Posted on 09/26/2014 2:02:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I’ve been mostly ignoring the various “Romney 2016!” trial balloons floated by various parties over the last six months or so (including by some of my dear friends, alas), but now that someone as sober and well-informed as Byron York has weighed in with a “this could happen” column, it’s worth saying something about why the possibility keeps coming up.
Part of the answer can be found in Henry Olsen’s helpful analysis, from earlier this year, of how exactly Republican presidential primaries tend to shake out. Olsen offered a four-group typology of G.O.P. primary voters — secular conservatives, religious conservatives, moderate conservatives and Rockefeller-Republican centrists — and argued that the nomination almost always goes to the candidate who can rally the moderate conservatives and co-opt elements from the other constituencies while fending of challenges from the right and (sometimes, though less often) the center. There are different ways to do this (as evidenced by George W. Bush and John McCain’s very different paths to the nomination), but the trick doesn’t change that much from cycle to cycle — you want to seem conservative enough but not too right-wing, electable but not a liberal sellout, a safe choice for donors who also makes the party’s activists feel respected. You don’t win by running against those activists (as McCain did in 2000, and Jon Huntsman did in 2012), and you also don’t win by running as an ideological insurgent; you win by straddling dispositional and ideological conservatism, raising lots of money, and promising the best chance of victory in November....
(Excerpt) Read more at douthat.blogs.nytimes.com ...
We don’t need a panty waist who is too weak and in bed with the Chamber of Commerce to attack illegal immigration head on.
I'm not, you got a mouse in your pocket there Ross?
Once again the MSM attempts to drive public opinion,..........
...and the RINOs he rides with.
I liked Mitt Romney. He has experience running large organizations and he’s not afraid to make tough decisions. Both parties have an establishment candidate and an outsider. The Dems establishment candidate is Hillary. They have no clear outsider. The GOP has some potential outsiders (Cruz, Rand, amongst others) but, with Christie and Jeb Bush polling so low, Romney is the next logical Establishment choice. Not everything is a huge conspiracy!!! If one of the outsiders beats Mitt in the Primaries, then so be it. But, to go into any election without an establishment candidate is absolutely foolish.
Because he would guarantee a Hillary victory.
Ross Douthat crossed over to the darkside many years ago when he became a militant vegetarian.
Why We’re Talking About Mitt Romney
__________________________________
We are NOT talking about Romney.
Unless by we - you mean Democrats who would love to face the same loser in 16 as they did in 12.
Or Rovian bass turds who want to piss off conservatives in 16 as they did in 12.
Because he's such a winner!
(Just like 2012 showed.)
The candidates who get talked up as the most conservative usually don't get a large enough share of the large moderate-conservative bloc that is the largest part of the party to beat out someone like Romney.
That doesn't mean Romney will be or should be the candidate, but it may mean that it's not just the GOPe that has a lot to learn.
They got insiders and outsiders, but the big question is, do they have a Conservative? I MIGHT be convinced to vote for Cruz, MAYBE, but in all honesty, I don't see anyone who is really up to the task ahead of us.
We are talking about Mitt Romney because that’s who the big-government/big-corporate crony-fascist complex wants as the GOP nominee.
I think we need to look outside Washington and the Establishment. I want to hear from the conservative Governors who have been successful, like Walker.
Yeah, according to him. Name one large organization? When he "took over" the Salt Lake City Olympics all he did was massivley apply for every federal program he could think of.
The guy that ran the 1984 LA Olympics actually made money using free market principles.
I'm also interested in a list of those "tough decisions". In 2012 his economic "plan" had 59 points. That's not making tough decisions. It was all muddled consulting speak.
He's not saying Romney should be the nominee -- "I hope for his sake that he realizes as much, and finds another, saner way to serve the country he so loves."
He's just offering an explanation of why so many people are talking about Romney now.
Political conservatism has the defect of indepedent thought and persoanl freedom. Those characteristics are fatal to a consensus in electoral politics. Better get over it if we ever expect to win again.
Believe me, if Mitt was gaining ground Ross would be on board.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.