Posted on 01/26/2015 12:18:28 PM PST by Kaslin
Mitt Romney, you're an honorable and accomplished man. You would have been a good president and infinitely better than Obama as a steward of the economy and national security. But, Mitt, we need to talk. You don't get it.
You don't really get the basic proposition that freedom works better than government by experts. Sure you believe the concept generally, but there are all those details and exceptions.
You hired Jonathan Gruber to guide your health plan. You believe global schemes to reduce carbon will help the climate rather than enrich and empower global elites. You endorsed raising the minimum wage because "Republicans believe in good paying jobs."
Mitt, you of all people should know markets--supply and demand--create good paying jobs. Legislation does not create value, it only creates price controls on inputs. You'll either lock out some potential employers, block some potential jobs, or lock out bottom rung job applicants. (All the same thing, really)
Mitt, you have brains, expertise, and you love America. But your ability to describe the benefits of a free economy, is, well, anti-Reaganesque. The thing is, the miracle of free enterprise is not mainly about the entrepreneurs who build products and fortunes, though that is a driving force. It's about the freedom and quality of life that results for everybody else in a society where producers, designers, investors, and risk takers can dream and try to fill needs. It makes more opportunity for all of us. More startups. More jobs. More growth. More consumer choice and comfort.
That helps everyone, especially the 47% you seemed so dismissive of, and were unfairly maligned for disdaining. You didn't disdain them--you just didn't show a Reagan-like faith in them. Or even a Gingrich-like faith. Reagan was decried for arguing economic freedom could help lift the poor. He was proved right. Gingrich was savaged for arguing welfare reforms that tightened requirements and timelines could help the poor. He was proved right.
But, critically, each man knew how to make his case to Main Street and to working America, and how to go over the heads of the Liberal Guard Dog Media to explainpolicies rooted in freedom work out better for everyone, especially the strivers that liberals say they want to help.
Mitt, you don't have that gift. You're extraordinary talking about what you know--capitalistic dynamism, profit, efficiency, management, accountability, and oversight. Unfortunately, you are infelicitous and clunky at translating those virtues into an appealing political vision to attract anyone but your pre-existing supporters.
And, when it comes to discussing areas outside your core competency of high level capitalism... Wait. Even at this, I might be giving you too much credit and benefit of the doubt. You supported and defended the financial bailouts, didn't you? So, whatever your vision and expressed support for free enterprise, you still don’t quite trust free exchange. You believe in a massive government safety net for too-big-to-fail banks and investment houses. You say it’s to protect us from the supposedly nuclear consequences if they fail. Little guys have to pay to keep big guys in business, or else the little guys will get hurt? Come on, Mitt.
To be fair, you did criticize the auto bailouts, which really were UAW union bailouts. That took courage, and you paid a price against the First Demagogue and his media Dog Pack defenders. But even then, you were weak and inadequate at answering their false charges against you.
You were poor at explaining how an evolving economy works. How, if Chrysler and GM nameplates came off the door, well, Americans would still want cars; producers would still want to supply them. Corporate and bankruptcy law would provide a strong and efficient reallocation of the assets and property, and American carmakers would be right back at work, serving American car buyers more efficiently than the failed manufacturers.
And, Mitt, this is the kind of thing you should have down cold in your sleep. This is business. You know business and finance and restructuring.
It gets worse in the things you don't know as much about, like health care finance and global climate. Then, your smart, credentialed, and trusting nature leaves you prey to the Grubers and the Michael Manns of the world. Not because you're a grasping progressive who lusts for control, but because you are a worldly, accomplished man who believes smart people can solve alleged problems. You become the front man for forces who are not your friend, or friends of liberty.
Mitt, America’s mood and moment calls for a better candidate than someone who would be an excellent, positive manager of the Executive Branch. You would be a strong president, but you’re a bad standard bearer. This moment calls for a vision of liberty, a grasp of how restoring constitutional principles can restore liberty, and a gift for explaining these things to average voters who didn’t learn jack diddly about any of that in public schools.
We desperately need a messenger who can talk persuasively to the boardroom and to the apartment house. One out of two ain’t good enough. Mitt, I wish you had won in 2012. I wish you would run far, far away in 2016.
Mitt shouldn’t overlook an important reason for not running. He won’t win. Either in the primary or the general, he will lose. Political privilege isn’t enough. He needs political appeal, a little media flair, and he doesn’t have it.
Thank you for the column, this is it exactly. America would be in much better shape if he had won, but he is not the right guy for 2016 now that so much damage has been caused by Obama.
I agree. Mitt’s time has passed. I’ve always thought that if he wanted to run he should run for Senate again. His latest statements on climate change and minimum wage totally disqualify him in my book.
Don’t Run, Mitt. Don’t Run
Don’t Run, Jeb. Don’t Run
Don’t Run, Marco. Don’t Run
Don’t Run, Huckabee. Don’t Run
Please Run, Cruz. Please Run.
Please Run, Walker, Please Run.
Enough damned Rino crap.
I’m fine with MIT running. Just look at all the Money and votes he’ll take away from Bush and Christie.
RIGHT ON!!!
Since none of them wants to back down, I say let them all fight it out and split the RINO vote and money.
Don’t run Jeb, don’t run.
Yeah well don’t go encouraging him..
If you don’t want Willard to run then just say so..
don’t go kissing up to him..
Y’all’ll confuse the po lil liberal..
Agree, no one like him gets to where he is by being a good person. there has been a lot of people screwed over and Bush family can piss off too.
Plus they would not be fund raising for and supporting democrats to defeat republicans like he did, and fund raising for Planned Parenthood, wanting gay Scout leaders and being so passionately pro-abortion as him, and promoting gays in the military decades ago, and introducing gay marriage to America, and so on.
He is like a lot of horrible people, nice clothes, soft mannerism, and a good haircut, and he never personally does anything to show bad manners in public, so he seems “nice” to many.
Ansel12, the primary reason that most good people will not even consider getting involved in politics at any level is because they don’t want to be attacked by people spreading hateful lies about their character and their past.
I do not know what level of involvement you have working with politicians. Because of fund raising activities my wife and I have been deeply involved with for the past several years for the USO and other charitable organizations, we have had a lot of direct contact. Some of them are not people who we have much of a desire to befriend, but most even those many we don’t agree with are generally civic minded people with many admirable qualities. We have known politicians even at the federal level who have been deeply hurt and offended by those who make statements about them that we have known for a fact are completely untrue.
I have never met Mr. Romney; I hope that he chooses not to run for president again... but I do not believe that he is a “foul and despicable person” of “low character and low morals, and a pathological liar.” I have however been reading your posts for several years now and have found them to be offensive on many occasions on a variety of topics. With your nearly constant level of highly vitriolic hyperbole; it makes it nearly impossible to tell whether what whatever it is you are currently ranting about has any actual merit.
Most of the time I simply skip over anything that I realize has come from your keyboard. If you hadn’t made a direct response to my post... I would simply have ignored you this time as well. I am very hopeful that your tone here is not representative of your actual demeanor in real life. If it is I am very sorry for you.
Mr.Romney you simply are not trusted.
That sir is the heart of the matter. You and your team of highly paid consultants miserably failed to earn the trust of the majority of the grass roots people you need to win.
You not only lost their trust Mr. Romney, you burned and buried thinking that it did not matter, money would overcome its loss, and you would float into the White House on wave of campaign donations. Unfortunately for you dollar bills do not vote, people do.
To be blunt, your wasting everyone’s time Mr. Romney. No one trust you other then those whose paycheck you sign.
LOL, you don’t seem to know anything about the man.
Instead you launch into nasty little personal attacks that are pure nonsense, no wonder you can’t judge good character, you lack it yourself, don’t you think you should instead be defending your despicable worm of a man? If you have been as knowledgeable about politics as me and others here, then you know that he is a pathological liar, just as I told you in that post.
You can also look at post 31 for a hint of more.
Since you ignore your own tag line, perhaps you can look up why Romney is a pathological liar, perhaps why he said that he and his father marched with Martin Luther King, or why he has the character flaw of having a compulsion to lie, which he has demonstrated so often during his life.
Compulsive liars have serious issues, a compulsion to dishonesty for one.
TRUTH is that:
1. Romney stated clearly in front of a microphone that he believes that a pregnant minor who wants an abortion but whose parents refuse consent, has the "right" to go to a judge and have him overrule the parents.
2. Romney was a supporter of Gay Youth Pride and his signature is on official proclamations endorsing their "outreach" to kids as young as sixth grade.
3. Romney stated clearly in front of the press that he believes that two homosexual men "who love each other" should be able to adopt children, i.e., the government has a right to prevent adoption agencies from telling those two gay men, "Absolutely NOT because you're gay! We're not entrusting our precious kids to your charge!"
You can pretend that these documented indicators of his character are "hateful lies," but you are only lying to yourself. Face the truth about Romney and OWN IT.
Oh, Ansel12, I expected nothing less from you. I am very sorry that you feel that my response to you was a “nasty little personal attack”.
If you would go to the trouble of re-reading my original post you would see that I said his recent statements make him “look like either a gullible idiot or someone who panders to the liberal agenda.” Does this sound like someone “defending your man”? I am sure that he has said a lot of other stupid things over the years. However you have made so many hateful allegations over the years about various topics that turned out to be false that I simply don’t bother trying to check them out any more.
My point to you, and this actually is meant as constructive criticism... is that your inflammatory comments can be counter-productive. You would probably be taken more seriously if you could tone it down a little.
Why don’t you quit lying an man up?
For one thing show us a few of those many statements that you claim are hateful, and were proven false, I would like to see those.
On this thread, why won’t you show me the “inflammatory statements” that you have proved false so far?
So far, you attack, but you can’t defend Mitt Romney, why is that?
Ansel12, thank you for continuing to make my points for me. I will repeat that I have made no comments here defending Mitt Romney about anything. You illustrate perfectly why it is best to choose to ignore your comments. You manage to lower the level of discourse in any discussion to a level of nasty name calling. I do not think that makes you a valuable addition to the community. But Congratulations! You have done it again!
Evidently not, and your method of personal attacks in defending him on this thread, has shown why you would approve of such a despicable man.
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