Where's Romney?

Many GOP insiders, Beltway mavens, and East Coast conservatives have held up Mitt Romney as the presumptive 2012 GOP presidential nominee and, indeed, he appears to be quietly laying the groundwork for another presidential run. However, with all of the Tea Parties, town meetings, and ObamaCare protests, he has been strangely silent. This is exceedingly odd behavior for a man who would be president.

What could he be thinking? Well, I am not a mind reader, but I would guess that his silence is motivated by two concerns. First, he wants to keep his powder dry for 2012. He does not want to run the risk of being overexposed before a tired electorate. As he also appears to be a very cautious person, he would naturally want to only be engaged in debates on issues he cares about, on his time schedule, and on his terms.

This brings us to the second concern. ObamaCare is in part modeled after the health care system he championed in Massachusetts while he was governor. While the architect of the program was apparently Deval Patrick, the current governor or Massachusetts and a best friend of Obama, Romney took credit for the program when he ran for president in 2008. This leaves him in an uncomfortable position regarding the current debate over ObamaCare. No doubt, he wishes that the whole controversy will just blow over, as nothing about the current health care debate plays to his benefit.

Yet, the Obama presidency is a target-rich environment. There are many, many things that Romney could and should comment on. While it is true that he has occasionally issued a press release, and he sometimes appears on Hugh Hewitt's show, at a time when the GOP so desperately needs leadership, he has been nearly off the radar screen. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that he is generally pleased with Obama's policies, and is having trouble finding things in the current administration that he is really critical of.

Since it appears that the GOP establishment is going to try to ram Romney down everyone's throat in 2012, I'll cut to the quick:

America needs a leader, not a manager. A field general, not a staff officer. However, Romney is not a leader, and will never be one.

I am greatly troubled by the man. Those who have read my post, "What is Civilized?" will probably understand why. Romney is the ultimate "civilized" man, in that he confuses politeness, congeniality, and civil discourse for basic morality and ethics. The most telling moment of his life was in the 1994 debate with Ted Kennedy. There is a lot to say about this video. However, if he ever had a chance to get my support, he lost it with his statement on abortion. He said that he was personally against abortion, but did not want to impose his views on others. Therefore, he was in favor of Roe vs Wade.

The very essence of abortion is the imposition of one's viewpoint onto another. With Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court has imposed its will over the American electorate, taking away the voters' right to decide how their states and districts should be run. More potently, mothers are often put under extreme pressure--without being made aware of the many other options--to kill their babies. And what of the babies themselves? Killed without their consent. At the very least, abortion is a civil rights issue--just as Africans were impressed into slavery in America against their will, against their will unborn children are deprived of their life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness.

Yet, Romney cast this as a moral question--he thought abortion was wrong. Thus, at least in 1994, he thought of the issue in terms of weighing the "rights" of women against the immorality of abortion. In this case, he allowed the "rights" of women to trump morality.

Sorry, but this will not wash. If rights--and the unwillingness to impose one's views over others--always trumps morality, then just about any kind of immorality, no matter how egregious, can be countenanced. This is the triumph of "civilization" over morality, the same triumph that gave us slavery, the gas chambers, and any number of horrors.

Late in the game, largely because of pressure from Iowa conservatives during the 2008 primaries, Romney took a stronger stance against abortion. We were told by many pro-life conservatives that we should welcome such a change and allow him into the fold as a pro-life candidate. Of course, we should do so. Having said that, like just about everything the man does and is about, the change of heart smacked of expedience. He waited to change his position no doubt because he hoped and thought that Giuliani would attempt a strong showing in Iowa. Since Giuliani's pro-abortion stance was well known and on appearance more extreme than his own position, Giuliani would serve as a lightning rod and make Romney more palatable to conservatives. The only problem was that Giuliani skipped Iowa, making Romney the only pro-abortion candidate on the ticket, and thus forcing Romney's hand.

It is telling that Romney, like most pundits and the GOP establishment, thought the front runner would be Giuliani. This proved to be a total misreading of the GOP electorate. So potent were moral issues and the desire for authenticity among rank and file Republicans that even McCain was viewed with suspicion, propelling Huckabee--who ran on a shoestring--into the lead or into contention in many of the primary races. On the other hand, Romney burnt money by the barrel full, but never really gained traction.

It will be the same in 2012. However, there is always the possibility that the GOP establishment will try to rig things and make him the nominee no matter what rank and file Republicans want, or that Romney, with his organization and war chest, will so wound and tire the eventual nominee that she/he will not survive the actual election. In either case, Obama will be reelected.

In so many ways, Romney reminds me of the Rich Young Ruler. He has studiously kept all of the laws on the book. I doubt he has ever even gotten a speeding ticket. It is unimaginable that he might have ever snorted cocaine or danced naked on top of a bar. Yet, for all his virtues, he confuses personal decency with morality, a sunny disposition with passion, and the ticking all of the boxes on the conservative checklist with conviction. He has everything in the world, but ultimately he does not have God--there is no compass guiding his life, except for his belief in his own goodness. As he said in the 1994 debate, he wishes that he could do more to help people. If he really means that, he can give all of his money to the poor and work in a soup kitchen somewhere. But, of course, he won't do that--he believes that he can best serve others by ruling over them. Like the Rich Young Ruler, I love Romney, but I pity him. Certainly, I do not want him to be president. I just want him to go away.

Since he was part of the 2+2=893 on health care crowd and tea partiers are tired of the lies no matter where they come from, it stands to reason why he would be hiding and waiting for this storm to blow over to crawl back out from under his rock.

Many of the old school GOP have a the same problem with the 10th Amendment as liberals do. The only real difference is which brand of statism we get.

Romeny has a big anchor around his neck,.....his own healthcare fiasco in Mass. You have to know that will be the first thing out of every talking head that interviews him. That is what happens to "kinder gentler, compassionate" conservatives that try to water down what works with the liberal religious dogma.

Palin 49%

Romney 23%

I know it's too early to peak, but he's goin down, not up. When his healthcare numbers start to become the issue, he may as well be a Dem.

This was meant in exactly the same way Jesus spoke about the Rich Young Ruler in the Gospels. To be fair, when Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven, his disciples said, “Who then can be saved?” By this standard, many are without God.
But I find it hard to believe that someone who thinks abortion should be legal knows God at all, and I am not afraid to say that.

That being said, it is a bit much to assert he does "not have God."

The stuff in the Book of Mormon has been disproved by DNA examination. Aborigines in what is now the USA came from China, not the middle east. No matter how hard the left has tried, there's nothing in the Bible that has been disproved.

Though I agree with you.

Rule #1: do not throw potential allies under the bus.
Rule #2: see rule 1.

I honestly believe that he intends to run in 2012 unless he is dissuaded otherwise. If he runs, he will make a very formidable candidate by virtue of his wealth, slick demeanor, and communication skills. However, I do not think he can win the general election, and if he were to run in the general election I do not see him as a valid alternative to Obama. I would rather vote for a third party candidate if the choice was between him and Obama.
So, to answer your question, I care.

The McCain/Palin ticket was up 8 pts. days prior to September 18th.
Obama was losing until the DNC played their October surprise on the economy
and the RomneyTeam attacked Gov. Palin and her children to throw Election2008.

David Frum: "Frum was indeed a critic of Palin, calling her nomination a "huge mistake" during an October 13 Early Show appearance."

David Frum: "Two of our most plausible candidates for president in 2012 are leading Mormons: Mitt Romney and Utah governor Jon Huntsman."

David Frum: "I have a lot of regard for Mitt Romney as a man and politician.
Let me say for the record: If Romney emerges as the Republican nominee, I will support him without qualm."

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House,
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin.
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
He's in charge on November 5th.'"
The Prowler added: "Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."
The Romney supporters in the McCain campaign had access to internal polling which indicated well in advance of the November 4 election that McCain had no chance to win.
So they began working to position their man Mitt for a run in 2012. Just two days after the election,The Palmetto Scoop reported:
"One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
These aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.
Erick Erickson, who organized Operation Leper, said:
"Here’s what I think: I think there are some staffers on the McCain campaign who seriously screwed up the roll out of Sarah Palin, to which Governor Palin herself objected.
These staffers are now out trying to finish her off thinking, as typical D.C. types do, that if they don’t do it to her, she’ll do it to them. They just never understood who Palin is or what she is about."
"Likewise, I do think there are some staffers and others who expect Mitt Romney to run again in 2012,
they decided McCain could not win, and decided to undermine Sarah Palin and her chances hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign? (Mark Wallace, Romney pimp)
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

Who benefits most from Sanford meltdown? Californian (that's right) Mitt Romney

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

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