip flopper from MA if it is a Democratlike John Kerry, are ready to defend if he is one our own – very definition of hypocrisy!

    conservatives remember – “Cheat me once shame on you & cheat me twice shame on me”.

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  • http://twitter.com/michael_s_grant msgrant

    - Conservative/Tea Party movement is thankfully pulling Repubs to the right (post- Reagan). Mr. Wolf provides some perspective on how to view our candidates during this (hopefully permanent) “sea change” toward real Conservatism.

    Romney, Perry, Santorum are all having to be, or promise to be, *more* conservative today than they were in years past. Maybe we could stop rhetorically killing our candidates for their past sins, given a little more of this perspective. Let’s save our vitriol for BHO and his merry band of Marxists.

  • texashistorian

    That I think is questionable. How has our government gone rightward? Maybe voters are leaning more right (though I question that, too) but where is this rightward tilt reflected anywhere in the Federal government? Government has grown year after year, laws and regulations have increased year after year.

    As for promising to be conservative- do some real checking on any number of past Repub primaries. No one has had any real success as a GOP candidate running as a moderate. Any one of consequence has had to promise to be conservative, and it isn’t really any better today than it was in 1928 when the progressive Hoover ran a conservative sounding campaign and governed like liberal.

    What *might* be different this year, and where Leon may have a point, is that the overall candidate field appears more conservative as a whole, but it doesn’t in the larger scheme represent anything new. Run to the right, always to right, govern to the middle. That is why Romney is such a bad choice, because it’s more of the same, not the “sea change” we would all like.