Posted on 02/03/2012 10:37:35 AM PST by Steelfish
FEBRUARY 3, 2012 The Case for Romney A president who owes you is better than one who owns you. By Jonah Goldberg
Years ago, a friend told me a story from her days living in South America. The movie Wayne’s World had come out, and she went to see it. She spoke English, but it was interesting to read the Spanish subtitles.
For instance, early in the film, Wayne says: “Shyeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!”
The Spanish subtitles read: “Yes, when judgment day comes.”
Needless to say, something was lost in translation.
This, in a nutshell, is Mitt Romney’s biggest problem. A late immigrant to conservatism, Romney doesn’t speak the language naturally. He shares traits with both Al Gore, whose stiffness bordered on the animatronic, and George H. W. Bush, whose contempt for the song-and-dance of elections was transparent. Gore tried to compensate for his inadequacies by shouting, like an ugly American who thinks a foreigner will understand him if he only talks louder. Bush fell back on recitations of patriotic slogans and the generosity of providence that delivered Michael Dukakis as an opponent.
Romney hasn’t cracked the problem yet. He speaks conservatism as a second language, and his mastery of the basic grammar of politics is often spotty as well.
The examples at this point are beyond numerous enough to establish that most toxic of media fixations: a narrative. Journalists like typecasting politicians. Sarah Palin could announce she’s solved pi to the last digit and reconciled all of the inconsistencies in the TV show Lost, and the New York Times would still call her an idiot. Gore could kill a man in a bar fight with a broken pool cue, and he’d still be a cold fish.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Many people find God in combat. It’s what you do when the shooting stops that matters.
When Romney’s supposed expertise is in business and the private sector, and he doens’t understand how bad increasing the minimum wage is to the economy, and he reflexedly says sure it should be indexed to inflation, there is no way he is going to be a surprise or potempkin conservative.
He’s going to more along the lines of Richard Nixon, who said that we’re all Keynsians now. Thank God we had an old man like Ronald Reagan still around after Nixon who got his economics degree before Keynes too hold, and knew how to get the economy back on track.
Do you believe Romney is a resent convert to conservatism, or a bad liar? ...He can’t speak conservatism because he doesn’t believe it. His conservatism is as shallow as Ann Coulter’s pee puddle.
Do Republicans seriously want to conserve America's constitutional principles? Or, are they just objecting to Democrats? Do they have a passion for liberty? Is this just about changing the Party in power, or is it about preserving freedom?
If their concern is for convincing enough voters to reject the idea of "a government big enough to give you everyting you want" and turn to advocacy for "a government small enough to allow you freedom to keep most of what you earn," then they'd better get busy seeing that someone is nominated who has been "marinated" (to use a word coined by Ingraham last night on "The Factor") in the Founders' ideas (isn't that what conservatives purport to "conserve"?).
So far, Mitt Romney demonstrates no such immersion. He has been "successful" in benefiting from those ideas, and he recites familiar words and phrases from patriotic speeches and songs, but that is different from understanding and being able to call up and articulate the philosophy which made such success possible.
Ronald Reagan's life and letters reveal that he had "immersed" himself in those ideas for years before he agreed to run for President, and that is why he could set "issues" in light of constitutional "principle." and explain his advocacy or rejection of solutions in by that light.
The other three candidates--Paul, Santorum, Gingrigh--couch their answers to questions in a manner which indicate personal pursuit and understanding of the Constitution's protections, each in his own way.
Of the two so-called "frontrunners," however, the lifetime history scholar, teacher, legislator, and participant in what was called "the Reagan revolution," appears to be the one most likely to be able to successfully articulate and distinguish those ideas to voters, if given the chance to compete with the "counterfeit ideas" of tyranny cloaked in righteous benevolence by Obama.
Is "politics as usual" to win the day, or might we not bring Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, and others who embrace founding principles together to help to create a "passion" for liberty among citizens sufficient to defeat the counterfeit ideas which are leading the Republic to ruin?
The following is excerpted from "Our Ageless Constitution," p. 181:
"It was John Adams who said: "The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the people." Clearly, the Founders' passion was liberty, and in order to secure that liberty, they sought out and incorporated into the United States Constitution those ideas and principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
"The French historian, Guizot, once asked James Russell Lowell, "How long will the American republic endure?" Lowell replied: "As long as the IDEAS of the men who founded it continue dominant."
"Herein lies the answer to the question, "Will the Experiment Succeed?"
"It can and will succeed IF the motivating "principle or passion in the minds of the people" is LIBERTY, and if that passion causes them to exert the determination and will to complete the needed restoration of the IDEAS upon which the great American experiment was based." ---(End of excerpted material)
Do Republicans seriously want to conserve America's constitutional principles? Or, are they just objecting to Democrats? Do they have a passion for liberty? Is this just about changing the Party in power, or is it about preserving freedom?
If their concern is for convincing enough voters to reject the idea of "a government big enough to give you everyting you want" and turn to advocacy for "a government small enough to allow you freedom to keep most of what you earn," then they'd better get busy seeing that someone is nominated who has been "marinated" (to use a word coined by Ingraham last night on "The Factor") in the Founders' ideas (isn't that what conservatives purport to "conserve"?).
So far, Mitt Romney demonstrates no such immersion. He has been "successful" in benefiting from those ideas, and he recites familiar words and phrases from patriotic speeches and songs, but that is different from understanding and being able to call up and articulate the philosophy which made such success possible.
Ronald Reagan's life and letters reveal that he had "immersed" himself in those ideas for years before he agreed to run for President, and that is why he could set "issues" in light of constitutional "principle." and explain his advocacy or rejection of solutions in by that light.
The other three candidates--Paul, Santorum, Gingrigh--couch their answers to questions in a manner which indicate personal pursuit and understanding of the Constitution's protections, each in his own way.
Of the two so-called "frontrunners," however, the lifetime history scholar, teacher, legislator, and participant in what was called "the Reagan revolution," appears to be the one most likely to be able to successfully articulate and distinguish those ideas to voters, if given the chance to compete with the "counterfeit ideas" of tyranny cloaked in righteous benevolence by Obama.
Is "politics as usual" to win the day, or might we not bring Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, and others who embrace founding principles together to help to create a "passion" for liberty among citizens sufficient to defeat the counterfeit ideas which are leading the Republic to ruin?
The following is excerpted from "Our Ageless Constitution," p. 181:
"It was John Adams who said: "The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the people." Clearly, the Founders' passion was liberty, and in order to secure that liberty, they sought out and incorporated into the United States Constitution those ideas and principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
"The French historian, Guizot, once asked James Russell Lowell, "How long will the American republic endure?" Lowell replied: "As long as the IDEAS of the men who founded it continue dominant."
"Herein lies the answer to the question, "Will the Experiment Succeed?"
"It can and will succeed IF the motivating "principle or passion in the minds of the people" is LIBERTY, and if that passion causes them to exert the determination and will to complete the needed restoration of the IDEAS upon which the great American experiment was based." ---(End of excerpted material)
Steelfish: gremlins must have double posted. Sorry!
I think Goldberg is missing the severity of the danger of Romney. It isn’t that he doesn’t know how to speak the ‘conservative language’. Saying that is to reduce the substance of conservatism to a speech. My VA Gov is not an outspoken man but I had no doubt of his conservatism because he had RECORD of it. One does not earn the left’s moniker ‘Taliban Bob’ by being a pretend conservative.
Romney’s problem is he clearly does not have a conservative record and he still is attempting to remain ambiguous. He says he is a conservative and now he even references the ‘founding father’s regularly’ but what he should’ve been doing while running perpetually for President since 2008 is proving his conservative conversion. A lot of talk was made about Sarah Palin needing to ‘study up’ but Mitt Romney is the one who clearly needed it. His team with SC had nearly blown any chance at the nomination by re-running the 2008 campaign only with a delay vigor with the idea that all they needed to do was not peak too soon.
Now Romney is in an even bigger pickle. He with his scorched earth attacks on Gingrich to win FL has made it especially difficult then throw in his stupid comments on raising the minimum wage he is going to find himself between a rock and a hard place. His instincts is to move left when attacked. That will not win him votes if he manages to win the nomination. I for one will not even consider voting for him if he moves left in the general. Romney needs to earn the trust of conservatives but instead he has tried a game of peer pressure as if he is all we have and we can take it or leave it. If that is the choice in NOV then I’m leaving it. Sorry but sometimes when the game is rigged you just have to walk away. I truly hope that is not the case but the onus is on Romney not conservatives. A lot of it will come down to who he chooses for VP. If he chooses some dull establishment whelp or some NE oriented moderate he’ll find himself a lonely man come Nov 2nd.
>>...This is the old “trust me” slogan. But Jonah is no establishmentarian and so his analysis is worth a read...<<
I don’t care if Jonah’s the second-coming of Reagan, nor if Palin, Santorum, Gingrich, Rush and everyone’s most trusted advisor, neighbor, friend and/or family member came out and endorsed Romney — There may be the vestige of logic and reasoning still in there, but for a whoooole bunch of folks on the right, the decision has become *emotional* and they will not be turned around this time. They are not going to vote for Romney and will either sit out the election, write-in someone else or *worse*. Add to that the number of folks not only open to the idea of a third party, but in many cases *demanding* a third-party, is wholly unexpected.
This appears to be the fruit of the RNC and all its supporter’s labors this time around. It is breathtaking to consider how — in a campaign season that beavis & butthead would find difficult to foul-up — the RNC defies the odds in its favor and persists with the Romney candidacy.
I’ll vote for whoever the (R) candidate is that faces Obama. But if that’s Romney, I have a feeling it will be a short line and a lonely endeavor.
George H. W. Bush owed conservatives. Didn’t take him long to default on that debt.
Thank- you both make excellent rebuttals to Jonah Goldberg piece which I must confess had some appeal on first read. True conservatism must run in the veins to both effectively debate one’s opponent and possess the natural impulse to fight for and deliver once elected.
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