What do Republicans Want?
Palos Verdes, California — Mitt Romney didn’t attend this year’s retreat of the Horowitz Freedom Center — he’s got other things on his agenda — but he was an interrupted presence in the minds of conservative politicians, journalists and business people who gathered here for the weekend in the advent of the most important presidential election since 1980. Remarks were off the record (mine better have been) but I can report one telling incident: a panel on the presidential election featuring four well-known political consultants and journalists turned into a Romney-bashing fest. The man was out of touch, he wasn’t a real conservative, he didn’t know how to campaign, he was facing inevitable defeat at the hands of Obama, and should be replaced at the convention by Christie or Daniels.
The session’s last question fell to me, and I undertook a defense of the former Massachusetts governor. Do you really want Romney to be Scott Walker? I asked, and answer came there none.
This election might be more important than 1980, but it wasn’t 1980, because the crisis was of a different order. The problem Republicans face is clear from Wisconson Gov. Scott Walker’s troubles. Walker is the most courageous Republican official in the country, the only one to assault the fortified positions occupied by government unions and take on entitlements. For his trouble he is facing a recall election that has the state’s undivided attention: a recent poll shows that Wisconsinites care more about the Walker recall election than the presidential election by a margin of 51-37. Other polls show that Walker has a 50-50 chance of withstanding the recall vote.
Why are the voters of Wisconsin more focused on the state election than the national election? One explanation might be that not much has happened to federal taxes, while state and local taxes have been rising steadily, like the water temperature that boils the proverbial frog. The epicenter of the debt crisis is in the states, and it can’t be solved without government union givebacks of already-promised benefits. To my knowledge, large numbers of Americans never have been asked to take lower pensions or more restricted health benefits. That has provoked a degree of rage and upset unlike anything I have ever seen. A close friend of twenty years with Wisconsin roots cut me off forever after hearing that I had made a small donation to Walker.
Scott Walker is my hero, because he’s the only Republican with the guts to start doing what has to be done. As I wrote last November, the gigantic burden of government spending accumulated by Democratic (as well as Republican) administrations is strangling the middle class.
I’ve published these numbers before, but they bear a reminder. Federal tax revenues remain about 10% below the pre-crisis peak, but state and local tax collections continue to rise. In part, that is because states and localities cannot run budget deficits, unlike the federal government, and must raise taxes to cover their expenses, even while they cut spending. State and local employment has fallen by more than half a million since August 1998, and the layoffs continue.
Exactly. See Canada’s Stephen Harper for stealth conservatism at its best. The more bitter the medicine, the more gently you’ll have to approach the patient. You don’t want him to spit it out, after all. This problem was not created overnight and it won’t be fixed that way either.
The problem with using Harper as an example is that Canada’s national debt peaked in 1997, a decade before he became PM. Whereas we appear to be in an 11th hour situation with “trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see”, a situation where RINO fiscal business as usual (e.g. both Bushes and presumably Romney) won’t avoid a train wreck.
Is it possible that the heavy donations from the financial industry to Romney’s PAC have something to do with TARP, the next generation (after European socialism finally fails and drags our banks down with them)? Middle-class Americans who vote for Romney will get what they deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us will also get what they deserve.
David – I understand that Romney seems to be the man who is mostly likely to be able to move the necessary economic agenda forward. My question for you is, how sure are you that he will conduct the sort of policy that you, me and many readers support in Iran, i.e. decisive action to remove the regime and its WMD programs?
Caroline Glick suggested that a good litmus test for candidate Romney on this issue would be, whether he will commit to appoint John Bolton as SoS (http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2012/03/john-bolton-is-also-advising-r.php?pf=yes)?
Good point, Marc H.
Bolton at State would convince me.
Thank you DodgerUSA.
It was a bit demoralizing to support President Bush in 2004 and then see him adopt a policy towards Iran not too different from that of Sen. J. Kerry (http://www.nysun.com/national/bushs-iran-plan-echoes-kerry-baffles-friends/26606/).
Please check out my brief blog on Santorum’s strategy of identifying himself with his grandfather’s working class identity. See http://clarespark.com/2012/04/02/touch-me-touch-me-not/. AS for MarcH, Romney has enunciated his policies, and is endorsed by such as Paul Ryan and the younger Republicans. Whereas Santorum is using demagogic blood and soil tactics, as I demonstrated in my blog.
You must have missed that the point of my cooments by me and DodgerUSA was Romney’s policy on Iran. Neither your comment nor your blog say anything about that.
Regarding your blog, you may want to tighten up those posts a bit.
OK, sticking to the topic of this posting, and asking our host who knows a lot more than and pays a lot more attention to fiscal affairs than I, when is it likely that our trillion plus annual federal deficits get ugly? I know this sort of thing is hard to impossible to predict (who would have thought there was such an appetite for US Federal debt?) but can we put any likely bounds on it? (And/or Credit-Anstalt MK II?)
My thought here—and since you bring up Reagan, it’s worth pointing out that as I understand it all(most?) all his “cuts” were merely decreases in the automatically rising baseline—is that Romney is not going to seriously address this issue, especially with the Profiles in something less than Courage we have in the Republican Congressional leadership (something akin to the New Dealers’ problem with Southern Democrats having so many leadership positions in the Congress due to seniority).
True, he’ll likely handle a fiscal or financial crisis better than Team Obama, but if Romney gets elected might we see Bob Krumm’s prediction that “2012 will be the last year that a Republican is ever elected President” come true? Especially if circumstances force him to move in some Scott Walker directions? Not necessarily against unions since they aren’t so important at the Federal level, but to for example ask “large numbers of Americans … to take lower pensions or more restricted health benefits” (i.e. Social Security and Medicare)?
Where would that leave us? Better off than if Obama has a second term with more “more flexibility”? Very possibly. But still pretty awful and getting harder to predict.
I can tell you from my vantage point in Red State America where I was born, raised and have retired to that one thing we’re doing is buying guns and ammo at otherwise inexplicable rates, unless there’s enough of a fear Obama will get reelected. Since this started no later than Thanksgiving predictions on the election in a year sound like an unlikely cause. Or note how nasty “survivalists”, inspired as it were by Carter’s ineptness and malevolence, are now trendy “preppers” (root preparation).
Can someone please make a positive argument for Romney for once that doesn’t involve the assumption that he will ‘do the right thing’ economically? This guy saddled Mass with socialized medicine and it’s slowly destroying the state (and please: no excuses about how the legislature went in and ruined Romney’s vision–Romney knew damn well the legislature wouldn’t just leave it ‘as-is’.)
Looking at the man’s record, he’s a political weathervane that goes along with every little shift in the prevailing political winds. This may (or may not) be good at this exact point in time, but as mercurial as he is, who knows?? We’re basically looking at electing the Republican version of Clinton, albeit without the smarm and womanizing (and I’m being generous characterizing it as “womanizing”) and to keep him in line, we needed a Congress that was willing to crack the whip. (Which I assume we will have, but it’s better that the R prez doesn’t consult polls every step of the way–that’s not leading, that’s modulating.)
Note: I **am** going to vote for the guy–anything is better than four more years of Obama, including four more of Carter–but if even David Goldman can’t sell this guy to us as a standard-bearer, nobody can.
Note 2: I will be the first to admit I was wrong if he governs within even 100 yards of Reagan, but based on his actual record (and not meaningless campaign promises)…
remember he had a solidly dem legislature – there were only 29 republicans in the entire legislature – and they over ruled 700 of his 800 vetos. so he had to navigate a box of asps. we currently have a republican house, and a good chance of taking the senate. He will have republican support. he is a solid capitalist and understands to make the engine of the US economy run you need to unfetter it – and he understands the risks since 9/11 because he had to plan for that security with the olympics. He certainly didn’t want a repeat of munich in ’72.
Can someone please make a positive argument for Romney for once that doesn’t involve the assumption that he will ‘do the right thing’ economically?
You could write the same question and put anybody’s name in there instead of “Romney”.
Except for poor unelectable Paul. He’s the only one I’m reasonably sure would do the right thing for the economy.
Im sorry ECM, but you’re simply mistaken. We don’t elect Kings in this country and Romney didn’t “saddle” MA with anything. The citizens of MA wanted that type of health care system. They lobbied their representatives for it, and their representatives gave it to them. This is as it should be, handled on a state level. If the residents of MA want something that they’re willing to pay for, go for it. If you’re a resident of MA and don’t agree, you’re free to move.
Romney was simply a governor of a Blue state. He didn’t drive them to into the Dems hands, they were already there…
Good article except for the conclusion. The Romney supporters all seem to know what he will do once in office. But they all fail to acknowledge his actual history last time he held political power.
The mantra is, “Anybody but Obama”, but has it occured to you that Romney may be the worst choice for that position? Santorim is not my first choice but I would much prefer him to Romney. If Scott Walker loses the recall election (or even if he doesn’t) I would be very happy if the Republicans drafted him in a brokered convention.
If Anybody But Obama is your candidate that infers that the list of potential contenders is quite long. It does not have to be Romney.
If Anybody But Obama is your candidate that infers that the list of potential contenders is quite long. It does not have to be Romney.
It has to be the guy who wins the Republican convention. And that guy is Romney. Unless you plan on supporting a third party.
“It has to be the guy who wins the Republican convention. And that guy is Romney.”
Has he won it?
Romney is a self professed progressive, he governed as such. If he is the Republican nominee I will be voting for Gary Johnson. The first time I will have not voted for the Republican in my life.
But I would rather have the enemy to Conservatism(obama) in opposition then have to follow his banner(romney). I would rather trust a solid Conservative Congress to hold President Downgrade in check for four more years, then to have them pass romneycare in our name.
Maybe in four years we can elect a Conservative, until that time however, this conservative is done vote for progressives who have a “R” before/after their name.
That reasoning has a fatal flaw. It is Obama’s use of executive privilege, recess appointment power, czar appointments, Libiyan type excursions, etc. He will go around a congressional blockade like he is doing right now. The Rs in the House have it in their power to choke off anything Obama wanted to do but have no guts to counter Obama’s brazenness. I’m not holding my breath that a new congress full of wonder-eyed freshman can do what Boehner and McConnel couldn’t.
Again, in short, Obama would chew your plan to bits.
Better reconsider.
I think the expression in the 1970′s was “root canal conservatism.”
Obama creates a lot of uncertainty. Early on it was his use of crony capitalism and hyper regulation and basic “what’s yours is really mine” approach. But now I think even the crony capitalists are getting nervous. I wonder, did he tell them that after the election he will be more “free to act” in their interests as well as in the interests of Vlad the Thug?
I think there will be a huge dump of new regulations after the election, win or lose. Obama’s first term was about his administration preparing for disaster. His second term will be the disaster they prepared.
This is exactly what bothers me the most about Obama. During his second term he will do as he pleases, constitution be damned (the way it was for that “recess” appointment that wasn’t). With the press refusing to give him buckets of bad publicity for ignoring the constitution and the democrats supporting him against impeachment with their votes in the Senate, he could rule by decree and get away with it.
I’ve heard that he has or is getting ready to have his EPA minions dump massive (over) regulations on the coal industry that will (as he promised in San Francisco in January 2008) “necessarily skyrocket” electricity prices. They will also ensure that no one else will be able to enter the coal industry.
My question is, if he’s planning on making electricity prices as uncomfortable as possible, why is he pushing the “Volt” which depends on electricity to charge its battery. Isn’t it enough that there’s already no where to charge it — now he wants to make it more expensive. Geeeeezzzzzz, do they have no sense?
People who can’t do math or engineering, who think words create reality, imagine that “renewable” energy sources, i.e. wind and solar, will take up the slack under the umbrella the increased prices will create.
Pity neither of those are good for either baseline or peak power demand on the grid, absent amazing developments in energy storage. And for electric cars, massively beefing up the grid starting at the neighborhood level (those transformers are sized to cool down at night; add one or two electric cars charging then and they’ll go, a problem California utilities are already having to deal with).
We’ve no clue how Romney will be as president. His tenure as gov in Mass was a disaster–and that wasn’t because he was a Repub in a Dem state: William Weld was a popular Repub governor there, etc.
But I agree that Rick can’t make it now to the Repub nomination, and probably wouldn’t get elected in the general. We need, as though it were opening the Red Sea, we REALLY need, to help Scott Walker get re-elected, and do as well as we can with Congress.
Whoever is elected prez in 2012 will face multiple disasters, and perhaps it is just that all that happen to Obama. Even if we were nominating King Josiah, would we want him to face what’s coming–and be BLAMED for it by the MSM and the Left?
Grim, grim options, ladies and gentlemen.
An Préachán
Re-electing Walker will demoralize the unions and Move-on.org types and energize conservatives. A loss will have the opposite effect. As close to the presidential election as the recall is, it may well have a decisive effect on who gets elected and the direction of the entire country for the next four or maybe even eight years. It is transcendentally important.
We’ve no clue how Romney will be as president. His tenure as gov in Mass was a disaster–and that wasn’t because he was a Repub in a Dem state: William Weld was a popular Repub governor there, etc.
Weld was more popular because he was a lot more liberal.
Beltway Republicans want their cut.
Congressional Republicans want control of the Senate committees and their pursestrings.
Media Republicans want to generate interest and keep ratings up.
Street Republicans want to resist being ‘organized’.
How does one market to ‘a coalition of diverse interests’ without simply promising benefits, recognition, or corruption to everyone?
What marketing campaign beats “For you, it’s free!”
It is absolutely essential the Republicans regain control of the Senate, for if Obama is reelected, that’s the only place to stop him from packing the courts with his people and leaving a legacy that will be almost impossible to overcome.
Hmm… The irate WI friend sounds like a jerk, if you’ll pardon technical language. It’s just as likely that voters in Wisconsin focus on local issues because that’s where they feel they can do the most good. Flushing clean the Beltway stables is a long, long job. Starting locally makes lots of sense.
There’s a danger of over-analysing Romney’s fitful and intermittently nasty campaign. To many, he’s simply a very unattractive candidate, not fit for office and unlikely to address the issues needed to arrest national decline. About forty percent of the electorate now identifies itself as Independent, a more savage indictment of the GOP you’ll struggle to find. Yet party brahmins prefer to believe voters will rally round Romney. No, IMO they’re more likely to settle for a GOP-controlled congress to muzzle Obama while the search for capable leadership continues into 2016 — i.e., third-party time, however much it makes the establishment scream.
You make some good points.
I have made no secret of my dislike for Romney, but of course I will vote and vote for him to deny Obama another term.
Protest votes, or, incredibly, just not voting is suicide. What kind of strange perfection disease do so many Republicans have that they say they refuse to vote for Romney? Political survival is what is at stake here. Victory is a ratchet. Never give up any ground. We have to step back from the precipice of what Obama would dare to impose on this country if re-elected.
If Obama is re-elected, how will you be able face your children and grandchildren when they ask you what you did to try to stop it?
What did I do to stop Obama’s reelection, “I did everything I could to stop the idiot Republicans from nominating Romney as their candidate.”
Obama OUT.
Can it be any clearer?
I have never had any doubt that Mitt Romney can manage a liberal mess better than a Liberal.
What I don’t see is Mitt being a person who will Lead the Nation in a Different Direction. Mitt is a Go Along to Get Along sort of fellow, and he’s proven that as Governer of Massachusitts.
He also has no Vision and come to Conservativism as an Acquired Taste. He proved this in 1994 when on the heels of the announced Contract With America is first utterance was “That’s the House, I’m running for the Senate.” He further refined that to ‘the contract is a bad idea’ in the Debate with Teddy K.
.
Mitt has No Chance what-so-ever of being a National Scott Walker. NONE!
Amen Jd!!! Would that Romney had the balls – or the inclination – to be a Scott Walker. And the answer to Goldman’s question? ABSOLUTELY! I DO want a Republican to go up to DC and do what Walker’s doing in WI. I want someone who will go up there and go to war with the leftists who are at war against my country. If the right people hate you, you’re doing something right. Get over it. “Moderates” need to grow up and accept this unpleasant fact of life.
Romney? Please. Another go along to get along blue-blood. Even IF he can beat Obama, what are we left with? Another patsy who will spend four to eight years getting pushed around by the left, then apologize for causing them the trouble.
Spengler:
As much as I agree with your conclusion and generally find your analysis tight, I think you omitted a major factor in this column: Wisconsin is a blue state.
If we were talking about a red state like Texas or Tennessee, your case would be strong. But the fact is that Walker is likely to survive his recall in a blue state.
This suggests that he would prevail on the national level.
Another point is that, on the state and local level, the left is organized and the right is not. Unions pay a lot of attention to local issues. Local media is generally left and there are no local equivalents of the WSJ, National Review, or Fox.
This means that the citizenry of Wisconsin has taken it upon themselves to become educated about what’s happening in their state and have become motivated to do something about it without the advantages the left has on the local level of using teachers unions, public employee unions, and local media to control the narrative.
On the national level, the right is at less of a disadvantage.
Unions are overwhelmingly important for local politics, not so for national politics. Similarly Fox News, talk radio, the blogoshopere challenge the media on the national scene in a way that they don’t on the local scene.
While I reluctantly support Romney at this point, I think the fact that Walker
is contending strongly in a blue state suggests that someone more conservative than Romney could have won on the national level.
But I agree that now it is too late. Best to go for Romney
Excellent comment.
The problem, David, is simply that the truth is not going to play a large part in the November election.
Your argument makes very sound and solid points, but it misses the goal posts by a wide margin.
The Democrats and their voters are the irresponsible leading the self-absorbed. And the traitorous leading the ignorant.
The open hostility to capitalism and the business sector is palpable. If this radical revolutionary regime isn’t trying to sic the NLRB on a private company, openly declaring war on two brothers who vote Republican or assaulting “millionaires and billionaires” in a class warfare barrage, they are busy gutting the military, raping the Constitution and refusing to even put forth a budget.
The only time they are not undermining their fiscal responsibilities is when they are shirking them.
For Christians, this is Palm Sunday.
For radical leftists, every week is PALM week. Propaganda and lies media is in their pocket, distorting every key fact and openly lying about every major issue.
Most polls reflect merely how effective the propaganda and lies media is on a particular issue.
We are on an unsustainable course with entitlements and no serious person can deny that. We have snuggled up to every enemy and slapped the face of every ally. We have raped and shredded the Constitution at every turn. The Democrats are so cynical and their propaganda and lies media have so prostituted themselves that they no longer have an ounce of honor. Either of them.
The Democrats, if they win, will win on a pack of lies. They will sell a false story to promote a radical revolution and the tearing down of the free market and a Constitution they do not swear to uphold and do not respect.
Mitt Romney isn’t the issue. Scott Walker isn’t the issue.
America is in recall. Wisconsin is a symptom.
Obama and the SEIU/ACORN and all the other radicals are the disease. Along with the PALM Press.
Truth is the cure. Hard, cold, firm, steely…truth. We better start treasuring it much more than we do now.
NObama
Do we need to SPELL IT?
“McDaniels”?
One reason to vote for Romney: he is not an ideologue.
I think this is a much deeper question than most ‘conservatives’ realize.
People who advocate following the Constitution as it was written are called the ‘the lunatic libertarian fringe’.
Waving Federalist Paper #10 at criminals won’t change their mind.
I haven’t exactly seen the Republicans give more than occasional lip service to Walker’s lonely crusade. Are they busing in paid activists from the surrounding states?
I’d prefer to see more exploration of the actual mechanics, such as names, organizations, dollar amounts, and rulemaking, instead of attacking soft targets and parroting vague abstracts.
Perhaps this is how the left organizes so successfully; they choose specific targets, and only wage the ‘war on sin’ against those targets.
Republicans have spent a century attacking their neighbors rather than exposing the criminals who rule.
Is it any wonder people fear Republicans waving a flag, a Bible, or Federalist #10?
Walker’s crusade will remain a lonely one.
Will Mittens wage war on bureacracy with as much passion as the DSA Congress brought to Obamacare?
“A close friend of twenty years with Wisconsin roots cut me off forever after hearing that I had made a small donation to Walker.”
You got off easy. By opposing Walker’s reforms, he (?) is in effect disinheriting his own children.
Regarding Romney, I have my misgivings, but of course I’ll vote for him if he gets the nomination. Just like I would vote for Santorum, Gingrich, Cain, Perry, Palin, Christie… (By the way, Christie is supposed to be a Conservative alternative? Really? No, really?)
I keep running into the “argument” that Obama is driving us towards a wall at 100 mph, and that Romney would not reverse course but only slow down to 50. If true, that is an argument for choosing a GOP nominee other than Romney, but should he win the primaries, how is this argument in any way convincing? What kind of an idiot would rather drive towards a wall at 100 rather than 50?
What kind of an idiot would rather drive towards a wall at 100 rather than 50?
To be fair, 100 mph is more than likely instantaneous death, while 50 may result in coma, partial paralysis, disfigurement, maiming, etc. Sometimes it’s just better not to survive.
“Sometimes it’s just better not to survive.”
I find it difficult to believe that many people in the car would actually make that choice, but I certainly would understand if you were to so choose. In this case, however, we’re talking about the entire country. Do you truly want to apply the above statement to these United States of America?
To extend your analogy, it matters rather a lot when we hit that wall, especially since Obama and the Dems have moved us so much closer to it. Even if Romney decreases the speed (and I think a 1/2 decrease is wildly optimistic now that the budget baseline is over 1 trillion in deficit every year), even if he’ll handle it better than Obama, the political fallout might be so great that Bob Krumm’s prediction that “2012 will be the last year that a Republican is ever elected President” comes true.
If so, what happens after that?
To extend your analogy, it matters rather a lot when we hit that wall, especially since Obama and the Dems have moved us so much closer to it. Even if Romney decreases the speed (and I think a 1/2 decrease is wildly optimistic now that the budget baseline is over 1 trillion in deficit every year), even if he’ll handle it better than Obama, the political fallout might be so great that Bob Krumm’s prediction that “2012 will be the last year that a Republican is ever elected President” might come true.
If so, what happens after that?
Similarly, suppose a hypothetical GOP nominee were to win and then suddenly reverse course (away from the wall). I would fully support him, but one can very plausibly argue that this would be too drastic for a public that still hasn’t fully grasped the magnitude of the crisis, and that “2012 will be the last year that a Republican is ever elected President.”
Therefore, the best alternative is that we let the 100mph driver keep going, so that after the crash, we can blame him for the horrific consequences.
And then, you expect people to support those who sat back with crossed arms and allowed the crash to occur?
If we start playing these games, the only people we’ll outsmart are ourselves.
What you’re leaving out is the posture of the party after the wall is hit. In your alternative scenario, an attempt to not hit it fails, but is at least made, and the party is in the wilderness afterwords.
Until, that is, the wall is hit and the party was proven correct, and is not in the posture of having “sat back with crossed arms and allowed the crash to occur”. Which is what I postulate will occur if Romney is elected.
“What you’re leaving out is the posture of the party after the wall is hit. In your alternative scenario, an attempt to not hit it fails, but is at least made, and the party is in the wilderness afterwords.
Until, that is, the wall is hit and the party was proven correct”
Unless the very unpopular course correction is just enough to barely avoid a crash, while still [searching for a way to extend the metaphor] leaving the car wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. In other words, we never reach the hoped-for “clarity” that would follow a crash, while remaining stuck in a bad situation, with the Conservative alternative being anathema.
“Which is what I postulate will occur if Romney is elected.”
The logic being that Romney’s policies will be significantly closer to Obama’s than to true Conservatism, but the population will be too stupid to realize that.
Your calculations might actually turn out to be correct, but the uncertainty is too great to play these games.
Also, I can’t help but continually flash to the Communist “make it worse so that it can get better” discourse.
I just hope that Romney will go after Obama hammer and tong like he did his Republican primary opponents. I bet at the first cry of racism from the Obama camp he will freeze up and loose by default. I hope I’m wrong.
I hope you’re wrong, but, unfortunate3ly, I don’t believe you are.
What do Republicans want?
#7 alzaebo has it largely right. I admit that I am not sure what he means by “street Republicans”. But a point is being missed. The Institutional Republicans want to be first in line at the public trough. The very last thing that they want is any effort to change the system of redistribution of the products of the middle class to whoever is the favored group of the moment.
It is Conservatives, TEA Party, Patriots, or whatever name that is being used at the moment to describe the ‘the lunatic libertarian fringe’ that actually believes in the Constitution who want to not only slow the speed to the wall, but actually reverse course. The Republicans will fight alongside the Democrats to preserve the current course.
Romney has no history of any conservative actions or beliefs, beyond his claimed severity that is belied by his electoral past. He is not going to do anything to push back, and to expect him so, to claim to “know” that he will is an exercise in fantasy or deliberate deception [self or otherwise]. To believe otherwise is akin to the belief that somehow the “Arab Spring” was about improving the lot of the citizens involved.
That does not mean that I have not resigned myself to voting for him. But there are two points. First, he will lose, because in the face of both the illegal and legal tactics of the Left; he will not be able to inspire a rally to him and he will not have the active level of support of the Base to survive if he is in fact semi-serious about trying to win. We have seen Republican campaigns going through the motions before. Second, that by nominating him; the Republican Party will have shown that it is profoundly and deeply unserious about defending the country and Constitution against the attacks of the Left.
At that point I will break my 32 year active connection with it. My efforts will be concentrated on getting as large a Patriot faction into Congress as possible. And on working to see that if we actually have elections in 2014, that there is some kind of alliance of Patriots who will make the Republicans the de facto “third party”. If electoral politics are not applicable in 2014, a Patriot movement will still help shape the battlefield.
Subotai Bahadur
Thank you for your experience and consideration.
I simply cannot trust the Republican party, or ‘conservatives’.
They’ve too often aided and abetted the tide of hidden, institutionalized corruption.
The Constitution was the first valid attempt at preventing illegal governments from forming. Let the false preachers wage their convenient, goal-free war on sin from the states.
I rather like the idea of a Patriot party.
I fear the professionals and opportunists would bend their considerable resources to hijacking it as well!
To repeat a question I asked further down-
What is Romney’s position on Walker?
Santorum happens to be on Judicial Watch’s list of ‘Top Ten Most Corrupt’,
and Corzine was reportedly looking at office space in the Bain Capital building.
I’m not a purist, simply a fan of transparency.
I fear the professionals and opportunists would bend their considerable resources to hijacking [a Patriot party] as well!
As American political history goes, that might be OK. Since the Republican party replaced the Whigs the pattern of “successful” 3rd parties has been of one of the main parties adopting their platform, in preference to going the way of the Whigs.
It’s entirely possible the current Republican establishment is incapable of this, but they can be replaced; anyway you look at it, we’re in desperate need of a Pareto style circulation of elites.
We know that Romney, unlike Obama, does not hate most Americans and America’s Constitution. Nothing is more important and nothing else will mater much without this.
No. I want Newt Gingrich to surprise the living hell out of the voters by being reasonable and articulating clearly what they want.
“That’s why all Republicans need to stop playing games and united behind Romney and get him elected in November.”
Horseapples. If it were even vaguely plausibe that he would at the federal level be as aggressive as Walker at the state level–he’d have had the nomination locked up from the get go.
He’s seeing this pushback because he’s not credible.
“While I reluctantly support Romney at this point, I think the fact that Walker
is contending strongly in a blue state suggests that someone more conservative than Romney could have won on the national level. ”
That is credible. The national nominee from the GOP should be someone just barely left of center of the rightmost 50% of the electorate. Romney is actually from the rightmost of the left half of the electorate.
Maybe a miracle will happen. Maybe Romney will get elected and act like an adult with a clue.
In other words, it seems mathematically possible that the unanimous evidence of his entire life might be incorrect and he might actually be a secret conservative who believes in our country more than he believes in his right to make tons of money for himself and his friends at the expense of everybody else, and make random decisions on whims that affect the lives of millions.
But I’m not betting on it.
“A close friend of twenty years with Wisconsin roots cut me off forever after hearing that I had made a small donation to Walker.”
That is very sad to hear. People take politics far too seriously.
I think Romney is the “winnable” candidate, but more than anyone else, Ron Paul won the soul of the Republican party for this election. The effects will be seen over a long time.
I missed the obvious question, and I apologise.
What is Mitt Romney’s postition on… Scott Walker?
A couple of seconds with a search engine would have told you Romney supports Scott Walker. In fact Romney endorsed Walker for Governor in 2010.
Romney doesn’t have the convictions of a Scott Walker, to compare him to Walker, Reagan, et all, is both foolish and not genuine. He’s better to be compared to a Richard Nixon (who is a squish and will say anything to get what he wants), or a Mitch McConnel than to our genuine Republican Conservative leaders. -JS
The really important thing is to take the House and the Senate. Preferably with NEW people. Orrin Hatch is a nice guy but he stopped thinking a long time ago.
Now, Intrade seems to believe that some 60% of voters will vote for Obama.
That is why the Tea Party types have to get their guys into the Senate and the House. Romney has been battered by Santorum and Gingrich. But, he just may fight to a better place than he is in now.
As to Santorum (and Mark Steyn): yes, the present economic situation is a RESULT of decadence on the part of large sections of the Western Elite. Santorum has a role to play here, as has Sarah Palin, in the Culture. As Breitbart has said, “it’s the culture, stupid.” Let the House and Senate fight it out in Washington, where, “it is the economy, stupid.”
So much passion. So little perspective. The comments on this thread are absolutely typical of every Presidential thread I have read for the last year. Folks. I beg of you. Sit down, drink some cold water, and breathe into a paper bag for a while. The emotions will pass.
Now let us get to the business at hand:
2. MarcH: “Caroline Glick suggested that a good litmus test for candidate Romney on this issue would be, whether he will commit to appoint John Bolton as SoS ”
Ms. Glick’s heart is in the right place, but I fear she has little understanding of the Department of State. She is after all, not a resident of the US and her focus has been on Israeli affairs, not US. Ms. Glick is a bit of a bomb thrower, which considering her job, is OK. So is Mr. Bolton. Naming a bomb thrower as Secretary is not a good idea. The Department has for years been one of the most obdurate bureaucracies in Washington. A President, especially a Republican, who wants to implement his own Foreign Policy, needs a Secretary who is a master manipulator of the bureaucracy. If he names Bolton, the permanent bureaucracy will go to ground and spend four year undermining everything the President is trying to do.
3. ECM: ” … he’s a political weathervane, as mercurial as he is, who knows? …”
Please. Everyone in politics can be labeled a weather-vane. Santorum backed Arlen Specter. Only tenured professors and a few Congressmen in safe seats like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul can be self consistent.
“I will be the first to admit I was wrong if he governs within even 100 yards of Reagan …”
What did Reagan do? I honor his memory, but … He nominated Scalia, but he also stuck us with Sandra O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. Yes, he helped destroy the Soviet Union, but the target must be available. He certainly did not balance the budget, and he did stick us with the 1983 Social Security Plan that drove the Payroll tax up to 15.3%. I am not running Reagan down, just trying to get some perspective.
4. Black Bart: “The mantra is, “Anybody but Obama”, but has it occured to you that Romney may be the worst choice for that position? … If Anybody But Obama is your candidate that infers that the list of potential contenders is quite long. It does not have to be Romney.”
Here is the problem. A year ago we had a dozen or more candidates, and another dozen or so possibilities. We are now down to four, two of whom are just in it for grins (Newt and Paul). Out of that dozen, they all dqed themselves or were dqed by the voters. Remember Rick Perry? He was actually far more qualified than most of the others. But, he wilted under the klieg lights.
The others did not want to get in. We need to accept the determination of anyone that he does not want to run for president. The system is brutal. If you cannot get the media to cover for you like Obama did, i.e., if you are a Republican, your life will be fileted on the table by a sneering Andrea Mitchel. And you will be the target of the bile of every Wanda Sykes and Jon Stewart in the country. If, like Mitch Daniels, your family has any fragility to it, running is out of the question. It is not a good system, but it is reality now.
So here we are. There are two viable candidates, and one of them will win. You may not like the winner but your only alternative will be Obama? Sucks doesn’t it. That is life learn to deal with it.
You brought up the notion of a brokered convention. The notion is flawed for a number of reasons. First, there are no brokers any more, because the primary system has destroyed that function. Second, why do you think a convention will find a better candidate than the process has so far? Have we overlooked some shy person? Shy people cannot be successful Presidential candidates in the 21st century. Only someone with iron self possession and the hide of a Rhino could survive the media gantlet.
Peggy Noonan a WSJ columnist, who was a Reagan speechwriter, but who endorsed Hussein in 2008, wanted a brokered convention a few weeks ago so that the party could nominate her favorite conservative heart throb, Jeb Bush. This is so delusional on multiple planes. Really folks.
10. jd: “What I don’t see is Mitt being a person who will Lead the Nation in a Different Direction. … He also has no Vision and come to Conservativism as an Acquired Taste. … Mitt has No Chance what-so-ever of being a National Scott Walker. NONE!”
Here is my most important point. There is a portion of the conservative electorate that dreams of a great tidal wave that will wash the socialist government in Washington DC away, that will terminate Social Security and Medicare, return other functions to the states, and purify our laws. I do too.
The majority of the American people who think of themselves as moderate or conservative want no such thing. They are hanging on by a thread, and they do not want to run any risk of chaos or catastrophe. They want law and order, but they want to be left alone. They want fiscal probity, but the want low taxes and grandma’s Social Security check on time and in full. And so it goes. They want the clock turned back, but to 2007 without the war or 1997 without the scandals.
A transformative politician has no chance to win them over. Obama won in 2008 by keeping his cool, and appearing to be very moderate. The independents and moderates who voted for him are not happy about being snookered, even though we tried to warn them. You might want a drink of hot coffee, but cold milk is what will sell.
11. JP: ” … someone more conservative than Romney could have won on the national level.”
But, he wasn’t running, so there you are.
13. arhooley: “McDaniels”?
I believe the good doctor meant Mitch Daniels.
At this point, can you envision any President who rolls back the current nearly trillion and half annual Federal deficit to something vaguely sustainable as anything other than “transformative”?
Remember the furor over Reagan’s budget “cuts” which were merely decreases in automatic baseline increases? Such President might make Walker look like Gerald Ford in comparison—at the very least, he’ll be portrayed that way—but if that deficit decrease doesn’t happen fairly soon things are going to get arbitrarily ugly and a lot sooner than most of us expected pre-Obama.
“11. JP: ” … someone more conservative than Romney could have won on the national level.”
But, he wasn’t running, so there you are.”
Ron Paul is running. He has never voted for a tax increase. Never voted for an unbalanced budget. Has the most conservative and constitutional voting record in all of Congress.
Congressman Tim Johnson: “Ron Paul has more integrity in his little finger than the rest of us politicians all have in our entire bodies combined.”
Ron Paul wants to cut one trillion dollars of wasteful spending his first year and balance the budget in three years. He is honest enough and has the guts enough to say this outright and has the budget plan of it on his website.
Paul has far more delegates than the media gives him credit for. If there is a brokered convention, that means in round two all delegates are unbound. That’s when a lot of people might see some Ron Paul fireworks.
Look at the blatant caucus corruption in Athens, GA and St. Charles, MO. The establishment GOP will do anything to stop Ron Paul since he will preside by The Constitution and will push for true spending reduction and debt reduction. All of the fake conservatives fear people who take their oath to defend the Constitution seriously.
“Here is my most important point. There is a portion of the conservative electorate that dreams of a great tidal wave that will wash the socialist government in Washington DC away, that will terminate Social Security and Medicare, return other functions to the states, and purify our laws. I do too.”
That’s pie in the Sky!
I have an idea, let’s just try for the elimination of PBS, NPR, and NEA (National Endowment for the Arts).
But Mitt won’t even do that.
Interesting. Basically Americans have been living off capital and other people’s savings while playing the world’s policemen. Probably most of the modern technological revolution and its ancillary jobs in the last thirty years are direct and indirect spinoffs from the NASA space programs and the cold war. Supposedly globalization was to free up Americans from doing the drudge work so they could do those interesting, value added, future new technologies that were to magically come on line. Except NASA’s budget peaked in 1969 at 4.5 percent of GDP, the year we landed on the moon–in spite of a decade of war and riots in the streets. In 1976 it hit one percent of GDP and slid lower, only reaching one percent again briefly in ’92. Since then its declined to half a percent of GDP and falling during both stock market and housing bubbles. Obviously the end of the cold war peace dividends didn’t go to those neo New Frontier, slide rule ready basic science programs of discovery for the new technologies and jobs of the future, cause there’s nothing currently at hand unless it’s a rifle designed in ’65. I guess Americans are just going to have to be content being the world’s legionnaires since Romney and Obama think going back to the moon is too dangerous and insane for a capital investment. Apparently free contraceptives with no co-pays is more important than going to Mars. That, and banning the free Happy Meal, must be the result of an acute but hither to unknown nesting drive of the modern American politician.
“Slide rule ready”?
FYI, those technological innovations you claim never happened due to a shrinking NASA made the slide rule obsolete a long time ago.
And we did get the globalization, resulting in both lower wages & higher unemployment as businesses fled to the Third World and its cheap labor, while others simply imported the same cheap labor here via H-1B and L-1 visas.
I was working in Walker’s community about the time he entered middle school and owned a home in Milwaukee County the year he was elected Executive.
He would be a better candidate today than any regularly mentioned but one.
Mentioning Romney in the same breath is beneath you. The idea that Independents should fear Obama and surrender is absurd. You grow up and I’ll think about it.
Monica Crowley today said “In a contest between Obama and a pineapple, I’ll take the pineapple. Mitt Romney is our pineapple. This election is not about the GOP candidate.”
Eggplant perhaps, but Mitt would be vegetative in any event. The GOP will gain the Senate but a ‘Gang of 14′ including RINOs McCain, Graham, Coburn, Collins, Brown, Corker, et al., will control the cameras. Congress will still be a leaderless abomination.
But they might actually be better in opposition than frightened of their own shadows with a go-along-to-get-along POTUS who will sign anything they they are willing to work out.
could be anybody, even worse.
spengler is convincing, coming out for romney as he does, but the air of weakness about romney cannot be ignored.
we need a tough, mean, smart, lowdown sonuvabitch to handle iran, the brothers, putin, turkey, and stupid europe.
and ditto to handle obama face to face and show up his racist hatred of america in the pubic eye for everyone to see.
only newt gingrich can do it.
Always like David Golman’s insights. I too like Scott Walker. He seems to be a quiet, humble hero, fighting the real fight with very little public reward. As for Romney, I think Goldman gives him way too much credit with this, “Romney’s saying the three magic words: Cut taxes across the board, roll back regulation, and keep America the world’s unchallenged military power. There’s nothing wrong with his message. But he has to traverse a minefield.”.
Romney is explicitly NOT saying cut taxes across the board. He has adapted the Lefts position of not cutting the highest earner taxes, accepting the idea that they make too much. Secondly, he is clearly not saying roll back regulation. I believe he supports cap and trade. He has certainly commented positively about it, and the need to cut greenhouse gases. All this while our economy suffers under the moronic regulations of the gas and coal sectors. I have not heard Romney make a clear concise principled argument for the reduction of bureaucracy. Oh yeah, and he favored state run health care and still does.
I would take the simple, clear conservative honesty of Scott Walker any day over the opportunistic used car salesmanship of Romney. He is not a conservative, though he is willing to say he is to get elected.
Don’t worry about anything Mr Goldman. Romney’s a liberal anyway. He’ll do everything he can, any time he can, to roll over and get his belly scratched by the left wing media, and democrat party. He’ll throw a bone to conservatives every once in a while to shut us up, but in his heart he’s a lib. You and the rest of your “moderate” buddies can rest assured he won’t do anything to offend your delicate sensitivities. We conservatives on the other hand have to be prepared to be bent over the republican table yet again.
Fact free angst, huh mark. perspective people. Try to get it and maintain it.
Romney’s a liberal anyway.
If Romney is a liberal, why has he been endorsed by so many dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, people like Robert Bork, Tom Coburn, Paul Ryan, etc?
Maybe they know more than you do.
Because they’re in the “anybody but Obama” frame of mind and at the time they endorsed Romney that was the best path they saw to that goal?
I doubt any are saying he’s the second coming of Reagan.
“I doubt any are saying he (Romney) is the second coming of Reagan”.
But then, who could fill those shoes? Perhaps the question is, who is most likely to rise to meet the moment?
Also, I think Bolton and DeMint (sort of) can be added to the Romney endorser list.
I don’t care what Republicans want. Why? Because they don’t know what the hell they want.
They want to beat Obama, you say? Really? If so, they wouldn’t be tiptoeing around the tulip’s nasty middle finger.
What I want is a candidate who will call Obama out for high treason, tearing America down.
Fat chance of fielding such a candidate until Republicans get that hard fact about Obama through their thick skulls.
I’m not a big fan of Romney. I can’t stand Santorum. But I think people need to keep in mind that it’s not just Obama that’s the problem. It’s his vast tentacles (if you will) reaching into the Cabinet, and all the Czars and so forth. I do not want a Progressive Utopia forced on me. Santorum would lose the election. Romney may lose. Hopefully we will have some success with the Congress and State and Local Governments. This path we are on has to end NOW!
he’ll fold if he runs, no matter how much we support him.
If the Republican Party lacks the guts to do the necessary, and it does, let it go the way of the Whigs.
If Mitt Romney is going to tout his private sector experience then he must say how he will implement it in the POTUS position.
As a capitalist who looked at struggling companies he had to look at the business, what it was created to do and what it was doing and decide how to put those into alignment. That meant cutting off the things that were not part of the business structure and generally cutting way back on expenses to head towards solvency. To date he has not said that this is what he thinks is necessary for the US federal government.
That is important because the US has a business plan known as the Constitution, and it has enumerated powers and functions, and it must DO those things which are few and stated. To get spending back under control is not some lovely 10% across the board cut, which leaves the behemoth in place ready to re-grow again. Budgets that are balanced now, via trickery and procedural cuts, will not allow for changes in governance that will then put in new process on the existing agencies. This does not work. It does not work in MA, it does not work in CA, it does not work anywhere the tools for expanding power and outlay are kept.
To win support on necessary cuts to entitlements the US federal government has to demonstrate that it understands that IT must cut back on its excessive reach and spending BOTH. This is not about an election for some minor tweak to the economy to get it ‘working’ again as there is a huge, red drain bleeding it dry. This election is about the size, scope and power of the US federal government and if you vote thinking ‘party’ you are dooming the Nation to insolvency and loss of liberty for yourself and all our posterity… and perhaps all of mankind, to boot at this rate.
You want MY wholehearted support for Mitt Romney? He will get it the moment he says: I will do to the beloved IRS, EPA, Labor, Education and FDA what I did to Kay-Bee Toy.
Only AFTER demonstrating that it is serious about doing its job will the federal government win back any trust AT ALL on any other thing. And that trust is vital in cutting back the entitlements. Get this officious, wasteful and authoritarian government out of our lives by demonstrating the willingness to cut back and the American people will see that they need to cut back on the goodies taken from their fellow taxpayers… and really, we should all be paying something for the upkeep of the Nation from poor to rich, we all pledge to make this Nation as one people and even the poor should be able to kick in a bit to keep it going.
I’m not holding my breath to hear such stuff from Mitt Romney.
I’ll look downticket to see if it is possible to start cutting off the blood supply to the beast from the bottom, not the top.
“Scott Walker is my hero, because he’s the only Republican with the guts to start doing what has to be done.”
“That’s why all Republicans need to stop playing games and united behind Romney and get him elected in November.”
What!? Does not compute… does not compute….
Ron Paul is the only candidate with the guts to start doing what needs to be done. Cut one trillion of waste from the budget. Balance the budget in three years. Protect the borders. Audit The Fed.
Romney won’t do those things.
The ONLY candidate truly serious about wasteful spending and the debt is Ron Paul. People who say they are serious but then talk about Romney or Santorum better start seriously getting serious. If the U.S. dollar loses its status as the world currency, the American people will suffer dearly.
Which candidate is wise enough about economics to have predicted the housing bubble five years before it happened? That would be Ron Paul. Check out some of his “predictions” videos on Youtube. You can look at what Ron Paul said 5-10 years in the past and then see how his predictions come true. And it will happen again 5-10 years from now.
Ron Paul knows what he is talking about and knows what needs to be done, and he’s the only presidential candidate with the guts to do it and with the guts to be honest with the American people.
not only do I want the GOP nominee to be Scott Walker, I want him/her to be Scott Walker on steriods!
the writer of this piece is a progressive-enabling, Rockafeller-republican, RINO fool!
Ron Paul is the only candidate with the honesty and the guts to do what needs to be done. Cut one trillion dollars of wasteful spending his first year. Balance the budget in three years.
You won’t see Romney doing that.
Scott Walker has started to address some of the State-Level problems that come from overcompensating and over-hiring a large workforce. The benefits on the state level – lots of jobs with great retirement benefits – run to a large but limited group of people (state and municipality workers). While this has led to a lot of energized anti-Walker schoolteachers and union types, taxpayers in general are also pretty motivated because they don’t get any benefit from the excess the state spends over what it has to spend to keep services at the normal level.
The problem with the ‘Scott Walker solution’ on the federal level is that on the Federal Level the main problems with spending have more to do with payout to huge numbers of middle class people (SS and Medicare). Neither the Reps or Dems will touch these programs because any politician who thinks to mess with them will surely lose reelection. We shouldn’t blame politicians too much – I think the root cause is the character of the American people who have been voting themselves the moon for a generation now.
I couldn’t begin to speak for Republicans en masse, but I’ll explain what I want and see if it helps.
I’d rather the nominee were someone better than Romney, but that’s simply not on tap. Barring that, though, I’d like Romney to accept the nomination in the summer, having been forced significantly rightward by the demands of the party’s base, and by the need to mollify Santorum voters who will have made their muscle felt.
The earlier the party’s right wing “stops playing games and unites behind Romney,” the less likely this scenario becomes, and the more anodyne Romney will feel free to be.
Sometime in the next 4 to 6 years the dollar will collapse. It will collapse due to our unfunded liablities that no one will do a thing about until the dollar collapses. We go to Freegold and/or a gold standard at that point and totally reconfigure entitlements or we have chaos. Read Rogoff/Reinhart;Peter Bernholz; “How Money Dies” by Adam Fergusson and finally “Currency Wars” by Jim Rickards.
I will vote for Romney as I can’t stand Obama. My fear is that Romney has mostly likely not read the above authors and therefore does not understand the gravity of the situation. If Romney is elected, we are likely to get a cabinet composed of the same retreads of the Bush (both of them) years or other people like them who can’t understand our predicament. I would love to be pleasantly surprised but hold out very little hope.
In the meantime stock up on things you may need before the chaos arrives.
Honesty first and foremost! Ron Paul Speaks on the coming Greatest Depression Jan 27, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH58u8wzj9o&feature=related
David is right. Scott Walker is the bravest man in American politics today. I have had to live in Wisconsin for the last two years and I can not tell you how dependent on government jobs and handouts Wisconsinites have become. As their taxes have gone up to pay for increased benefits for their state and municipal workers, the factories and industrial manufacturers have left the state for cheaper places to do business.
Their incessant drinking and bad eating has forced up medical rates so that I can’t pay out of pocket to go get a looked at for a cold without paying $400 just to darken in the door.
Their lack of opportunities have caused their children to flee and what is left is an aging population with a dwindling tax payer base. My father-in-law pays over $5000 on a $180K house.
Coming from a large southern state that has a rainy day fund I can’t fathom how anyone would have wanted their state to be operated like this.
I’ve never given a political donation before…but my first will be to Scott Walker.
There is no way that Romney can beat Obama. Obama will outspend Romney in every swing state. There will be no blue collar Democrat, Joe-the-Plumber working men lining up to vote for the silver spoon vulture capitalist building his next multi-million-dollar mansion.
The only Republicans supporting Romney are the out-of-touch, geriatric, country-club legal beagles and their friends, the conservative establishment media hacks who spend half their time living overseas in Singapore. Or was it China? You limp-wristed, senile old utopian Nixon-era dimwits couldn’t find a conservative value if a target was painted on it. (When was the last time you exercised your 2nd amendment right?)
The only way to defeat Obama is to offer a clear, conservative alternative. Mitt Romney is incapable of doing so.
Congratulations Republicans. Your abject stupidity will result in 4 more years of President Obama.
I think you’re ignoring the concept that the voters just might choose to fire Obama, and won’t be too particular about his replacement. You’ve listed a set of reasons to not for for Romney; surely you can come up with a set to vote against Obama?
Sure. Come up with one reason to vote for Romney.
Not against Obama, whom the GOP should by all rights be able to shut down, but for Romney.
Here’s one, echoing my above reference to Bob Krumm’s prediction: he’ll be the last (establishment) Republican President ever elected.
Unless you don’t think we’ll hit that fiscal wall at Romney’s 50 mph before he’s replaced by a Democrat.
Yes, I know that’s not an answer to your real question; at this moment I don’t have any nor do I foresee that changing. On my two biggest issues at this time, our impending fiscal disaster and Obamacare, he’s … less than satisfactory. Ditto for my touchstone of the RKBA.
I’m no fan of Romney, and I don’t dispute there are certain realities behind your Establishment caricature, but we can’t blame any “country-club cabals” for Romney’s all-but-certain nomination. The credible alternatives either never entered the race at all, or imploded under their own power.
Uhuh. The Romney smear machine had nothing to do with it. It won’t work on Obama.
At most, nothing decisive. Neither Perry, Cain, Bachmann, nor Paul needed much in the way of helping hands. And the really promising candidates who stayed out of the race seemed less intimidated by Romney than determined to keep their powder dry for 2016.
Looking at Romney’s record makes one realize that he is not conservative, and not even a good moderate. In his own words, you can see that he is uncomfortable with conservative ideas, not to mention that his advisors have been coming out with opposite remarks to what he says in campaign speeches and debates. Leaves one VERY confused about the man, to be honest. I hope he does all he’s stated in the debates he will do, but it is the behind the scenes stuff that has me worried. And, not just me, but tons of others. We cannot quite trust him and trust is a big thing, seeing how some of the so-called Tea Party candidates turned out to be ‘in name’ only from the 2010 election. We’re quite tired of being told to get in line and vote, that we are too stupid to see that this person or that is our best shot.
I’m on SS and Medicare. I’ve also had my pension reduced when my old employer went belly up and dumped its pension plan on the PBGC. Yes, it hurts when you have to tighten the belt. And some retirees are pretty close to the last notch. However, I’ve known for the last ten years that Medicare and SS were unsustainable as presently executed. I’ve prayed that the Republicans would do something. The sooner the cuts are made the easier it willl be for everybody concerned.
SS and Medicare can no longer be considered “entitlement” or “insurance” programs. They aren’t. We paid into them all those years believing they were, but the government spent the money. They are now welfare programs and we might as well own up to it. They both need to be means tested and reduced so that they are actuarily sound. I know many will not want to hear that. So be it.
The most important thing we can do is get this economy up and running again is to create jobs, jobs, and more jobs. One of the first things to do is to enact a vigorous energy policy that calls for drilling for ALL our oil and gas. The economy floats on a sea of reasonably priced, secure energy. The only way to achieve that is to drill for our oil and gas. Romney, in my view, will do those two things. And he will work with Paul Ryan on cutting the size and scope of government. If he’s nopt the nominee, however, I will work for and contribute to, whoever is the nominee.
Politicians win by making people feel good about themselves. Reagan was a master of that, a star from the feel-good era of American movies. The trouble now is that Americans should NOT feel good about themselves: we took the dominant position in the world and we loused it up. We let the Asians get the engineering degrees and speculated in houses, and if we had tech skills, we devoted them to video games and social networks. Look at who is winning out there: three-quarters of the slots in the top New York public high schools are taken by Asian kids (who are 8% of the student population). Want to complain about China? Look at what Chinese, and Korean, and Vietnamese and other kids are doing in the US. Adjustment is going to require some belt-tightening and givebacks, and Americans are going to have to accept that they screwed up and have to play catch-up. It’s hard to run for office with that message. All the true-blue conservative ideological purity in the world won’t help.
All the true-blue conservative ideological purity in the world won’t help.
…neither will voting for Romney. You set the bar far too low. Very, very few people seek or require ‘purity’, and you know it.
“Cut taxes across the board, roll back regulation, and keep America the world’s unchallenged military power. What, pray tell, does that offer to the average unemployed American? Cut taxes: no effect for more than half of Americans. Roll back regulation: a few more jobs in natural resource extraction and other dirty industries, not really relevant for most people. Military power: sounds like valuing overseas spending over domestic spending plus more taxes. Not much in this message to appeal to the average American. the Obamacons will demonize the heck out of this message, we need something better.