Posted on 01/22/2010 6:06:18 PM PST by restornu
As The Wall Street Journal points out in an opinion this morning, this is a good day not only for Scott Brown, the new senator from Massachusetts, but for Mitt Romney as well. Glenn Beck doesn’t trust Brown, he says. But with Brown toting friends like the popular former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, John McCain and Romney around on his bus, it might not be such a good day for Glenn Beck.
The WSJ’s Kim Strassel pointed out that Romney’s closest aides flooded to Mr. Brown, bringing with them the savvy of his national operation.
“From a perch atop his Free and Strong America PAC, Mr. Romney has been raising money, nurturing his team, keeping himself in the national spotlight. With the Massachusetts Senate race, he sensed an unexpected opportunity to step to the front of the GOP presidential ranks,” she writes.
I doubt that the Tea Party’s tent will fold with the election of Brown, but something else has happened: The river that runs between traditional Republicans and insurgent conservative populists now has a bridge in Scott Brown. In fact, it has another bridge in Virginia with the new governor, Bob McDonnell, who will give the Republicans’ response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech Wednesday. The insurgents have built a new base for organization and now, with the election of Brown and McDonnell, it is being absorbed into the mainstream.
But when the very first thinking about regional identity started to surface here in New England as a militant defense against federal overreach, Romney was the governor of Massachusetts and he was already incorporating the same elements of thinking, not as revolutionary polemic, but as practical and effective management strategies here in Massachusetts.
Thus the phrase, “One size does not fit all,” which he began to use as governor, used throughout his presidential campaign and used again this last week in a Fox Business interview. It is his theme song. Texas Gov. Rick Perry now uses the phrase as well, and so does Sarah Palin.
Republican pundits report that Romney’s stock has been down because of RomneyCare, the healthcare program that Romney instituted in Massachusetts. Some of the features suggest ObamaCare, and as large numbers oppose ObamaCare’s vast federal spending, the thinking goes, they would therefore oppose RomneyCare. But that misses the point.
“The bill that was being pushed in Washington was not good for Massachusetts,” Brown said after his election. “It may have been good for other states, but we already had everything and a lot of what was being proposed.”
That is just the point in Romney’s thinking about healthcare: What is good for one state and region is not necessarily good for others. Romney is in fact in the avant garde with this thinking, which has become the base camp of the states’-sovereignty movement.
Romney was unique in the history of Massachusetts governors in that he came to us from the west. He had personal experience in the Western states, in Michigan and in Massachusetts, where he went to college.
My observation here when he was governor was that he had that rare quality which Zen Buddhists call “beginner’s mind.” He does not rebel from new ideas and new people but continually incorporates aspects of new thinking in his own ideas to make a better fit. And he is aware that the country has changed since 1776, when the west was forest and later when it was frontier, and even the 1930s, when the vast majority of Americans worked in one of two places, the floor of the factory or the field.
One-size-fits-all-federalism might have been the perfect system then. But today for a country as full and rich and varied and alive as ours, the old system is a disaster. Romney was the first to catch on.
Please post your short list of your preferences for best all around conservative candidate for president in 2012.
Here’s mine:
Sarah Palin.
Its true. So why do you apparently reveal in it?
I guess, hard to tell exactly what she is saying, she is sputtering more than usual...
Here’s mine:
ZIP, ZERO, NADA. If I had to choose from the media picks we see, I would also take Palin at this moment. Begrudgingly.
If I had to pick one REAL conservative, it would be Jim Inhofe, the only guy who really walks the talk. But he’d never make it, not enough ‘flash’ for the crowd. He was the ONLY congressman who paid his own way to Copenhagen to speak up for us.
“Romney has the best chance in 2012.
It’s normally customary that if you are discussing someone’s comment you should put their name in the “To:” line. If you have a problem with the quote, it’s not mine. Take it up with the author.”
Oh, stiffle it. I posted what you posted and you didn’t ping him either when you posted it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2435243/posts?page=43#43
Romney is a two-bit, two-faced, lying political whore.
What’s the difference again between Obama’s unconstitutional, pro-death, pro-abortion, un-american, anti-liberty, socialist government run health care system and Romney’s unconstitutional, pro-death, pro-abortion, un-american, anti-liberty, socialist government run health care system?
You’re pretty close to right. If Sarah fails us, I have no candidate.
Which of course means on the liberal scoreboard Romney is ahead of B Hussein in the points standing...
It doesn’t. I agree with Jim’s statement. A Palin fan posted that Sarah is on the right track because of McCain/Palin adviser Fred Malek.
Fred Malek supports Romney. You square it, I can’t.
Just another of the many contradictions in this political climate.
I pinged him to the conversation a few posts earlier. Tough schnugs.
Oh, man I just need to eat another donut. Off the track, but isn’t it amazing that one donut is to much but twelve aren’t nearly enough.
Dang'it Jim...now you've given me a dilemma. Do I change my tagline or keep the one I have!! LOL.
I like Mitt, but he simply will never be the man.
Romney cannot defeat the forces of darkness in this nation.
Scott Brown did that. He won.
Scott Brown did what Romney could not do. He won a Senate seat and he saved our country.
For now.
Everything has changed since Tuesday. That is everything changed a year ago, but we put the brakes on it here.
I expect much more from the rest of the FR community and their neighbors when the voting starts again.
Palin, on the other hand.....
I say go Sarah.
“Romney is a two-bit, two-faced, lying political whore.”
Agreed. That’s why I’m confused over the fact that Fred Malek is endorsing Romney when he was McCAin’s adviser and is supposed to be the guy leading Sarah Palin in her policies.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2434882/posts?page=22#22
” she follows the advice and direction of this big time power broker and McCain money man, who can make and break GOP politicians...
Fred Malek
Listen, Sarah is not operating in a vacuum, but is planning with and receiving advice from a number of very influential GOP POTUS makers. She backs McCain and Malek continues to back her behind the scenes. She is playing the game that has to be played. Trust her instincts! They have served her well so far.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2435557/posts?page=10#10
[snip]Fred Malek, a heavyweight Republican fundraiser and kingmaker, has singled out former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the GOP’s leading contender in the early stages of the 2012 Republican presidential derby.
In a largely unnoticed post to his blog late last week, Malek, a wealthy businessman who served as national finance co-chair of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, ranked Romney No. 1 on a list of influential Republicans “who might both lead our party back and who might be our nominee in 2012.”
I have to tell you, I have no idea how anyone could say that. His record completely denies that statement. I could give a rats petootie what he says, politicians say a lot of things. I look at the record and his is anything but conservative.
The tea party is basically anti incumbent because the incumbents (Democrats and Republicans alike) have failed to abide by the constitution. Sarah Palin is a tea party favorite because of her strong pro-life & liberty conservative stances on all issues. Should she go too far in supporting incumbents simply because they are Republican, she will quickly fall out of favor. I hope that doesn’t happen.
McCain needs to retire (or be retired) for the good of the country.
I generally agree with the tea party sentiment: Just vote them all out in 2010 (and continue in 2012)!!
” I don’t have a problem with states doing it themselves.”
I sure do, no government should provide health care, federal, state, county, or, city!!!!!!
Pay for it or lay down in the street and die!
What?
Yup. Socialism through force of government (mandates) is anti-liberty and anti-American at any level.
Throw the bums out!!
No shortage of bums to throw out here in Maryland
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