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Negotiating With Terrorists

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  February 5th, 2012 at 03:01 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I would like to take a moment to address something that you hear every Presidential cycle and which is making the rounds again in force this year – the threat that “if [Candidate X] wins the nomination, I am going to stay home/vote third party/vote for Obama.” The loudest and most vocal group of these folks during this election cycle are the Romney opponents; however, I’ve heard a lot of libertarian conservatives make the same threat about a potential Santorum nomination, and a lot of folks bothered by Newt’s serial adultery who have made the same threat if Newt gets the nomination.

Let me start out by stating the obvious – there is no one who is going to force anyone to vote and each person is certainly entitled to make their own choice about whether they will take time out of their day once every other year to go to the voting booth and cast a ballot – a point which applies a fortiori when it comes to the decision whether to donate to/volunteer for a candidate. If a person simply feels that they can’t pull the lever for Romney/Santorum/Newt, then I respect that decision even if I disagree with it. After all, I myself would have been unable to pull the lever for Rudy in 2008 because I have moral qualms against voting for candidates who are in favor of legalized mass infanticide.

The problem I have is with the folks who believe that their statement of refusal to vote for the Republican nominee presents some sort of existential threat to the Republican party that the party should heed and pay some sort of special deference to. The entire mentality that says, “If you, the Establishment, foist Mitt Romney upon us, then we are going to show you good – we are going to start a third party and destroy the Republican party forever!” A few points are in order about this line of thinking.

First, the Republican party nomination will be won not by the “Establishment” but rather by Republican primary voters. If indeed Mitt Romney wins the nomination, it will be because more Republicans voted for him than for any other Republican candidate. In light of this undisputable fact, I am at a loss as to what the folks who are currently threatening third party votes/voting for Obama/staying home are hoping the Republican Party will do in the event that the Party is inclined to cave to their threats. Do they want the Republican Party to disregard the will of Republican voters and nominate someone who didn’t get as many votes as Mitt Romney? Such a solution is absurd on its face but that seems to be what many people are asking for (even though they aren’t taking their reasoning this far, which is its only logical endpoint). If you are really and truly angry about the prospect of a Mitt Romney nomination, may I suggest that you spend more time convincing your fellow voters to vote for someone else rather than screaming impotently at people who cannot fix your problem for you. And may I also suggest that “If your guy wins the nomination, I am taking my ball and going home” is not that persuasive of an argument to the average GOP primary voter.

Second, this argument vastly overstates the importance of the person who is making it in the grand scheme of political history. Every potential nominee and actual nominee who has ever been nominated has been unacceptable to some subset of Republican voters. That fact notwithstanding, we’ve had a pretty decent run in terms of winning the White House since the end of the FDR administration. The polling right now would clearly suggest that Romney has the best chance to beat Obama head to head even given the allegedly enormous number of people who would sit out/vote Obama if he is the nominee (unless we assume that huge numbers of people are lying to pollsters about their willingness to vote for Romney in the general right now). The folks who are caterwauling right now ought to really stop and consider the implications of this fact. If, in fact, there is a nebulous Republican “Establishment” that is somehow able to control the primary process and override the will of Republican voters (something which I contend is ludicrous but is nonetheless fervently believed by many people, apparently), then the worst thing that could possibly happen to the conservative movement would be for them to get the idea – supported by the evidence – that Republican nominees could win without any support at all from movement conservatives. And if movement conservatives loudly sit out and/or vote Third Party and Romney wins anyway, that is exactly the message that will be sent.

But moreover, there is a normative aspect of this that is at work here which I am dismayed to see so many alleged conservatives disregarding. Being elected to the Presidency in a country of this size requires a massive team organization effort that frankly cannot be accomplished outside of the current two-party framework. Despite the earnest protestations of various assorted cranks who have risen up throughout the years, a vote for something other than a Democrat or a Republican in the Presidential election is a completely wasted vote. The Democrats show no inclination to discontinue their parade of socialist freakshow nominees any time in the near future, so it is facially obvious that any person of even nominally conservative beliefs will generally find the Republicans’ nominee to be the better choice.

The Republican party is composed of millions of different people with widely divergent beliefs and priorities. In different regions of the country and different Congressional districts, very different kinds of Republicans stand the best chance of being elected. When it comes to the country at large, we have a democratic process which determines who we as a party will put up for the position of President. This person will be the only meaningful alternative to the thinly veiled socialism of the Democrats that the public can choose. Sometimes, as a Republican, your choice for nominee will win, and sometimes your choice will lose. When the process is said and done, as a Republican, only a truly unusual set of circumstances should prevent us from being able to lay down the arms we have turned against each other and working together to defeat the Democrats and their twisted vision for America.

Again, if someone can’t bring themselves to vote in November under their own conscience, that is their own business and I will not judge them. But the wailing cry of “I’m taking my ball and going home if I don’t get my way!” is something our parents hopefully taught us was wrong about the time we turned six years old. I see no reason why it should be treated with any more seriousness than we would treat a wayward six year old, even if it were possible to do so without thwarting the democratically-expressed wishes of the GOP electorate.

COMMENTS

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  • Bill S

    I’ve certainly been thinking it for a while. The eeeeeeevil smoke-filled room of Establishment Republicans simply does not exist. We had a couple of good candidates, and the electorate chose not to vote for them. It had nothing to do with The Establishment.

    Well said, Brother Leon.

    • aesthete

      Then we might get someone of Coolidge or Harding’s stature, instead of the turds we’ve been stuck with.

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        filled room now? And if we had a smoke-filled room-brokered convention now wouldn’t a majority of those in the room be the anti-tea partier establishment? I think so. We tea partiers have to win this on the ground in recruiting more and better candidates, running better campaigns, persuading our friends, getting involved in party politics at the state and local level and turn out the vote for Perry 2020 after Mitt’s second term? smile

        • toothpick

          When I hear someone assert that they will not vote for the Republican nominee unless that nominee is to their liking, I assume that either (1) they aren’t serious about saving the country from the socialist in the Oval Office now, or (2) they are engaging in hyperbole in order to advocate for their choice in the strongest terms they can come up with (“If my guy doesn’t win, I’m going to hold my breath until I drop dead!”). Either way, it’s generally a sign of immaturity.

          I had my preference, that person dropped out due to lack of support. I was disappointed, but I’m sucking it up and moving on. I’ll support the R against Obama, and I’ll do it enthusiastically even if the winner turns out to be my least-favored choice. They are all infinitely better than Obama.

        • Leon H. Wolf

          There are two main problems with a brokered convention:

          a) It won’t happen
          b) the people who are praying most fervently for it to happen are the same people who are of the belief that the “Establishment” is forcing Romney down our throats. They somehow yet believe that the elected delegates to the RNC, which would be the most Establishment group of people ever assembled, would nominate a strong movement conservative in a brokered convention, instead of Mitt Romney (or someone worse).

          • acat

            How does Romney go about reaching out to the Tea Party folks in order to win the general? His record in Massachusetts suggests he’s not opposed to tax and fee increases.

            How does Romney go about reaching out to the social conservative folks who backed Huckabee last time and currently are backing Santorum? His record of judicial appointments in Massachusetts as well as his apparent changes in position on abortion make this tough. (I’ve read your previous writings on the topic and while I agree that Romney is now saying different things, I do not see where there’s any reason to believe he will continue saying them once elected.)

            How does Romney go about reaching out to the squishy middle, who actually decide most elections, when his record on jobs and on health care look so much like Obama’s?

            I’m not denying that Romney means well, I think he’s a good family man who’s raised a solid American family. I’ll vote for him in November, paws down, no qualms.

            I don’t see, though, how he’s got a clear path to victory against the Dem machinery, once it really gets going, in part because I don’t see any attempt or path to reach out to groups who could strongly influence the election.

            Mew

          • WillWong

            You wrote…”How does Romney go about reaching out to the social conservative folks who backed Huckabee last time and currently are backing Santorum?”

            You meant to say those Huckabee supporters who are backing Santorum now correct? You are not saying that all of Huckabee supporters are supporting Santorum by any means, correct? Because the last time I checked, Newt is beating Santorum in this category by more than 2:1. Just to make sure!

          • acat

            I do mean the subset of social conservatives who backed Huckabee last time (keeping him in the race long past when his path to win was closed) and are now pushing Santorum to the same point.

            How does Romney get them off the couch and into the polling place in the general?

            I want to send Obama back to the private sector. I want to understand how Romney proposes to make this happen.

            Mew

          • trickamsterdam

            The three main problems with people who argue against a brokered convention are:

            a) They don’t understand it’s more likely one will happen than Newt, Santorum, or Paul will win outright (odds of a B.C. are about 10-20%). So the argument that you’d get Romney makes no sense, because you’ll get Romney anyway, and if we can’t even talk about a B.C. because it’s impossible (actually, one or two in ten is far from impossible) why even talk about Newt anymore…him winning is even more unlikely?

            b) If you don’t think people like P. Ryan, M. Rubio, and M. Daniels etc are popular w/ the establishment, we obviously aren’t using the same definition of establishment. The prime quality the Establishment is looking for is electability. The prime quality the Tea Party is looking for is a genuine reformer. Both sides are probably actually willing to compromise, which is why especially Ryan would be a legitimate bridge between the two.

            c) The only way someone could think you’d get someone “worse” than Romney at a brokered convention, is if you think Romney is very electable. Since Newt’s very limited resources and lack of support from the media are well-known, and since he already has Romney’s negative number up to 49% (higher than Obama’s in most polls) I have no idea why anyone would think he wouldn’t be cut to pieces by the President’s vast war chest and media support, both of which will dwarf Romney’s. InTrade has Obama’s reelection chances at 57% and they assume a Romney nomination. That’s called a very heavy underdog. And that number is likely to go up not down as the Ds begin to light Romney up like a witch, w/ an avalanche of ads and hordes of MSM proxies (do you know John King of CNN already called Romney “Governor Mormon” yesterday?).

            As for the idea that you’d get someone even more liberal at the BC…that’s simply ludicrous. Romney’s RECORD (not words) is literally probably more liberal than Olympia Snowe’s…and she’s not going to be the nominee.

            PS – If there were a brokered convention, it would mean Romney didn’t get 50% of the delegates, which at this point, w/ his advantages, would mean his campaign essentially collapsed. He wouldn’t emerge from a brokered convention, because people would’ve seen how weak he was…the fact that people don’t understand that confirms what I suspect…most people talking against a brokered convention don’t have a good grasp of what one is, and are simply too unoriginal to think outside the box (another common trait is they tend to vastly over estimate Romney’s electability against all rational evidence).

          • aesthete

          • goodgovernance

            You can’t argue the Establishment doesn’t exist in one breath and then argue “Well the Establishment will just pick Romney at a brokered convention anyway” in the next.

            If a brokered convention happens it will be because the Establishment realizes that the party is splintering over Romney. So there’s every reason for us to keep fighting Romney, in the hopes we can get to a compromise candidate who isn’t compromised the way Romney is. Like you said, we can have a genuine reformer AND electability.

            Eleven forty-four or FIGHT!

          • Leon H. Wolf

            Everyone seems to think that I am saying the establishment does not exist. I didn’t say that. I said they get one vote in the primaries the same as everyone else does. Thus, it’s asinine to blame Romney (or any other candidate) winning or losing on them. when the contest will be decided by millions and millions of voters.

            On the other hand, at a brokered convention, the voting would not be done by the great, humongous mass of GOP primary voters across the country, but rather by a much, much, much, much smaller (by several orders of magnitude) group of voters that would be far more dominated by the “Establishment” than is the electorate at large. Thus if you are concerned about the Establishment thwarting the will of the electorate then a brokered convention should be the absolute last thing you would want.

            You know, I have always tried to participate in the comments here but I am getting sick of the way the primaries have lowered everyone’s IQ by 15 points (or more)

          • jakeofalltrades

          • goodgovernance

            In the past you have questioned whether any “Establishment” existed. And even in your diary above you wrote, “If, in fact, there is a nebulous Republican ‘Establishment’…” so I hardly think people can be criticized for getting the impression that you still question the existence of an Establishment.

            To be fair, you wouldn’t be the first to say there’s no Republican Establishment anymore. But the people I’ve heard saying it are all from the Establishment.

            To your point about the Establishment Republicans having only one vote apiece, yes, you’re correct. But guess what? So do all those mainstream media liberals who tilt elections in the Democrats’ favor. Would you care to argue that the MSM doesn’t have any influence beyond their vote?

            The Establishment has influence with rank and file Republicans beyond their vote alone, while the rest of us pretty much just have our vote. Being the guy holding the megaphone matters. If it didn’t there wouldn’t be any need to have responsible leaders.

            As for your contention that a brokered convention would be run the Establishment – I disagree with this presumption. Just because you’re involved with the Republican Party at the local level doesn’t mean you’re part of the NY-DC Establishment. Delegates come from all over the country and most of them live and work in the places they represent. So they’re more in touch with how people in the country feel, as opposed to the Establishment proper.

            I can understand if you don’t feel like taking part in the comments section anymore. But you started this discussion with your diary, and the way that you wrote it led to the response that you received. May I suggest that bemoaning how everyone who disagrees with you suffers from a low IQ or is acting like a six year old will not convince many to adopt your point of view, if they didn’t share it already.

          • BillC

            and access to the media that gives the establishment its power. (I define establishment as those current and former office holders as well as the various functionaries in government who belong to the Republican party.) They have a strong incentive not to upset the gov’t spoils system too much which is what a radical change in the size of gov’t would accomplish.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            How about if you quote the entire sentence I wrote rather than just the half which makes it look like you had a point and I’m a liar. Otherwise don’t expect me to engage you substantively.

            Because I’m such a nice guy, I’ll do it for you, with the part you conveniently omitted in bold.

            If, in fact, there is a nebulous Republican ?Establishment? that is somehow able to control the primary process and override the will of Republican voters

          • goodgovernance

            and it’s all up there in your original diary, besides. I’m still comfortable with my earlier point with the bolded addition.

            Thanks for responding, even though I’m sure you’re having second thoughts about raising these topics. They needed to be discussed.

            Eleven forty-four or fight.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            Apologies for the Gamecockesque title but when an ellipsis completely changes the meaning then you’re dishonestly quoting someone.

            And I’m not having second thoughts about writing the post whatsoever. Some of the time I have spent since then, I have second-guessed.

          • goodgovernance

            when I still stand by my original point even with what you added in. You’ve previously asked questions at other times like “Who is the Establishment?” (no ellipses) which also reinforced the sense you thought there was no such thing as an Establishment that could influence the process.

            The operative word here being “influence,” not “control.” If you wanted to argue that the Establishment doesn’t control us all like robots (or the way Mitt’s handlers control him) that’s such an easy argument to make I wonder that it even needed to be made.

            But it is indisputable the Establishment has used its admittedly finite influence to effect the outcome of the primaries, whenever Newt gained some momentum. Seeing how Newt is supposed to be prone to self-destructing, I wonder why they even felt the need to so. In the meantime, enthusiasm for Mitt remains so low he’s getting less votes than he got in 2008. That is extremely troublesome, and I believe the lack of enthusiasm for him will extend to independent voters in the general campaign, should he get that far and not get stopped in a not-impossible brokered convention.

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

            brokered convention lends all the more credence to the message that ColdWarrior has been preaching here for several years.

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

            “I said they get one vote in the primaries the same as everyone else does.”

            Look, I agree that people tend to overstate the cohesiveness and reach of the “establishment” within the party. But there is such a thing, and:

            1. I think it’s quite clear that a lot of establishment money has gone to Romney, and that his financial advantages have been an enormous factor in his success. There is absolutely zero possibility that Romney would be the frontrunner if he was not the best-funded candidate in the race.

            That’s before we discuss the other in terrorem effects of Romney’s money (his own and the money he’s raised), like the ability to retire campaign debts of other candidates in the field and the money he has given to various media organs.

            2. I think it’s quite clear that a lot of establishment political commentary has gone to Romney, both openly and subtly (by tearing down his credible opponents and propping up his less credible ones), Pundits can only move so much individually, but the commentariat can do a lot collectively to spread memes, elevate some issues at the expense of others, and generally spread confusion in a crowded field. The force of establishment scorn visited first on Perry and then Newt, for essentially opposite reasons, has been something to behold.

            3. I think it’s quite clear that a lot of establishment endorsements have gone to Romney. Endorsements only get you so far, as Nikki Haley could tell you, but the process of lining up a lot of them does bring with them a certain segment of voters that adds to the floor below which nothing can drop Romney, and helps – along with the m,oney and the interference-running by others in the field – has done a lot to create barriers to entry for other potential candidates.

            We should not, in the service of your reasonable points, suggest that Romney has gathered no significant advantages from establishment support.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            First of all, I have been under the impression that Romney’s fundraising apparatus to at least a large degree exists outside the traditional Republican money machine – after all, he had it in 2008 even when the entirety of the Bush network was moving to McCain.

            Second, let us grant the undoubtedly true premise that access to media and money (whether through Establishment channels or his own network) has provided Mitt Romney with a larger megaphone than other candidates have. What of that? Plenty of candidates have burned through hordes and hordes of cash with absolutely nothing to show for it because they were unable to sell themselves to voters (and although it pains me to say it, no candidate exemplified that more during this cycle than Rick Perry). And in terms of the Establishment punditry’s access to traditional media channels – again, that is a worthless benefit but for the willingness of the Republican primary voter to consume it.

            Finally, we might well ask what exactly Mitt Romney did to ingratiate himself to this group. As I have pointed out before, Romney has busted his hump since 2008 getting conservatives (and moderates) elected. Literally the only times I heard Newt Gingrich make a peep in 2010 were in support of Dede Scozzafava and Bob Bennett.

          • acat

            I have not seen much proof of it.

            I recall no Romney speaking or Romney-PAC fundraisers during the 2010 cycle. I’m sure he spoke for some folk in the northeast, but I just don’t see evidence to support it.

            Could you please provide some additional data on Romney endorsements, donations, volunteer-sharing, etc.? If nothing else, it would be interesting to see who Romney has worked with.

            Mew

          • Leon H. Wolf

            Here is a list of direct campaign donations but he also spent millions on fundraising and camapign infrastructure which is not broken out by candidate here. If you want to dig through the massive FEC reports to get a breakdown, here they are.

          • acat

            … provided financial but not public support.

            It seems to me that this just highlights the problem I have with the guy… he’s very good at taking shots via proxies, but not at delivering punches himself. (witness the debates where he never lost, but never really brought the heat)

            He’s not a leader. He’s a manager. If I were interviewing for the job, I could see him as a possibility .. but he has to compete for it .. and he’s just not showing any leadership as a candidate.

            Mew

          • Leon H. Wolf

            The financial stuff is just easier to dig up. If I still had free Lexis access I could dig up hundreds of stories about Romney stumping for Republicans in 2010, because he was absolutely everywhere. I just don’t have the time or the inclination to try to do it via google right now.

          • acat

            I am not saying you are mistaken, just that I don’t remember Romney stumping for anyone in 2010.

            Mew

          • aesthete

            2009, but still in the same election cycle.

          • ffc99

            but he was all over the place in 2010, Acat. Here’s one article providing some details of his travels (and I’m sure like Leon said with a little work you can find a lot more).

            http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43566.html

          • jakeofalltrades

            just sayin’.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            -nt

          • jakeofalltrades

            lol

          • acat

            Sorry, couldn’t resist.

            –acat

          • Scope

            Marco Rubio did come forward and say that Romney did support him in 2010, and provided money to his campaign. I saw an article recently that claimed that Romney supported 30 House races in 2010, but I have been unable to find what all races he did involve himself in. At least Rubio didn’t endorse, thankfully, although he did smack Newt for his immigration ad.

          • Scope

            organization in Fla., from what I read, was in Newt column. Wonder just what Rubio thought he would accomplish with his statements against Newt’s ad.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            See here.

          • Scope

            want to try again.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00449280&cycle=2010

          • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

            None other than now-a-Romney-endorser, who spent over $20 M in 2010 keeping primary challenger J.D. Hayworth at bay, our “conservative” Sen. John McCain.

            Here’s the John and Mitt dynamic duo in action at a McCain “town hall” meeting in Mesa that I attended back in the summer of 2010. I was able to stroll into their somewhat “private” meeting backstage before the “public” meeting in the school auditorium and asked Sen. McCain a couple of questions about the Republican leadership’s strategies for stopping the Dems’ legislative proposals and their strategies for bypassing the ?Minion Media? by going straight to the American people via outlets such as Fox News, talk radio, e-mail and the internet generally:

            http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2010/06/04/john-mccain-and-mitt-romney-both-flub-what-can-we-do-questions-so-sad/

            I hope this helps.

            Thank you.

            ColdWarrior

          • Leon H. Wolf

            Who is a) nuts and b) quite possibly corrupt to be a more menial sin than either endorsing Dede Scozzafava (Newt) or Arlen Specter (Santorum) both of whom turned Democrat, but that is just me.

          • acat

            but Hayworth’s worse.

            I can see why Romney and Palin were both willing to back McCain.

            Mew

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

            because he could. He didn’t need to spend $20.00. He beat Hayworth by 23 and if he’d spent nothing and stayed in DC for 120 days prior to the primary he’d likely have won by 18.

            Hayworth, unlike The Witch, was a really well known statewide and was soundly disliked in every part of the state.

          • Scope

            when McCain was up against Hayworth. I remember even more so a few AZ residents here that reduced Hayworth to a mumbling, bumbling, fool, who was the worst thing to ever hit this planet. He was the male version of the witch from MD. It all sounded like, ohhhh, woe is me, but, McCain is still the best option. Hey he ain’t perfect, but, he’s a whole lot better than this idigiot Hayworth. That all made me want to puke, and then McCain was sent back to DC. If I lived in AZ. I would have voted for Mickey Mouse over the godfather of the destruction to the Republican brand. Hey, aren’t so many saying in this election cycle, that they will never do a McCain nose plug junk again. I would like to say that McCain was the end of the line for conservatives, but, somehow we found a new end of the line, with Romney.

          • aesthete

            I’d look into that.

            In the meantime, just because you don’t like that Hayworth was an absolute fool doesn’t mean that AZ residents who characterized him that way (myself included) weren’t right on the money. As I recall, “the witch from MD” (I think you meant DE, as Christine O’Donnell was running for Senate in DE) didn’t do so hot in the general election, and went on to confirm what all the naysayers (myself included) said about her.

          • Scope

            n/t

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

            He was worse.

            Stick to stuff you know something about Scope and you do ok. Venture off that reservation and you make a complete ass of yourself. Like now.

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

            there were at least two sitting CongressCritters who could have made a real run out the primary against McCain, Shadegg and Flake. Neither chose to run.

            Hayworth lost by 23 – I predicted 20+ – because he’s a well known idiot. I don’t remember the exact number, but he lost his old district to McCain by 30+ and they know know him very well. And, in the general they tossed the Dem incumbent in favor of the Republican who lost two years earlier.

          • demsaresatanic

            Reagan delivered a Republican Senate, Newt a Republican House. With success comes self-serving politicians with no core values looking for a successful political vehicle. I suspect if Romney had entered politics in 08 he would have done so as a Democrat, they looked like winners at the time.

          • westcoastpatriette

            seen with Whitman and Fiorina.

          • acat

            Honest question. I never saw him.

            I’m aware Whitman and Fiorina failed, and not due to lack of money.

            Mew

          • westcoastpatriette

            Whitman, I believe, was on the board at Bain for a short time but she has a long time relationship w/Romney.

          • westcoastpatriette

            He was just trying to establish himself as the insider Repub. if you ask me. Don’t remember any endorsement speeches or anything, but he liked to be seen with the front runners.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            Barbara Boxer spent $29M in 2010, Carly Fiorina spent $21M. Whitman spent a truly ludicrous amount of her own money on her campaign and people assume the same of Fiorina but Fiorina actually got outspent.

            And Whitman was an absolutely atrocious candidate. Just horrid.

          • westcoastpatriette

            She and Romney are very much alike, in fact, and I have said many times that Romney will fail for the same reasons Whitman did if he wins the nomination. After Whitman won the primary, she totally betrayed her base. I know cuz I worked in her campaign and people were furious with her.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            You cannot believe that turning on Republicans cost her the election in California. SHe lost because every time you turned around she was having a moment like this:

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVSbeLx1Ad8

          • westcoastpatriette

            among others. But, yeah, like Romney, people with business backgrounds like both of them have don’t do well in unscripted situations. But, I watched her answer questions for several hours on the spot so she was not that controlling. Part of your link was put together by Poizner so what do you expect?

          • goodgovernance

            Romney will want to institute a press block like Whitman did in a general election campaign, given the way he behaved after the Brett Baier interview (which after all was a result of his not being available to the media for so long). On top of that he is prone to gaffes of the sort even Whitman wasn’t so inclined to inflict upon herself.

            Romney really is a terrible candidate. You can argue the others are worse (and goodness knows, that’s really the only case left to him and his supporters) but he just doesn’t have the right stuff.

            You look at his character, his patterns of behavior, and you see a man who is cautious to the point of timidity by nature. Add to that a compulsion to please his peers. No, there’s no way this guy is going to advance conservatism in a way that’s going to ruffle any feathers, and you can’t advance conservatism without doing just that.

            I shudder to think of Romney in foreign policy crisis situations, too. Bold talk on Iran in a debate doesn’t a great leader make. Can Romney make the tough calls at 3 AM, when there’s not enough time to put a poll together, or even gather his closest advisors so he can ask them how a decision might effect his re-election chances? Not with the above character traits, I wouldn’t think. And given the situation with Iran, that 3 AM phone call could happen the first night he’s in office.

          • acat

            And resources used defending Boxer couldn’t be used elsewhere. We can hope that Feinstein and Gillibrand perform a similar resource-sucking function in 2012.

            Whitman should be in Seattle, not Sacramento .. Washington elected Cantwell, formerly of Real Networks, IIRC.

            Mew

          • WillWong

            In California running a statewide campaign against Jerry Brown and Boxer….that is tough! The red tide which swept the country couldn’t get over the Rockies!

          • goodgovernance

            I tried to make the same points in some of my posts here.

            Guess Leon didn’t see those.

      • deVere

        The bosses picked Harding, saw to his nomination, and then went home. Harding’s VP choice was Senator Irvine Lenroot of Wisconsin, who was duly nominated and seconded. Then Wallace McCamant of Oregon rose and made a fiery speech nominating Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts for Vice President. McCamant didn’t know Coolidge, but had read his speech “Have Faith in Massachusetts”, which had been widely circulated in pamphlet form.. The convention, sick of listening to bosses, proceeded to nominate Coolidge for VP on the first ballot. President Coolidge nominated McCamant for the US Court of Appeals, but friends of Lenroot in the US Senate killed the nomination. This was the speech that helped Calvin Coolidge become our 30th President:
        http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/_have_faith_in_massachusetts__.html

        When Irvine Lenroot died in 1949, the the Associated Press report of his death began, “Former Senator Irvine L. Lenroot of Wisconsin, the man who might have been the 30th President of the United States, died Wednesday night.”

        • aesthete

          Both were excellent Presidents — I had no idea that Coolidge’s nomination was an upset.

    • cactusjack

      nothing changes me in my original posit that there are a lot of disgrunteld conservatives out there who appareantly will note vote for Romney should he be the nominee, to “teach us all a lesson.”It would be one of the last lessons of the Republic. So, some positive thoughts as we move away from Leon’s excellent post: 1) Romney may yet not be the nominee, time will tell a more conservative cadndidate may prevail; 2) yes there is a difference, is Romney is in the WH I will not worry at nights that the country is being sold out to mortal enemies in Teheran and Peking. If the Red Chinese pull a fast one in the Taiwan Straits, you all would see there is QUITE a difference between Romney 1st term and Obama 2nd term.; 3) thus there would be time to work pray and try to influence Romney to do the right thing on domestic matters (a chance, vs. no chance); 4)speaking of praying let’s see what SCOTUS does with Obamacare – the playing field may change this summer on that issue.

      • krish

        Can you list all the similarities between the two – Not What Romney says but What he did! Minimum Wage increase last week, Welfare issue before that, class warfare the previous week ….. you conveniently list a couple of diffrerences but most conservatives (especially who lived in MA) can list many many similarities on policy matters between the these two!

        Check out Kennedy vs. Romney debates – they agreed on everything for the first 30 min or so (Rush mentioned it too) and same thing will happen in Obama & Romney debates!

      • WillWong

        that God put a wrench in Romney’s campaign….a foot in his mouth…donors stop giving for whatever reason, and some mental freeze in the next several debates and press conferences.

        Too soon to talk about praying for his presidency…I am not buying into his inevitability!

    • goodgovernance

      And to say the Establishment has put their thumb on the scales on behalf of Romney is just stating the obvious and apparent truth. But that doesn’t mean the Establishment is some nebulous conspiracy hiding in the shadows. Far from it. The Establishment is composed predominantly of public figures we all recognize and probably even agree with most of the time.

      Obama has admitted the existence of the professional Left. Why wouldn’t there be a professional Right, which is what the Establishment actually is? They are clustered predominantly in the corridors of power, in DC and New York. They don’t collude together in secret, but they attend the same cocktail parties and play at the same golf courses, and pass around the same opinions which become their version of the conventional wisdom.

      Again, this is not to argue that every last man and woman in the Establishment thinks alike. But they do tend to think more like each other than they think like other types of conservatives. Social conservatives tend to put an emphasis on certain issues that fiscal conservatives don’t, and no one has a problem arguing those classifications exist. Establishment conservatives tend to put more of an emphasis on acquiring or maintaining a hold on political power than other conservatives.

      And this is what makes them so different from the base on the issue of whether Romney is an acceptable candidate. The vast majority of the Establishment (not all, but most) preferred Romney from the start. At the start the base was 75% against him. That’s a real difference between two subgroups in the GOP, and there’s no way to get around it.

      When Gingrich started to poll ahead in Iowa, and again after he won in South Carolina, you saw the Establishment leap into action against Gingrich, as they saw him as a threat to acquiring power. I’m not going to argue that was a secretly coordinated action, because it didn’t have to be. In the end the effect was much the same, however.

      At the same time, I think the Establishment now collectively realizes how much they’ve exposed themselves and put distance between them and the base they rely upon, by putting it all on the line for Romney. After Romney’s “I’m not concerned about the very poor” gaffe a few days ago, I think the Establishment started to realize that if Romney goes down to defeat in the general election, they’re going to have a lot to answer for. Which is why so many of them came down so hard on Romney. Partly out of fear, partly out of a sense of self-preservation. And partly because it was safe to do so (does anyone think if Romney had made that gaffe before Florida voted, it would have received anywhere near as much news coverage as it did? I honestly don’t. I think it would have been buried and the only place we might have heard about it aside from watching the original interview would have been here on Redstate).

      I’m all for keeping the discussion away from the conspiracy side. But let’s not pretend there are only two options – 1) You believe in the Establishment because the aliens who took you up into their UFO told you about them or 2) You believe there’s no Establishment at all, because they’re just your good buddies and neighbors in NY and DC who are exactly like you in every way, brother!

      Come on. Life’s more complicated than that.

      • jamesm

        Well wrtten.

      • scottishjew

        I challenged Leonard Wolf to write an essay that gave positive reasons for why conservatives should vote for Romney. I asked for substantive reasons of how Romney’s policies were going to “restore America”. How are his policies better? How his tax plan is superior to the other candidates? Where will Romney cut spending.

        Silence from Leonard.

        I imagine because this cant be done. If it can, no one has done it yet. Instead, Leonard wrote an attack on conservatives calling us terrorists and then berated anyone who disagreed with them. He called me a “sore loser” and told a couple of others who shared my opinion to “take their ball home”. This is the problem with Romney and his supporters. They cannot make a positive case to vote for Romney. Romney’s sole strategy is to tear down the other candidates so he is the last man standing. No wonder why Leonard fancies Romney. Lenny employs the same strategy….use a hammer on people rather than persuasion.

        I am not interested in “the party” winning in 2012. Im not interested in replacing Obama with a democrat pretending he is a republican. Victory is replacing Obama with some who will enact conservative policies. Romney, the author of Romneycare, is more likely to tax sugar then to cut government spending. If the Republican party wants my vote, then it will appeal to conservatives (just as it tries to appeal to independents) or I will vote elsewhere. Apparently, the Republican Party thinks conservatives will just have to eat the dog food again. I will not. I will write in someone who shares my conservative worldview. Wasted vote? How many conservatives wasted a vote on Dole and Bush and McCain? Apparently, the establishment did not get the message in 2010 and needs a reminder.

        Come on, Leonard. Where are you? Gives us a positive analysis of Romney. Throw in something about Romneycare too so we know where we are wrong on that. So far, Romney has only proved he can run attack ads and sing America the Beautiful offkey.

        • Bill S

          Get a grip.

          • scottishjew

            So, it’s okay for Leon to call people names like “sore

            loser”. I find that rather rude. But I dont remember you coming out, Moe to say so. Is it okay for Leon to call those who disagree with him “terrorists”. That was a trifle rude, methinks.

            Did I call him a name? No. I wrote a comment opposing what he said. Is that the way it works around here…you disagree and then get threats of being banned?

            Of course, Leonard is under no obligation to do anything I ask. It would be nice if someone around here wrote something positive about why conservatives vote for Romney rather than calling us names, like sore loser and terrorists.

          • Aaron Gardner

          • Bill S

            wisely.

          • Bill S

            if you hadn’t acted like such a dick, I would have pointed out this diary to you, but you were obviously more interested in being a smartass than actually seeking information. Like clicking Leon’s name to look through his diary history.

            Oh well, sucks to be you.

          • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

            NT

        • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

          You do not have the ability to force Leon (I echo Bill S. in pointing out to at least learn the man’s name first) to do anything here, let alone deal with whatever it is that has you acting rudely to him.

          I, on the other hand, do have the ability to force you to choose which fate you’d prefer: a world where you’ve apologized to Leon for acting rudely towards him, or a world where you no longer have posting privileges here. Next comment, and you get ten words to do it in.

          Oh, and sarcasm/sorry if you were offended won’t cut it, either.

      • Bill S

        when I see the guns against my head at the polling place tomorrow (yes, I’m in Missouri).

        Is there a subset of powerful Republicans who support moderates like Romney? Sure. So what? We all have freedom of association. They have the right to pimp for their preferred candidate, just like the Redstate crowd or the evangelical leaders, or even the Tea Party. And (gasp) they even have the right to donate their money to these folks.

        But the “Establishment” isn’t making people vote for Mitt Romney, nor are they forcing people to donate to him. That is Leon’s point.

        If you’re going to blame anyone for this, blame the media, who is most certainly not in the pocket of any of the GOP – they are doing whatever they can to ensure that whoever is in the Oval Office is as left-leaning as possible.

        • goodgovernance

          because a conspiracy takes place out of the public view and requires coordination. As I’ve taken pains to point out, what we’ve seen the Establishment do has been in public, and no secret coordination is necessary.

          As far as the media… elements of the professional Right are in the media, in places like Fox, radio, and the internet. They are part of the Establishment too. With few exceptions like Erick, most of these have been decidedly pro-Romney.

          And as for the Establishment “making people vote for Mitt Romney,” I’ve never claimed they somehow were forcing voters to bend to their will. But what the Establishment has in greater measure than the rest of us do is influence, which is what political power basically boils down to. They can set the agenda, ask certain questions, not others, make sure the spotlight is where they want it to be.

          Let’s put it this way. We on the Right often blame the MSM for having a certain (Leftist) agenda. Do you think the MSM has the power to force people to vote for Obama? Is that why we attack the media, for their incredible mind control powers, or because of their armed thugs who go around to the homes of independent voters and twist their arms? No, of course not. But we do realize the MSM can put a certain slant on the facts, the questions that get asked, and the questions that don’t, so that the public will be influenced the way they want. It’s why conservatives have to fight so hard to get their own message out there.

          Now, unless you have a problem with how I’ve described the MSM, why wouldn’t the professional Right have that same ability to influence people, especially rank and file Republicans? You’d hope they’d have the ability to influence people, because that’s their job!

          I haven’t blamed the Establishment for using the powers they have. I blame the Establishment for using their influence to back a candidate with such terrible leadership qualities. Romney may be more “electable” than the other Republican candidates. So what? He’d be a terrible leader for the conservative movement. He can’t even articulate conservative principles without having to be corrected. And his prior experience as governor of Massachusetts undermines his ability to be a conservative spokesman as well. Take for example the coming uproar of HHS’s curtailment of religious liberty, when it comes to mandating Catholic hospitals give out contraceptives and morning-after pills – Romney is not in a strong position to come out against this because he apparently put similar restrictions on religious freedom in Romneycare. This sort of thing is going to keep on happening, where an issue comes up, the conservative position is on one side, but it will turn out Romney’s position was elsewhere in the recent past.

          What is the point of winning if we don’t advance the conservative cause? Getting someone who’s not quite as Leftist as Obama isn’t good enough. We could be stuck with Romney for eight years. Eight years! Nearly a decade where the conservative movement would languish under the weak leadership abilities of a compromised man.

          No wonder turnout is down for Romney compared to 2008. I want that brokered convention. Don’t tell me it’s impossible, just because you haven’t seen one before.

      • texasref

        55555

    • zooboy

      “it will be because more Republicans voted for him than for any other Republican candidate. In light of this undisputable fact, ”

      Wrong because “open” primaries, promoted by the Establishment office-holders, allow Democrats to sabotage our primaries at will. That was a boost for Romney and Paul in NH. Another trick is Winner-take-all primaries that allow the big-money candidates to get all the delegates, even if they received only say 30% of the primary votes. That allowed McCain to lock up the nomination by Florida in 2008. Another travesty is allowing some states to move forward their primary date, which also benefits big-money (Establishment) candidates. The penalty should be forfeiture of all that state’s delegates to the national party convention.

  • Vegas_Rick

    75% or so of the Washington insiders have turned out to support him. Just about every conservative online publication is pushing Romney, except RS.

    Nah there’s no evidence what so ever.

    • Darin_H

      Without use of tin foil, please.

      • Vegas_Rick

        but, I provided to very visible examples above. Did all the Republican congressmen and women who showed up at Gingrich’s events to cause trouble, come up with their plans all on their own?

        • Darin_H

          No, you didn’t, you asserted that since 75% (OR SO!) of DC Republicans support Romney that they are all working together.

          • Vegas_Rick

            it must not exist.

            Ok, you win.

          • Darin_H

            You didn’t do anything but assert something. I asked for proof (even a smidgen) and you offered none.

            Hinz rule (RIP)

          • randgeek73

            Don’t have to “conspire”…

    • JSobieski

      is that proof of a conspiracy?

      Ever hear of Occam’s razor?

    • Leon H. Wolf

      Who gives a crap if there was coordination among the “Establishment” to support Romney? Does Mitch McConnell get more votes on Super Tuesday than you do?

      The entirety of the “Establishment” (however broadly you want to define it) numbers less than the commentariat at RedState. The idea that these people are controlling the election is asinine.

      Romney beat Gingrich by many thousands of votes in Florida. The reason for that is that more GOP primary voters wanted to vote for him. The end.

      • randgeek73

        What was the ratio of Romney’s advertising expenditure to Gingrich’s again? That’s a lot of money to spend on something that the voters are ultimately going to “decide”.

        • Leon H. Wolf

          I didn’t realize that Romney’s ads included subliminal messages that subverted the free will of people watching such that all those who saw them had no choice but to vote for Romney even though they didn’t want to.

          Hey, by the way, how did Romney afford all those ads anyway? Certainly it couldn’t be because he has more people who are committed enough to him that they are willing to donate money to him?

          Nah. It’s the Establishment’s fault. Must be.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            has been his won money. But still, those that oppose Mitt could have donated more to a tea partier candidate…

          • Adjoran

            You can check them.

            The good thing about having made a quarter of a billion dollars for yourself turning companies around is that you make a lot of millionaires and save a lot of millionaires in the process. When the guy who saved your business and made it successful again beyond your wildest dreams calls, you not only take his call, you write the check. And then another, and another.

            And when he says, “Thank you,” you say, “No, sir – thank YOU!”

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

            thx guy

          • Finrod

            Romney spent more money on tv ads in Florida alone than John McCain spent on tv ads in the entire 2008 election.

            Given the money that Romney spent on Florida, I could convince people to vote for Hitler over Jesus.

        • scottishjew

          I guess that’s why Romney spent 14 million dollars in ads then. Because they dont do anything. Let’s buy the nomination.

          Come on, Lenny, gives REAL reasons to vote for Romney. Issues please.

        • Adjoran

          and had the then-unheard-of war chest of $25 million heading into 1996, but lost Iowa and dropped out. Money helps a lot, but isn’t the determinant ultimately – votes are.

          The people who “bundle” donations don’t conspire against anyone – they want to pick a winner. Those who attract the most money are usually the frontrunners. That’s just the way it works. If the money guys don’t love you, it isn’t because of your position on Iran or gay marriage, it’s because they think you can’t win.

          Romney’s main source of money has been his own network, not the mainstream GOP donors, at least at first. It’s people whose jobs and companies were saved by Bain.

      • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

        There are those of us who will -NEVER- vote for a liberal.

        And we may decide the party is beyond saving if liberal after liberal is nominated.

        I am a Conservative, I shall be heard by my actions with PCP Recruiting and running local candidates who are conservativd, and focusing most of my donations for targering old guard Republicans to be primaried.

        That or you can listen to us NOW. We are not bots, we are not blind sheep, we are 40% of this nation.

        Walk all over us at your own peril.

        • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

          Smart phones are not so smart :(

          Let’s see

          Targeting & Conservative were typos ;(

          • scottishjew

            Call conservatives terrorists, Tell people to take their ball home. No wonder you find Romney so pretty.

        • Leon H. Wolf

          Take your ball and go home, then.

          • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

            I will remove liberals frommy party, I will take it back from bottom up…

            Consider it that I am playing the game, just I am never passing you the ball. And if I bump you hard… I won’t cry over it eirther.

            This is our party!

            Liberals should change registration back to Democrat.

          • Leon H. Wolf

            Well, if “liberals” means anyone who would vote for Mitt Romney, then you are removing at least 25% of the party and it will never win another national attention and will be capped at something like 130 members of Congress. So have fun with that.

          • texashistorian

            The problem I have Leon, with your argument, though overall it is quite sensible, is that we conservatives have to, at some point, stop rolling over. Could the crippled Republican party of the 1930s rebuilt itself back into the party of Harding and Coolidge? Absolutely. Did they? No. Instead, they decided in the interests of short-term gains now, they began to move toward the New Dealers. Thus the Rockerfeller wing, the “dynamic conservatism” of Ike, the mush that was Landon, Dewey, and 1968 Richard Nixon, ad infinitum. Romney is just one more entry into that hall of shame.

            When do conservatives push back hard and keep pushing? That is a question that needs to be answered. Is that time now? I might agree with you that it is not now, if only because 4 more years of Obama is terrifying. We do know this, however: without conservatives, there is no GOP. Yes, without the 25% of moderates we lose as well, but 40-75% of the party is either very conservative or basically conservative. The key is to turn moderates into conservatives, and those that won’t need to be shown the door.

            We are getting closer to the point where there is no functional difference between the GOP and Democrats. With nominees like Romney, if we always take the attitude that we have to support them because the alternative is worse, change is not effected. Why should the GOP change its ways if it knows that conservatives will always grit their teeth and back their party because they have no other alternative.

            That’s the larger issue. Does it mean we should bail on Mitt? No, I don’t think so, because in this case the alternative is truly frightening. At some point, however, and I think that point is soon, we will have to stand up and say “No more!” and if it costs us a couple of election cycles to do so, the short-term pain will be worth it in the interests returning the party to a place that it ought never have left.

        • Adjoran

          Would a Governor who signed an abortion law, raised state taxes and spending, and entered into several “public-private partnerships” putting tax money into private ventures, and had been a former union officer be a “liberal” by your standards?

          Congratulations! You just vetoed Ronald Reagan.

          • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

            You might be forced to sign in all sorts of laws by a majority opposition.

            You might have been forced into a union by laws and decided to take advantage of it to try to fix the union.

            But as an executive you can be judged by the judges you nominate.

            Are they biased? Are they Constitutional Reconstructionalists? Are they advocates?

            That sort of judtge should never pass the benchmarks to get appointed by a Conservative.

            Now your going to try to use Ginsburg. We all know she was a wolf in sheeps clothing.

            Romney is a liberal based on his choice of judges.

      • lineholder

        If you put Obama and Romney side by side in comparison of policy positions, there really isn’t that much difference between them….with the main exception being that in a second term, Obama would act as an unbridled socialist, what we’ve seen in the past three years would be nothing in comparison, and with Romney we might at least see him use a scalpel in cutting away the size and scope of government.

        What we really need is for someone who is willing to take an axe or maybe even a chainsaw to it, but we won’t get that with Romney.

        So people say, “Well, a scalpel is better than what we will get with Obama” and they vote for Romney. That’s pretty depressing.

  • Vegas_Rick

    I cannot support a third party. I WILL vote for the nominee (I’ll be good little soldier), and things in this country will continue to spiral down the drain.

    Everytime we nominate people like Dole, both Bushes, McCain and now Romney, we give another inch to the left and kick the liberty can further down the road.

    • wennejunk

      One hurts a whole lot more, causes much more damage and is impossible to reverse.

      I’ll vote for the flip-flopper and also work to get more local and Congressional conservative critters elected.

      We’ll need their help when the climb down the cliff is reversed.

      • aesthete

        and the descent from the incline to ground level great enough, the approach off the cliff fails to matter in any practical way.

      • Vegas_Rick

        I just can’t see the bottom. And I’m of the opinion that a turnaround for America won’t come until we reach the bottom. But I’m also smart enough to realize that Obama will get us there at breakneck speed with catastrophic results.

  • kipling

    1. Supporters of candidates who constantly wail that anyone who does not support their candidate is a … anti-Mormon bigot [Romney] or does not believe in personal redemption [Newt].

    These type of candi-bots are more likely to convince others not to vote for their chosen candidate.

    I think Leon and Neil have both covered these positions.

    2. The belief that since so and so is our nominee we must now redefine conservatism to fit our candidate. For example, see Coulter’s defense of Romneycare as conservative.

    This was aptly covered last week by Jeff.

  • LAUS DEO

    No candidate is perfect, is the truth. The truth can be difficult but none the less, we have a big picture to look at here. Our nation is under the tyranny of anti-American marxism. President Obama and the overwhelming democrat party are intentionally destroying our nation from inside-out. They have been for years prior to Obama, he is just spreading their cancer since he is convinced it is good. Simply put we Americans need to unite behind our less-than-perfect candidate so we can overwhelmingly defeat the cancerous democrat party this year!!! I agree, if you are morally unable to vote then do not vote. But for those who are looking for the “perfect” candidate then realize Obama is the absolute ‘bottom of the barrel’ candidate needing to be removed from office stat! Thanks Leon H. Wolf for your post.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      http://www.redstate.com/gamecock/2012/02/05/2509/

  • renl57

    …At the moment I’m typing this, among Republican voters the preference is:

    Romney: 30.0%
    Gingrich: 26.6%
    Santorum: 16.0%
    Paul: 12.8%

    While no candidate comes close to a majority, Romney does command a plurality of the national GOP vote. More Republicans prefer him than prefer Gingrich.

    So it’s not like Romney is just some puppet of cigar-chomping politicians plotting in clandestine smoke-filled rooms to foist him on the unwilling rank and file. A plurality of Republicans really do favor Romney.

    Probably for the same reason I do: Romney, Perry and Cain were the only 3 candidates with proven executive experience at managing large organizations. (And that’s what the Executive Branch is.)

    • vangoghssister

      …Not Romney. :-)

      The primary is still fair game. Once the primaries are over, then yep, we should all campaign against and vote against Obama, no matter who our nominee is.

  • The_Rebel

    of it. But I think that it all boils down to whether those anybody-but-Romney conservatives who won’t vote for him in the general, hate Mitt Romney more than they hate Barack Obama. Hate is a strong word, but I think it’s appropriate here.

    • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

      That is why if Mitt wins the election I will not vote for President.

      I will still run for office as an R, I will still fight for PCP’s in our party, I will still support the vast majority of R Candidates…

      But I will not vote for a man who has proven he is a liberal by nominating liberal judges almost exclusively. That one thing shows all his other flaws are real, and that he is a liberal.

      I will not give power to the Liberal Cause. I won’t be a party to the destruction of the Constitution!

      • texasref

        Anybody but Romney. I could even tolerate Santorum, and that’s saying a lot. At least I know what Im getting.

  • cactusjack

    there are a lot of people on this side of the fence, whose visceral dislike of Romney is so strong, they will withhold support of him no matter what – and pull down the whole house, putting Obama back in. At least that what it looks loike now. Shame on them.. They would still have a seat at Romney’s table, some input. WIth Obama, their calls will not even be returned. Ssecond, for all those who think McCain was a suicide run, it was not. He was not my favorite but I voted for him. In late Sept 2008 IIRC partly due to the Sarah Palin boost, he actually passed Obama in the polls. He did have a chance to win. He undid himself, again IIRC, by rushing back to Washington to try to save th world on that finance bill. So that is his fault – but the election was not a slam dunk and he could have won it You may dislike Romney but his campaign team has been anything but amateurish. Idont see them making that kind of mistake if he has a 3 point lead in Oct 2012 (as McCain did in Oct 2008). Why would you do anything to hurt it?

    • randgeek73

      It’s the consideration that a liberal who runs as a moderate is a liberal who runs as a moderate. The little (D) or (R) next to their name is ultimately inconsequential. Let’s call this what it is. The Republicans either don’t believe that the individual mandate in Obamacare will be rejected by the SCOTUS, in which case they want one of “their” guys in there, who has clear and explicit experience with it, running the policy after it goes into full effect, or, they don’t intend to repeal, stop, defund, or otherwise hamper this unconstitutional power-grab should they get into office. In either case, Romney is not the candidate that I cannot support in good conscience, because of his connection to Obamacare. Am I the only one who notices how much like Obama’s last campaign that Romney’s is? Long on platitudes and feel-good ramblings about how great America is, but no real plan for how to get things done? A lot of promises and a vague rhetoric about “making America great again?” Didn’t the electorate get hoodwinked like this the last time? Isn’t this the very specter that conservatism has rallied itself to fight? I stand for individual liberty when casting my vote, and if neither of the major party candidates stand for it, unequivocally and plainly as well, then I shall vote for the candidate that does.

      • randgeek73

        it should say “Romney is not the candidate that I can support in good conscience, because of his connection to Obamacare.” I haven’t had enough coffee yet today….

      • littlehouse18

        And I believe that if they don’t repeal it on their own, the spineless Republicans will listen to us loudly protesting their offices and withdrawing financial support.

        A vote for anyone but the Republican nominee is indeed a vote for Obama or an otherwise worthless vote. Two results are possible: 1) Obama wins and the country is gone for a very long time and our children will suffer, or 2) Romney (assuming he’s the nominee) wins and the “Establishment” figures that conservatives aren’t very important after all, since he wins without them.

        A different choice is to vote for the nominee and have him understand that he needs conservative support and should act accordingly. This is further emphasized by getting more conservatives elected to Congress.

        I do not want my children to suffer with another Obama term. Let me repeat that: I do NOT want my kids and grandkids to suffer. I’m sure that you folks who are considering sitting out don’t want that either. Please reconsider your stance.

        • natek58

          Given his record over the years I do not see ANY difference. Explain one solid, consistent position that Romney has deminstrably had for more than 6 months that demonstrates otherwise.

          • natek58

            Crickets!!

          • wennejunk

            But Romney does not have the distinction of voting to kill a child that was born live.

            You may say its splitting hairs, but his position is now pro-life (regardless of his past) and his past does not include most of the abhorrent facts of an Obama (hateful, bigoted preacher, chumming around with terrorists and on and on).

            That’s a pretty big difference in so many ways.

            Still, no, I don’t like the flip-flopper, don’t want him as President, but at least there is the possibility of a retrenchment in the war against the unborn with him in vs. Obama.

            A vote against Romney (should he get the nomination) is a vote for killing more children, regardless of whatever one may think they are doing.

            Sometimes in the choice between evils, choosing no evil is not an option – this is one of those times.

          • aesthete

            and every other President. Very little, if anything, about the legal sanction given to the abortion mills will change under a Romney presidency, or any other president. The best we can do is nominate good SC Justices and judges in other positions.

          • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

            Than any other candidate? Why not crush Romney like a bug, and get a candidate worth more to our cause?

    • elayman

      Non ideological voters may have different reasons being turned off but among states and constituencies that decide elections, his unfavorables are nearly as high as Gingrich. So why are conservatives left holding the bag when a candidate self destructs that most of the county is already desperately looking for an alternative to nominate ? And whatever fellow Republicans have done to push up the negatives is nothing compared to a vetting awaiting under Obama, so the answer isn’t intraparty suicide either. I totally don’t get it. Go gripe to Independent voters why they are freaked out by Mitt if you want him that badly.

      • goodgovernance

        nt

  • Marcus_Traianus

    This is one of those rare occurrences in my life where the more proof some people see, the more they disbelieve their own eyes.

    I often wonder lately if there has ever been a point in my life where so many people have acted contrary to their own goodwill.

    It’s as if people forget what has happened over the last few years. King over subjects ringing any bells?

    One thing I do notice is that (as much as I abhor identity politics) there seems to be a pretty good coalition evolving around Romney. To me, fool that I am, that seems to indicate a growing number of people like what they see and have their eye on the prize.

    Liberals have destroyed our country over the years by diluting our rights. laws and Constitutional authority through gradualism. You would think folks today are smart enough to rip a page out of that book, stop looking for a savior who aligns with Psalms 24, 3, 4 and be accept we will get there, albeit slower, with select, timely, opportunistic choices.

    But that’s just me.

    • wennejunk

      We didn’t get here overnight. It takes a while to turn a ship and we’ve been off-course for a long while. We need a series of competent leaders to turn us ever so gradually back to the ‘right’ course.

      The worst course error occurred under W, when mainstream conservatives went home to watch American Idol secure in the belief that we had elected ‘our guy’ and then forgot to pay attention and hold his feet and that of Congress to the fire.

  • http://www.plumbbobblog.com Plumb_Bob

    In a healthy republic, we would vote for the best candidate that is available on the ballot, and live with the outcome however it occurs. However, there are a couple of circumstances that make our situation vastly different from “a healthy republic.” Consider:

    (1) Our opponents in this 2-party republic are wholeheartedly committed to ending the republic and turning it into a tyrannical, corrupt, Progressive dictatorship. They are succeeding. Whenever a Democrat gets elected, we hurdle headlong toward fiscal insolvency, our laws get administered by criminals, and our liberties vanish at a breakneck pace.
    (2) When a Republican gets elected, we continue in the same direction, albeit somewhat slower.
    (3) We have reached the point where our laws no longer protect us from serious tyranny.
    (4) We have reached the point where continued neglect of our fiscal nightmare, even for another year, will result in the collapse of our currency and the loss of our nation.

    Since with either choice, the republic is lost, what use is there in participating in the republic?

    Those who recognize the futility of our situation have only a few choices:

    (A) Stay home and get used to living under tyrants.
    (B) Initiate steps to dissolve the union of states and secede from the union, to form a new nation where Progressivism is against the law, as it ought to be.
    (C) Initiate steps to recover the republic from the hands of its destroyers by force.

    Any other measures at this point, including becoming ward chairman and attempting to take over the Republican party for the conservatives, is really too late to stop the collapse that is on its way. That may still be the best solution, but it won’t stop the collapse.

    Note that starting a third party is essentially the same as solution (A). It guarantees the victory of Progressives, who will collapse the currency and initiate a regime of jack-booted thuggery posthaste.

    Pretending that we’re facing politics as usual, as your post seems to do, is also essentially the same as solution (A). You’ve got your head in a hole in the ground. Please pull it out, look around, and apply your rhetorical energy toward actions that actually have some hope of recovering something of our republic. What you counsel gives us no such hope.

    • littlehouse18

      and that the only real option is civil war. Am I reading you correctly?

      If so, I disagree. I believe political pressure can still be applied to Republicans from our side. If the MSM can accomplish this, so can we. Don’t give up yet.

    • banzaibob

      I really don’t like the idea but if 0bozo gets reelected I’m not sure what choice we have. Government will keep groiwng, our liberties are subjugated for “our” safety and inflation is nipping away at our dollar.

      Doesn’t the Declaration Of Independence say when you don’t like the government you have you can change it?

      Just saying.

      • aesthete

        What makes you think it would this time, when the government has a fully-equipped air force, navy, and army to quash the “right-wing terrorists”?

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

        Just banning.

  • Common_Cents

    There is just the circular firing squad effect going on now but in the general, people’s option are obama’s proven miserable ways or the GOP nominee.

    It’ll be a tough battle though, obama has nearly the entire media shilling for him. I fear romney=mccain, uninspiring. I surely vote for him though.

  • http://www.planettron.com NickDeringer

    All I can add is this: America as we know it will not survive 4 more years of Chairman Obama. If you’re dumb enough to think it’s just politics as usual I have to ask you where did you learn to read? Can you get your money back?

    • aesthete

      The country is so massive, and the battleground states so limited, that for most people, whether they vote or not is completely irrelevant. Even voting for a third party is statistically-insignificant noise that gets interpreted every which way (i.e., “Libertarian vote up to 1.2% — our analysts will tell you why this means that heroin vending machines in elementary schools might become a reality in our lifetimes.”) All this whining about vote/don’t vote misses out on the crucial fact that a mere vote for President is basically worthless. Conservatives who plan to vote (and do nothing else for their Presidential candidate) are only infinitesimally better for the R ticket than non-voters, at least on a micro level.

      More important is the other stuff: the activism, the door-to-doors, phonebanking, financial donations, and the like. That stuff ain’t gonna happen with Romney. Why? Because people have better things to do — knitting, watching sports, reading the phone book from cover to cover — than help White Obama get elected. There have to be some real, substantial differences to get people off their duffs to do something. That’s why “Candidate X or DOOOOOOM” has been the theme in every Presidential election by both parties since the dawn of time. Sometimes it’s true. Usually, it’s not. In the case of Romney, there’s not enough of a difference for most conservatives to care about the activism stuff — and who can blame them? That’s why there are so many “Vote Romney, dummies!” articles being written on conservative sites: it’s not about the vote, it’s about making Romney legitimately look like the only thing stopping a Mad Max future, and subsequently getting the article readers to tell their friends, work the phone banks, donate money, etc.

      Since they already have the conservative vote, Republicans are more focused on conservative support — it’s what keeps them alive as a party, and pushes them to dominance when they screw the pooch, as they so often do. Denying them this support, and denying them the privilege of easy primaries, are what really peeves them, not whether 95% of self-described conservatives, or 90%, will be voting for them this time around.

  • http://UnitedConservativesofVirginia Cargosquid

    Romney or Gingrich because they are “liberal” and “Democrat-lite”; that won’t vote for a candidate because we’ll still be moving towards socialism, only slower.

    1) Death by firing squad (Obama) instead of slow poison (candidate x) – With poison..one can find the antidote or take revenge on the killer.
    2) Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder.

    Tell me that the Senate, even if controlled by Republicans, wouldn’t let him be appointed.

    • youngsterz

      Holy crap! Please don’t ever say the phrase “Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder”, ever again! I dang near had a heart attack just hearing those words. . . . .

      If there was ever an argument for fully supporting the GOP candidate, whoever it may end up being, it would be that.

  • lizardman

    I agree that the Republicans, and or independents who threaten to go with a third party or stay home, are in essence willing to hand the country back to the progressives. Whether the antipathy toward Romney is rooted in the belief that he’s a RINO, (which is MY belief) or his faith in Mormonism (which I DO NOT adhere to), NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS will send me to a third party and sure loss, or move me to NOT vote. If Romney is the final candidate of the Republican party I will vote against Barrack Obama. I simply see Obama as THE greatest threat to America, since WWII.
    The constitution has been trod upon by previous members of our government from all three Branches, Those breeches of trust and responsibility went for the most part unchallenged, leaving the door open for even more egregious violation by those who followed. The culmination (to me) is the overt progressive assault from Obama, the Democrat control of the House and Senate, big labor, media, academia, extreme environmentalists, and of course RINOS.
    The choice to not vote, or go with a third party vote is without a doubt, no different than the old image of an ostrich sticking its head in sand.

    • aesthete

      I was unaware that the government had ever left the possession of progressives.

      • Vegas_Rick

        nt

      • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

        When we elect Romney we will still have a Progressive!

        I want none of that!

      • lizardman

        may have been slightly of the track. Progressives have had a stranglehold on the country since Woodrow Wilson, but I still consider the current level of OVERT attack on liberty the greatest threat ever…. THIS ELECTION HAS GOT TO BE ABOUT MOVING THIS SENATE, AND PRESIDENT OUT.

  • scottishjew

    First, I vote for candidates, not parties. It’s not a matter of “i’m taking my ball”. If the Republicans put up someone who really isnt even a Republican (and Mitt Romney is not), do not expect my vote. YOu know, I havent heard one compeling reason by Leon or anyone else to vote for Mitt Platitudes. Is is his tax plan? Is it his opposition to Romneycare, oh, I mean Obamacare. Jonah Goldberg’s last essay “The Case For Romney” gave one reason: Mitt Romney will be beholden to conservatives. That was it. Not one reason on ideology or issues though. But Willard shows no inclination toward wooing conservatives now. I doubt he will see any reason to AFTER he is elected.

    Second, it was the establishment Republicans who all came out badmouthing Newt. They did not give us any reasons to vote for Mitt, mind you. They sent sitting congressmen to Newt’s rallies to disturb his rallies; To do that against a fellow Republican and his supporters is a slap in their face.

    Third, the voices from the Establishment are telling us to vote for Mitt because independents like him. Well, that’s fine. But conservatives (at the moment) are THE BASE of the party. Mitt Romney does not bother to court conservatives. He has actually said we will all just come home to vote against Obama.

    Foruth, Mitt buffaloed alot of the better candidates out of the race before it even began with his money and his 8 year run for the nomination. He shouldnt buy a nomination.

    Fifth, the conservative vote was split. Does that mean the party really wanted Romney?

    Sixth, instead of being ‘oh so worried” about independents, the establishment, and those that act as their mouthpeices, should worry about the base of this party who gave us a majority again. Instead, we will be running a democrat, who passed government run healthcare. With Boehner and MCConnell selling out the Tea Party conservatives, maybe conservatives are no longer welcome. Oh, our votes our. But we shouldnt ask for anything.

    It’s apparent to me at this point, that the Republican party takes conservatives for granted. The only way to change that is for conservatives to vote for a third party candidate. Then you can woo us like you do independents. Yes, that will be bad for the Republican Party. What will Republicans do to avoid this? Write long essays saying we shouldnt?

    • Leon H. Wolf

      So you really, really, really don’t like the fact that a plurality of Republican voters prefer Mitt to the other candidates. Sorry. Don’t know what to tell you.

      Maybe you can answer the question: should the Republican party nominate someone who gets less votes because sore losers like you will walk away if they don’t?

      • redcal

        Let me just educate you, since the title was so promising and yet the essay so, so lacking. The point is that, even if there are short-term costs, you don’t give in to short-term compromises when doing so encourages even worse compromises in the future. Any parallels to the primary, hmm?

        We compromised with McCain (McCain!) in 2008, hearing that he was the most electable, the most center-appealing, the strongest on foreign policy. Then foreign policy turned out to be an afterthought in the general election when Wall Street imploded. What did that compromise buy us?

        A leftist GOP front-runner. There’s no question that he’s going to be the nominee; Gingrich doesn’t have the discipline or resources, and Santorum/Paul are niche players with low ceilings. If we hadn’t compromised last time, perhaps players like Mitch Daniels or Chris Christie might have felt like the primary was more receptive to a real conservative voice. No such luck.

        And if you’re going to go by polling/voting data as the end-all/be-all of righteousness, what does it mean when turnout is down across almost all of these early primaries/caucuses? As little enthusiasm as we had for Bush 43 by the end of his second term, as little enthusiasm as we had for McCain, Romney is leading to even less after four years of Obama. The numbers don’t lie; Romney is winning a larger percentage of smaller, more disillusioned pies.

        And what’s up with calling scottishjew a ‘sore loser’? Doesn’t that make all of us sore losers because Obama won in 2008? Where am I, tumblr?

      • scottishjew

        I doubt any who votes for Romney is a real conservative. Ive read all of your essays and Leonard and not once have you offered any substantive reason to vote for Romney. If I wasnt new here, I’d say you probably are working for the Romney campaign. He’s been trying to get everyone out on talk radio and the blogosphere to sing his praises and bad mouth Newt. Not that I love Newt mind you.

        It’s quite simple, Leonard. If the Republican party wants MY vote, then they will put up a candidate that has my worldview. You and the other establishment Republicans are bending over backwards to please independentts. You can do the same for members of your own party. At least, why’ll we are still here.

        Redcal makes some excellent points. The best is more succinctly said as Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney. Im not holding my nose anymore.

        • natek58

          I have to breath. Holding my nose for four years is too long. Oh, never mind, make that 24 years. That’s the last time we really ran a conservative. Granted, Bush II ran as a conservative and look what that got us: bigger government, more debt and 2 wars too boot.

          Point is, that running as a conservative actually wins elections.

        • RedRedhead

          If Romney becomes the nominee (which looks very likely), and enough people in the Republican party don’t vote for him because he ‘doesn’t have your worldview’, then we get Obama for a 2nd term.

          In a representative republic we end up with the people in office who had the most votes. No alternatives are better.

          • scottishjew

            Romney gets elected and he does for the Republican brand what Bush did for it. No CHild left Behind, increase in federally funded presecription drugs, harriet miers, massive deficit spending.

            Look what Romney did for MA. Romneycare. Gee, what will he do in office.

            I dont see Romney as a Republican. He’s a democrat. An Obama Romney election is a socialist verse a democrat. So, Im gonna vote for a conservative.

          • youngsterz

            I prefer to look at Romney’s business experience, heavily focused on making businesses grow or be profitable. That is a very complex and difficult thing. And Obama? Community organizer? Good grief.

            What a contrast in experience.

            What does America need MOST right now, other than solid conservative values? It needs to get it’s fiscal house in order, much like a failing business needs to be whipped into shape in order to survive.

            Which GOP candidate has the experience in doing that? And which GOP candidate has been the CEO of a state (Governor) and had to be responsible for an actual budget? Only one candidate has those skills.

            Is Romney a conservative? No, not really. All things considered, his record is that of a pretty solid moderate. But when the task at hand is to clean up America’s fiscal house, there are few government officials that I have greater confidence in their abilities to do just than than Romney. I’m willing to go with a moderate, if he is a businessman who can turn our financial ship around, because if we don’t do that, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a conservative, moderate, or liberal, because we’ll ALL be screwed.

          • scottishjew

            Now, there’s a contradiction in terms.

          • redcal

            Same MBA from the same school (Harvard), and had invested in and helped run several businesses, including the Texas Rangers and Arbusto Energy. How’d that work out for us, and the economy? You don’t think Obama will run a bunch of ads saying that Romney is Bush 2.0? It’s even easier than it was for McCain, who everyone knew hated Bush (especially after the 2000 SC primary).

            I actually don’t have much confidence in the substance of Romney’s claim to be a turnaround artist in government. I would absolutely invest in his private equity fund if he started a new one. But we already have four years of watching him govern, and that was just a state; he was (openly) terrible on conservative principles, terrible on job creation, and so terrible at staying relevant that his approval ratings were in the 30′s when his first term ended.

            Somehow, after that debacle, he “failed up” to a Presidential campaign. And he’s our guy?

          • RedRedhead

            You would rather have a ‘big government’, socialist leaning Democrat in an office then a ‘not as big government’, capitalist Republican.

            You’re one of those people who would rather have the Democrats be in control of everything instead of being tainted by having a single Republican be in office that brings shame to the party, especially if you have to vote for them.

  • persiflage

    but his weakness is he craves the acceptance of his peers. it’s why he does what he does. Right now his peers are mostly the “establishment”.

    What we need to do is surround him with a NEW set of peers, a new establishment, by electing him AND an unbeatable majority of conservatives in both houses of congress. Craving their acceptance, he will do what they say, even repeal of Obamacare. But, it’s the downticket votes that are the most important this coming election – the House and especially the Senate. If we don’t take them, we’ll have no ties to the lawmaking (or unmaking) and the precious purse strings.

    The presidential race is an exciting diversion, but in our case it’s only a diversion from the more important prize – The House and Senate.

  • natek58

    This argument is so full of straw it’s pathetic. Statement after statement by the author are off target. Here’s just one:

    If, in fact, there is a nebulous Republican ?Establishment?… then the worst thing that could possibly happen to the conservative movement would be for them to get the idea … that Republican nominees could win without any support at all from movement conservatives. And if movement conservatives loudly sit out and/or vote Third Party and Romney wins anyway, that is exactly the message that will be sent.

    A. There IS a Republican “Establishment”
    B. The statement depends on one specific outcome – that Romney wins while the conservatives stay home. EVERYONE even the diarist knows that could not happen.
    C. There is an assumption here that Romney would somehow be better than Obama when in fact there is NO difference between the two.

    Take your straw home and make a scarecrow out of it.

  • Vegas_Rick

    to go along with the ad hominems.

    • redcal

      nt

  • scottishjew

    Hey Leonard, why dont you put the same energy and time into writing an essay giving us conservatives SUBSTANTIVE reason to vote for Romney. Dont tell me he’s more electable, that’s something that cant be proven. Tell me why I should like Romney’s tax plan. Tell me what Romeny is going to cut from the government. Give us some specific reasons to vote for your democratic candidate. Make a REAL case for us. Do something that Charen, Goldberg and Coulter havent done yet.

    Calling conservatives terrorists is not very compelling.

    • natek58

      Anyone want to bet that he will suddenly start trying to appeal to us conservatives then? If he can’t sell the deal to conservatives like us now, just wait until the general. He will embrace ObamaCare, claiming that it is RomneyCare. He will embrace taxing the rich because he can afford it. He will embrace bigger government because he will see a poll that says that more people want that.

  • keepcoolwithcoolidge

    I don’t like any of the remaining candidates and my last hope is that Mitch Daniels can sneak in during a brokered convention but you are right. Paul, Romney, Gingrich even Santorum (my least favorite) are each still better than the Pinko-in-Chief right now.

    Barry Goldwater, a real conservative champion made this point. After failing to win the nomination in 1960 he still endorsed Nixon, even though they hated each other. Frankly, I would vote for almost anyone slightly to the right of Obama now.

    If Obama wins in 2012, even against a non-conservative it will set the conservative movement back years, as pundits and media alike will brand it a rejection of the TEA Party and a vindication of Obanomics. We can’t afford another throw away election like 2008.

    I will vote for Ron Paul. I will vote for Mitt Romney. I will vote for Newt Gingrich. I will vote for (sigh) Rick Santorum.

  • scottishjew

    Let’s go, Lenny. Tell us you are going to write your essay giving us real reasons to vote FOR Romney. Dont tell us how he is better than the other candidates. Just tell us why, based on Romney’s issues, we should vote for him. Oh, you might wanna say something about ROmneycare along the way.

    • trickamsterdam

      His excellently run campaign is an example of how he’d run the United States, he’s more electable, etc.

      Notice I say the smarter Romney defenders say that…the dumber ones say he’s more conservative because they think conservatives are so dumb and emotional (like angry children…or…hobbits?) they wouldn’t listen to an electability or basic competence argument.

      What none of these people really seem to fully accept is being more electable than the others doesn’t make Gov Romney actually electable. It just makes him more electable than the others.

      To use a timely analogy…the worst quarterback in the NFL is far better than me, but he’s still the worst quarterback in the NFL.

      Romney is barely more electable than Newt who they say isn’t electable at all. His negative rating is 49% (higher than Pres Obama’s in many polls) already…that’s before Obama goes to work on him w/ superior resources and far more MSM support…advantages Romney has in the primaries and he still struggles.

      Every time he wins turnout is down, both times he’s lost it’s been steady or greater. The GOTV and attempts to fund raise from small donors for this guy is going to be like looking for the fountain of youth.

      He’s been a gaffe machine all along but no one’s paid attention until this last one (imagine “I like to fire people!” in the General Election?).

      HE’S A NOTHING TRYING TO BE AN ANYTHING TO EVERYBODY.

      A true loser…at least in this game, where he doesn’t have daddy’s money and connections to give him a head start, so he can judge self-made men like Newt and Perry and what they’ve had to do to succeed.

      The sick thing is, they’ve voting for him because he’s “electable” and electable is the last thing he is. This should’ve been the best year ever for conservatism,…and Romney and his supporters are about to make it the worst.

      Btw, since he’s going to be defined as a Wall St parasite and since no one w/ any sense buys his conversion on abortion…he’s going to have reverse coat tails and possibly cost us the House (he won’t appeal to the GOP’s white w/out a college degree or religious conservative base).

      I also noticed how Wolf mentioned how he wouldn’t have voted for Rudy, but totally left Paul out of this. It’s pretty clear he wouldn’t vote for Paul either. I guess since the whole point of this essay is it’s pointless to say who you won’t vote for, he didn’t feel like mentioning it.

      A brokered convention is our only chance. No one of these guys can beat Romney. He’s got too much money and organization (almost the same reasons he’ll be horse-whipped by Obama).

      But all three of them together may be able to deny him 50% of delegates and force a brokered convention. The odds are better than Santorum or Newt winning out-right…about 10-20%.

      It could not possibly produce a more liberal or unelectable candidate than Romney…since Romney’s RECORD (not what he says or has said) is so liberal, and since anyone w/ any sense can see he’s going to be a heavy underdog at best, a historic Goldwater type failure w/ coattails at worst.

      So no one of the candidates should drop out. Nobody. The chances of a brokered convention are better w/ all three in.

      I’ll take Paul Ryan. You take who you want. Let’s decide it at the convention.

      BROKERED.CONVENTION.NOW.OR.OBAMA.AGAIN.SOON.

      • runner12

        I think not voting for Romney if he is the nominee is foolish and a poor strategy, but that does not make him a conservative. To pretend so is intellectually dishonest.

        I also disagree with the notion that a Progressive, big government, establishment wing of the GOP is non-existant. It is alive and kicking. They has contributed to the decline of this country and the eroding of our liberties, albeit as a slower pace than the Democrats.

        The reality is that Romney is a big government, GOP liberal Republican. That is a fact. The other reality is that we currently have a neo-socialist Democrat in the WH who is bent on “fundamentally transforming” our country. Now, I cannot stand Mittens. If I have to vote for the guy, it will be holding my nose. But I will vote for him if push comes to shove, for the sole fact that he is less dangerous to this country than Obama.

        • runner12

          Personally, I would rather take my chances at a brokered convention if given the choice.

    • scottishjew

      My money is that he wont bother. Leonard’s nothing more than a bomb thrower. Calling conservatives terrorists. I read all his comments. He just mocked anyone who disagreed with him by calling them “a sore loser” or “take your ball home”. Im sure that swayed a lot of people. But he cant make a cogent argument for Romney. Romney cant make a cogent argument for Romney. That’s why all we hear from Romney “Newt sucks” and platitudes that HE is going to somehow restore America. Precisely how, no one seems to want to tell us.

      Leonard’s style is the same as Romney’s, no substance. No wonder he’s voting for him.

      Hey, Come out, Leonard. Give us your essay on how Romney is going to restore America.

      Just as I thought.

      • marktx

        It would be in the best interests of Romney supporters in the media/blogosphere to build up Romney rather than insult the millions of voters Romney will need in November.

        As previously stated, in 2008 McCain’s nomination resulted in millions of conservatives staying home in November. In 2012 the election might be very close – insulting the base of the party won’t help Romney defeat Obama. In fact, I doubt the Romney campaign would even approve of such a thoughtless article as the one Leon wrote here.

  • renny

    will determine if he is the nominee, and in FL, he polled well among retirees, young people, women, and independents. We need them in the general election, and if they are supporting Romney, then even the pure-as-driven-snow cons.’s on RS should support Romney or just go work for the “o” campaign.

    Nothing is more boring than these endless litmus tests and whose egos they stroke. The tea parties already established a strong Rep. cons. presence in the House, and we will have more in DC, and more in the Senate, with this next election.

    But a shift in party leanings is often not done overnight or through one election alone, so as tough as it is, some people have to have a little patience, and while they are waiting, they should do voter registration drives and get ready to be poll workers on election day itself.

  • polarglen

    . . . is going to lose Illinois. Therefore, if Romney is the Republican candidate, I plan on voting Libertarian. It won’t affect the outcome of the election and it will send a message to the Republican establishment, though a small one.

  • smagar

    In AZ CD 8, enough conservatives voted Libertarian to elect the Democrat in 2010.

  • marktx

    If your goal is to get republicans elected, no matter what their political agenda, by all means get out your pom poms and cheer for Mitt Romney. But if your goal is to support a conservative limited government republican, then your options are far less appealing.

    Unlike previous election cycles, this year we have a candidate that the majority of primary voters have voted against, rather than for. That dynamic might change as the primary season continues, but one thing is clear – the base of the party doesn’t have much love for Mitt Romney.

    Furthermore, as Karl Rove recently discussed, in 2008 there were millions of conservative republicans who stayed home on election day rather than voting for McCain. In swing states that matters. If a similar number of conservatives stay home in 2012 (and there is no reason to believe that won’t happen) then Obama will be reelected.

    Mitt Romney’s problem isn’t that he comes from Wall St., or that he is a Mormon. His problem is that he doesn’t offer a clear enough contrast to President Obama on many issues, whether it be Romney/Obamacare, or government bailouts, etc, etc, etc…

    If swing voters decide that Romney is nothing more than the republican version of Obama, what motivation will they have to vote for Romney ? And if Romney cannot excite the base of the republican party in November, what makes anyone believe he is electable ?

  • Cheetah772

    I have a burning question for you all. Ever since I grew up reading on politics, I’ve heard a lot argue about the Establishment, and how it is either raising or lowering the bar in different aspects of public policy. But tell me, what exactly constitutes as Establishment?

    Let me take this another way, is Rep. John Boehner a part of Establishment, or is simply doing his duty as one of Representatives from Ohio? People in his district voted him to the office, so they must have seen something positive in him. So, are the voters in his district part of Establishment? After all, Boehner did not get himself into the office all by himself alone.

    Maybe in the end, the word “Establishment’ sounds more sinister than it is actually. It’s been often said that for Americans get what they deserve when deciding what kind of government they want. And if either Romney or Obama is elected, it’s exactly what Americans deserve to have. Therefore in my estimation, American voters are to be blamed for electing the wrong kind of candidate to any kind of office.

    Sorry if my comment doesn’t make any sense at all, but hopefully I said it right, and that’s my two cents on the front-page diary….

    • marktx

      Generally, when political junkies use the term “establishment”, they are referring to the financial and power structure within the two parties, as well as the media power brokers, ie, NY Times, Washington Post, Wall St Journal, FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC.

    • pttx333

      those wishing to keep the status quo thereby protecting their little fiefdoms, feathering their nests, etc. They don’t want any change. I’m speaking here mainly of the RINOs, but I’m sure it also applies to the dems. They will do anything to keep a pot-stirrer out of the mix … someone who threatens their comfy little nests/power, etc. And that is what happened to Perry … he was going to try his best to tear up the good old boy crapola, just as he has done in Texas!

      • pttx333

        is part of the establishment in that he won’t buck the tide much. He may mouth words, but actions belie the words. That is my opinion. He is flexible (maleable, if you will) and can be molded by the powers-that-be.

        Pardon me, marktx, I just wanted to add to your great description. Thanks for your patience with me!

        • marktx

          Boehner is about as establishment as they get.

          The irony is that the overwhelming majority of congressional districts are created to provide a “fixed” or “permanent” seat for either the republican or democrat. And while the congressman must get elected by the voters of their district, much of the money to finance their campaigns comes from outside their districts. That’s where the true power resides.

    • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

      The voters in each congressional district, obviously, have the power to “change out” Boehner and every other House member every two years. Specifically with respect to Boehner, I wrote a “template” for how to “retire” Boehner in the primary elections:

      http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2011/03/22/want-to-change-john-boehner-it%E2%80%99s-up-to-the-conservatives-in-his-district/

      I hope this helps.

      Thank you.

      ColdWarrior

  • islandjoehhisc

    Leon writes: ” That fact notwithstanding, we?ve had a pretty decent run in terms of winning the White House since the end of the FDR administration.”

    Ok. Where’s that gotten us?

    Nearly every time the GOP has nominated a Presidential candidate in my adult lifetime labeled ?conservative?, his conservatism was always qualified as being ?kinder and gentler? or ?big tent? or ?big government? or ?compassionate?. In other words, he was really a moderate. First, we were fooled by Nixon whose anticommunist credentials, while real, masked the willingness to expand government like any good liberal ? price and wage controls, the EPA, enshrining Medicare, etc. Then it was Gerald Ford, challenged unsuccessfully by Reagan in ?76, who pretty much acted as though the term ?conservative? was antiquated or even dangerous. Then the GOP establishment messed up and failed to stop Reagan in ?80, though they tried just as hard as Romney and his folks are trying now to trash any opposition. That was the only time they messed up. After that it was George the 1st with his ?kinder and gentler? Conservatism ? and his broken ?no new taxes? pledge. Then in ?96 it was Bob Dole ? rightly called ?the tax collector for the welfare state?. He was followed by the ?Compassionate Conservative? ? George the 2nd and his expansion of federal spending second only to Obama?s. Last time it was John McCain ? the ?maverick? or ?big tent? republican who stopped his campaign in midstream to pass ?TARP?, and has rarely found a liberal that he wouldn?t find more common cause with than most conservatives..

    All this goes to show that if the ?GOP Establishment? gets its way and nominates another ?moderate?, who wants to be seen as ?conservative?, we can expect the Federal Government to continue to grow in size and scope. The compromises reached will continue to grow our national debt and most of us will live to see our children and grandchildren living in a 2nd world country with a 2nd rate economy.

    In January, Sen. Jim DeMint said in an interview on Fox and Friends that ?The debate in the Republican Party needs to be between libertarians and conservatives ? that?s what our party needs to be about??..There?s no longer room for moderates and liberals, because we don?t have any money to spend.?

    And that?s the point ? there simply is no more of other people?s money to spend, so why waste time and opportunities debating, within the GOP, with those who still want to grow government or who are secretly content to just tinker around the edges with reform? Time has run out.

  • Adjoran

    although I admit Obama doesn’t get that.

    But true change, especially spending cuts, can ONLY come from Congress. Any Republican President will sign what a Republican Congress offers, including the repeal of ObamaCare. You could have the most conservative President ever, but if you leave Harry Reid in charge of the Senate, all he can do is appoint judges – not that that isn’t very important, important enough to vote for any GOP nominee over Obama, but it doesn’t help solve all the problems.

    I’m a Republican conservative since Goldwater. I’ll vote for our nominee, who is selected by the most democratic and open process in the world – we don’t even reserve 20% of delegate seats for officeholders, party bosses, and “activists” like the Democrats do.

    I have a term for those who won’t support the nominee: RINO.

    It’s your right to be one, but don’t whine about the label you’ve earned, mmmkay?

  • krish

    His policies is left of Clinton & Rombots are calling Romney a solid moderate! It is going to be a repeat of 2008 & I am not worred so much like othesr in this forum!

    As Soros rightly pointed out – there is no difference between Romney & Obama – so conservatives need not feel bad when Obama is relected! The country would Not have been better if Romney were elected! Hence, we should work on trying to get rid of all the RINO republican leadership in 2014! Keep the energy focused on electing good conservatives for the house & senate!

  • http://californiateapartypolitics.blogspot.com/ smokedaddy

    Leon accuses we movement conservatives of threatening to take our ball and go home if Romney gets nominated. The problem with this is that, as Sharon Angle & Christine O’Donnell & countless other conservatives running for office can tell you, is that it is in fact the “establishment” that routinely thrown a hissy fit when they don’t get their man or lady. They don’t usually say whether they actually pull the lever for the Dem, but by badmouthing nominees who haven’t happened to have gone to the right schools or clubs or have had to deal with actual real LIFE in modern day America, they might as well.

    On the electability question, Leon ascribes to the great GOP consultant canard that moderation = electability. I’d suggest taking a look at the latest Rasmussen poll showing Obama leading Romney by 4 pts and trailing Santorum by a point. Independents are not all some smooth gradiant of mush seeking just the right moderate on the host of social, economic & defense issues.

    So while Leon makes some fair points in a vacuum, its time he and his likeminded colleagues get out of their comfortable cocoon and start reexamining their fundamental assumptions.

    • circlegranch

      today at www.spectator.org
      Ms. Coulter’s adamant support of Mitt was puzzling for a long time but when she let go with “Three Cheers for RomneyCare” recently, conservatives knew she’d completely taken leave of her senses. Mr. Catron suggests she underwent a dramatic surgical procedure instead.

      • avagreen

        Yet Coulter, once the scourge of such malleable “moderates,” has gone through some sort of transformation that has rendered her blind to Romney’s cheap opportunism. And if the primary voters are foolish enough to follow her advice, they will rue the day they listened to her and the establishment Republicans with whom she has now made common cause. As Coulter herself pointed out last year when she spoke at CPAC, Barack Obama will be reelected in 2012 if the Republican Party nominates Mitt Romney for President.
        (link is embedded in that article).

        Sounds like she was labotomized. I think someone(s) has a LOT of nekked pictures of formerly conservative news folks.

        • WillWong

          Really makes one wonder doesn’t it? Even Huckabee who really hated Romney in 2008 is now so friendly towards him.

          • avagreen

            gotta be.

          • avagreen

            Fauxxy news has gone over to the dark side.
            I’m pretty sure this is all about getting Obama re-elected and some folks have received their talking order.

            .
            The Insider Reports on……The Ulsterman thing don’t sound so unimplausible these days.

          • WillWong

            Really?

          • avagreen

            Take a wild guess at what you think I was (really)saying……..

          • WillWong

            and it sure ain’t Huckabee’s!

            Wild guesss? Ann Coulter being held ransom (some pictures) and forced to endorse Romney?

          • avagreen

            to illustrate how wonky everyone has become, including Huck (didn’t you mention him), during this election, to even contradicting their previous stances.

            Obviously, something is constraining them to appear hypocritical, which is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have.Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.

            Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches.

            These are smart people. Why the dramatic 180 over the same person and/or same practices?

            What it is, I don’t know.
            “Nekked pictures” was just a hyperbole that illustrates one grasping for a logical answer.

          • WillWong

            HeHeHe! Got it now! You guys got a very nice community here. I only started posting recently. My last post was in 2008 and back then, the strongest venom was reserved for Gov Huckabee which I thought was kind of sad.

  • radicalrighty

    That’s the crowd that makes me grind my teeth.

    Because, I highly doubt a President Romney would ban US oil exploration, give billions of dollars to future bankrupted green companies, bow to union interests, aide the Muslum Brotherhood, roll up annual deficits of a trillion and a half dollars, turn his back on Israel, or hire Eric Holder FOR ANYTHING.

    • http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

      However I do not have faith that a clone of Eric Holder will not be nominated by Romney given. His clear history of electing Liberal Judges.

      And while he won’t give money to green projects I see him spending billions to major corporations that should be allowed to fail.

      I also see him NEVER ending ObamaCare.

    • JSobieski

      I think Romney is overrated and someone to be avoided, but it is absolutely nuts to think that Romney is “no different” than Obama.

      IF we have a Republican House, nothing will get to Romney’s desk except what the House passes.

      Romney is not going to veto Republican bills.

      I don’t want Romney to be the nominee now and I opposed him 2008. However, anyone who says they won’t vote for Romney in the general election would be knowingly flushing the country down the toilet.

      If people want to make some kind of principled stand, pick a venue that won’t condemn the country to a long slow and iireversible fade.

  • capedconservative

    Why are Conservatives the only ones stuck with the choice of holding their nose and pulling the lever for someone they know isn’t remotely close to their preference. The “main stream republicans” have made no bones about actively opposing conservatives when they happen to win a primary.

    The most important thing to all of them (Rs and Ds) is that they keep the lobbyist money flowing in (the payoff) while our tax dollars keep flowing out (the quid pro quo). If health care is 1/’7th of our economy ($2 trillion) and they just nationalized it, that pool of dollars flowing out is just that much larger… That much more power. Accomplished via a bill that the person third in line for the presidency said “We have to pass the bill to see what is in it”.

    How does a person that has never made more than $50K in salary win an election to congress, make $175K for 5 terms (10 years) and then find himself with an 8 figure net worth? The whole system has become so corrupt. If people demonstrate a preference for socialism/communism, I say give it to them as fast as possible.

    CC

  • cheetah2

    I get a sick feeling whenever someone says they will not vote for the Republican nominee for some reason. My family will be in big trouble financially if Obama gets 4 more years in which to complete his destruction of the US economy.

    If Romney wins the nomination it will prove that thorough preparation is of paramount importance in running for president. We true conservatives need to learn from that. We need to start working to find a well prepared, well qualified candidate for next time. We need to have a Sword of Damocles in the form of a viable primary opponent for 2016 hanging over Romney’s head if he becomes our president.

  • moonmad

    Not too long back Erick was talking about how ignoring that Romney’s not getting the base pumped up for him is stupid. This has been done before McCain, Dole and HW Bush after the tax pledge got canned. The Democrats have had similar candidates that have left the base uninspired. Kerry most recently. Bottom line is all the professional political strategists seem to be stuck on the assumption that they’ve got the base regardless of who they put up and they just have to get the couple of percentage points from the middling folks to win. They’ve been wrong in very recent history. The real victories have come when the base of the party is excited and their exictiement sweeps the the folks standing around with them. Conservatives have sat on their hands and Democrats have walked away. So putting up someone that does not create that groundswell is trying to build house without a foundation. Even GW Bush ran as conservative. Now after McCain, Grassley and others spent more time proving the weren’t swayed by Bush than trying to help move conservatism forward Bush started with the peel some democrats here and there deal. So spare me the crying for Romney and let him know that he needs to go out and get the base on his side. He can’t demand it were Americans we tend to rebel against being ordered.

  • tnguy

    It isn’t just a big middle finger to establishment republicans. I wouldn’t vote for Romney if for no other reason than that would destroy the hope of a conservative candidate in 2016.

    We must stop the repeated watering down of conservatism in the name of “Stop Kerry/Clinton/Obama”. Because of doing so for the last 20 years, we’ve destroyed the distinctions between republican and democrat, and enabled a bolshevik to win the presidency. Voting for Obama-lite does little to address our problems.

    It hurts my heart to think conservatives would abandon principle to this degree. Romney has shown no inclination to do anything but scoff at the notion of limited government. Yet somehow conservatives think they can manage Romney once he gets in the white house, with the help of a conservative congress. That obviously did not work out with Bush, and Romney is clearly to Bush’s left.

    Sadly, republicans soundly rejected the only candidate who vowed to make Washington DC as inconsequential to their lives as possible. Republicans as a whole do not believe in limited government, and the conservative wing of the party has repeatedly given them no reason to. All we’ve done for 20 years is compromise. I had hopes on the heels of the tea party uprising, but as we’re seeing this year, that was a mirage.

    I hope everyone thinks long and hard about what they’re doing before they pull the lever for Romney come November. We have to take a stand. If the majority of republicans don’t believe in limited government, we’ll never convince them of such if we repeatedly bend over for Dole/Romney/McCain/Bush types. I’ve been guilty of this sin in the past. I do not intend to be again.

    • texasref

      *round of applause*

      EXACTLY RIGHT

      • Ausonius

        Rush Limbaugh talks about the Republican establishment ceding the election to Obama and preferring to focus on the Congress.

        Given the danger of a RINO Congress having neither the courage to over-ride vetoes, nor the votes to do so, nor the courage to STOP the SPENDING, all this would mean is that our national economic collapse into bankruptcy will take a little longer.

        I suspect that a Romney presidency would only slow the process as well, from what I have seen so far.

        The risk is whether another 4 years of faster Dem spending, or slower RINO spending, will not quite be enough to finish us off, i.e. that the Republic, or what is left of it, could be resuscitated as of 2016.

        Assorted economists will show assorted charts with assorted predictions of doom, all different. It is always possible, that the American people, in spite of MAObama’s best (i.e. his worst) efforts, could bring the economy back enough to hobble into the future without a collapse.

        A future, however, where we are outflanked by our various enemies and are falling into irrelevance at least politically and militarily, if not across the board.

  • texasref

    and it involves keeping Santorum in as long as possible to split the Not-Romney vote as long as possible until the air of inevitability sets in, which of course the establishment and the LSM would like to see after just ONE friggin state (Florida). *gag me*

    And Erick is wrong in his assertion elsewhere that the Santorum folks would gravitate mostly to Romney. Yes, the nosey I know whats best for you wing of the party who absolutely loves a guy like Santorum will go with Mittens but for the majority of them it comes down to nominating a conservative they can trust will be conservative, and they might not trust Gingrich because of his personal issues but they sure as heck dont trust Romney. Bottom line, it splits the vote.

    So while I agree that the primary electorate chooses the nominee, thats not the whole story. And I put Mittens in the same category that Leon put Rudy in 2008, and I hope everybody here (including those with banhammers) respects that just like Leon wouldn’t pull the lever for Rudy in 2008 if he became the nominee, I won’t pull the lever for Mittens in 2012 if he becomes the nominee.

    This is a recent change in my opinion based on how he has trashed Newt.

    That is all.

    • WillWong

      Pretty disgusting to have $17M of negative ads dropped on anybody and most of them unanswered in Iowa.

  • texasref

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72490.html

  • deVere

    Such ridiculous hyperbole comes across as desperation. Are Romney backers getting ready to fold their tent? One senses that Romney may be the “inevitable nominee” until one fine day his campaign simply collapses.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      Sorry you missed the seventh grade.

      • deVere

        “I like firing people”.
        “I’m not concerned about the very poor”.
        “Negotiating with terrorists”.

        Congratulations to you and Mitt on your mastery of persuasive rhetoric.

  • jamesm

    New ABC-Washington Post Poll. This is not good news for Romney. Especially since he has been running for President for years

    • Ausonius

      Gallup has a much different view:

      http://www.gallup.com/poll/152372/Obama-Approval-Above-States-2011.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics%20-%20Presidential%20Job%20Approval

      MAObama according to Gallup right now has a majority job approval in 10 states (e.g. Hawaii, Illinois) and D.C. (Surpraz, Surpraz, Surpraz, to quote Gomer Pyle.)

      An excerpt:

      “Obama’s approval rating at the state level provides some insight into his chances to win an Electoral College majority. He would seem to be well-positioned in the states in which his approval rating was above 50% last year, including three of the larger states in California, New York, and Illinois. The states with majority approval of Obama in 2011 account for 159 electoral votes. Obama won all of those states’ electoral votes in the 2008 election.

      On the other hand, states in which his approval rating was below 40% seem less likely to recover enough to allow Obama to claim their electoral votes this fall. Those states account for 153 electoral votes. All except New Hampshire voted for John McCain in 2008.

      Thus, the key to Obama’s winning a second term lies in the states whose approval rating is in the 40% range, which account for the remaining 226 electoral votes and include traditional “swing states” such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Obama won the vast majority of these states in 2008.

      Gallup and USA Today have identified 12 swing states that will be vitally important in this year’s election, and Obama’s job approval rating within those states ranges from 39% in New Hampshire to 48% in Michigan.”

      • bonnman

        was the percentage who responded that the more they hear about Romney the less they like him and that his wealth and tax rate were negatives for him. Romney has got to find away to reverse that narrative if he is to stand a chance. I think Newt found that weak point but has backed off, Obama and the media aren’t going to back off in the general. Romeny should probably release more of his taxes to get this behind him.

      • jamesm

        the Electoral College and the popular vote to be considered legitimate by many. Obama could lose in a landslide if a candidate is nominated that could inspire people.

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

      They don’t publish the internals. You can’t tell what any of the demographics are. You don’t know if it’s registered voters, likely voters or just random people. You also don’t know what the RDI breakdown is.

      Totally worthless.

      • earlgrey

        that bugs me more.

        The media is certainly doing a lot of hooping and hollering over this WaPo/ABC poll. It is kind of sad to watch, but 4 years ago, I would have “bought” the poll.

        • Ausonius

          People who “call themselves Republicans” is at c. 36% while the same for Dems has fallen to c. 32%.

          MAObama showed a slight improvement in job approval, possibly due to the completely mendacious “unemployment” report which propaganda was propagated last week.

          See:

          http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/partisan_trends

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

          It’s here.

          As I’ve commented before, we don’t have a clue what the real issues in Aug/Sep will be, or how they’ll be spun. Also Rs have been through about 4 months of really bad internecine warfare on the front pages and Obama has gotten a bigger than usual pass. Bottom line head-to-head polling is worthless this time of year.

          • jamesm

            case seems like nonsense at this stage. He is put up so much in negative ads that it is driving down his own poll numbers.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      Are Newt’s numbers

  • tngal

    Some days the anger going back and forth between us posters gets to be a bit too much. Its at those times I click on the “About” button and re-read the phrase :

    “Welcome to RedState. We?re happy warriors and we?re glad to have you in the fight.”

    And I bust out in hysterical laughter, since most days we seem anything but happy.

    But even on those days we can’t take our ball and go home because of the other Redstate “About” maxim.

    “At RedState, we are conservatives in primaries and Republican in general elections and we aim to win.”

    So noone will take their ball home. (Except for Happy Warrior Bunny who looks like he might attack something if you tried to take his tennis ball. )

  • pinotguy

    So now I am called a terrorist. Having a choice of one communist/liberal going for re-election and another self admitted progressive/liberal stuffed down my throat by the an un-existing Republican Establishment. Amazing!

    So, let me get this straight. Only because IA/NH/NV “conservatives”, in their collective minds, made the decision for me I am somehow expected to go along, like a mindless lamb. Same IA “brain trust”, BTW, that voted the current communist into WH. Same NV “brain trust” that also voted for Obama and Reid (Reid got what, 25% of the registered Republican vote?). Coulter and her ilk (RINOs all!) telling me daily that Romney is the only conservative in the group and yet somehow ALL of them fail to list just ONE conservative accomplishment in Romney’s political career.

    And yet I am the one called terrorist. Let me sum it up for those who are demented enough and incapable enough to think for themselves. Republican Establishment is betting on Romney, same Romney who could not be re-elected in liberal MA and therefore “quit”, same Romney who lost to another RINO McLame 3 years ago who then was soundly trounced by Hussein, same Romney who could never gather more than 25-30% of Republican votes and is still in that same ballpark numbers wise, same Romney who keeps lying about his opponents even after being told point blank his lies should stop, same Romney whose RomneyCare was a blueprint for HusseinCare, same Romney who was adamant about gun control laws, same Romney who said that if an underaged girl cannot get a parental permission to get an abortion she should simply go to court, same Romney who increased taxes in MA, same Romney whose RomneyCare left the state of MA in the red and dependent on other states to pay for it as well. That Romney? Or is there another Romney that I am not aware of?

    Why is it that Republican Establishment never wants to compromise with the true conservative base while having no problems compromising on a daily basis with liberals in Congress and WH? Why is it that Republican Establishment expects conservatives to compromise when picking a liberal progressive as Republican nominee and not make the compromise itself? Why should I listen to Coulter, Rove, Rubio, Boehner, McConnell when I know their picked candidate is CANCER on the society if elected based on his extensive and well documented record of liberal/progressive policies stuffed down his constituents’ throats?

    So, who is the terrorist in this devilish scheme?

    Leon, the likes of you were responsible for the Russian Revolution, half of you then left Russia and the other half stayed behind under assumed names to help out with “cleansing” fellow tribe people. You and your ilk are responsible for the Stalinist repressions against Jews (my family included) while you espouse your Marxist views under the veil of being “conservative”. Why you write for a supposedly conservative blog is beyond comprehension, but then again judging by the responses to your drivel you are not alone. And people ask me why is it that almost 80% of American Jews vote liberal, its in your genes!!! And the rest of 20% is mostly RINOs, like you. Why is it that 99.9% of Jewish refugees from USSR are true conservatives, have you ever asked yourself this question? And I am called a terrorist?

    Rest assured that come General, a good number of us, survivors of USSR regime who REALLY KNOW how to spot a liberal/progressive, will stay home, no reason to vote for one liberal/progressive over another. Better the devil I know than the one I don’t. And I am sure a good number of true conservatives will have same reason as I do to stay away from a Republican Establishment candidate.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      But alas, here it is, laid bare for all to see.

      I suppose my extradition is now imminent. I shall count on comrade Bill S to avenge my death.

    • Bill S

      If you had just posted a run of the mill rant and had left out the 2nd to last paragraph, you woulda been ok. But the “true conservative” thing always sets my teeth on edge to start with, and when you started raving about Stalinists and Marxists, etc, you really wandered off the ranch.

      So I’ll turn off your ID now, and that should give you some time to calm yourself and post somewhere where your ravings are more appropriate. You apparently were going to stay home and not vote for the Republican anywy, so your presence here is pretty much superfluous.