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.
I say it because for 4 years...FOUR (count em) not a single tax went up in this crazy state. Romney was at the helm then.
This nation was founded on a tax revolt.
I do not understand you.
Romney had so many vetos over turned that I lost track. The media did not report them loudly.
He’s a phony. At various times he has supported the murder of innocent pre-borns, gay rights, restrictions on freedom to bear arms, other candidates who advocate the same anti-conservative positions, and socialist health care.
Hardly worth consideration for a vote. Let the liberals have him.
And of course I like you. Just don’t understand you on this one.
Thanks for posting the cartoons. Saving for later use.
2. John McCain is EEEEEEEEEEVILLLLLLLL!
Glad you are paying attention, Resty.
Facts are not excuses
You haven’t defeated me or I would have quit years of ago receiving abuse from some posters is nothing new!
BTW you did not mar me it only showed me what it must be like to be around when you lash out!
I see you have lived under the experience and those who live in other states seem to know better...
Strange isn’t it!
Ok, then.
Sounds like a textbook definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over even though it ends up painful every time.
Facts aren't excuses, and all the facts show Romney is a liberal-minded socialist.
I am so thankful that the Kennedy machine is now broken we can thank Scott Brown and Mitt for assisting Scott excellent team work.
Even if Mitt does not run for office the fact that he is there helping others to restore the constitution to this great nation.
Some day we will stand before the Creator and answer for our behavior here on earth I am sure the Ten Commandments will be in play and bearing false witness will be one of them!
The guy is like a vampire; he knows how to speak with convincing sweet nothings,...He needs to have a stake put through his political heart.
- - - - — -
VERY apt description of Romney. And we already know the Cross offends him.
Wonder how he feels about garlic?
That is why I keep saying it is too early these are good people yet they do strange things!
Post Palin Syndrome
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/8060
wow, I hear Romney LIVE say he supported abortion when he ran against the swimmer, just how blind can some people be on this guy???
I just don’t get it. The overwhelming evidence is that this guy is a libtard piece of crap, yet there are those who simply brush that aside and claim he’s a conservative.
Well said! Most of us who don't like Romney, dislike him because of his politics, not his religion.
Thank you! :^)
Well said. I don’t even think of the guy as an LDS. His demonstrated social agenda is completely contrary to what the LDS church stands for.
*ducking*
Hmmm ... maybe we should start a campaign of mailing garlic to Mitt, just to see? ;^)
Well said!
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.