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Understanding Romney: One size does not fit all
THE HILL ^ | - 01/22/10 | By Bernie Quigley

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: aig4romney; badgovromney; bigdigromney; carpetbaggerromney; dnc4romney; du4romney; fakebadgeromney; flipflopromney; gaymarriage; ma2010; mittfakescredit; mitthogslimelight; mlk4romney; msm4romney; nra4romney; pimpromney; pimpromneyalways; pimpromneyhere; pimpromneynow; polyamory4romney; promise4romney; pushpollromney; revisehistory4mitt; romney; romney2012; romney2lose; romney4romney; romneyantigop; romneyantipalin; romneybotalert; romneybots; romneycare; romneydeathpanels; romneykilledgrandma; romneymarriage; romneystealcredit; romneystinks; slickwillard; socializedmedicine; stenchofromney; truthers4romney
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To: All

People need to stop fighting and learn how to live among each other and find common ground rooted in the council of the Lord!


281 posted on 01/25/2010 9:08:57 AM PST by restornu (Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.Numbers 16:21)
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To: Elsie; big'ol_freeper; restornu

...your picture is quite ludicrous. [big ol freeper]

I started three responses to it; but self-censored my fingers... [elsie]

- - - - - - - -
How about this...

Romney will never pick Palin for his running mate, she won’t hold his “priesthood”.

Hold fast to the iron rod...


282 posted on 01/25/2010 9:29:07 AM PST by reaganaut (It's futile to talk facts to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance)
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To: Radix; ansel12

I have always liked Romney. He is pragmatic, and he is a true conservative.

- - - - - - -
BWWWAHHHHHHHH!!! Lol, I’ll respond when I quit laughing!

Romney, a conservative????!! ROFLMAO!

Thanks I needed that laugh.


283 posted on 01/25/2010 9:32:04 AM PST by reaganaut (It's futile to talk facts to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance)
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To: restornu

Two words for the ever faithful LDSers —— Harry Reid. No thanks


284 posted on 01/25/2010 9:48:21 AM PST by the long march
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To: GOP_Lady; Diogenesis; Elsie; ejonesie22; ansel12

Not only is your post an insult to Reagan, but what is your beef about that dio’s comment?!?

Can you not stand that Dio was telling the truth?!?

Romney did a hatchet job on Palin and her children!

Shame on you for supporting Romney’s character assassination of Palin!


285 posted on 01/25/2010 10:27:52 AM PST by reaganaut (It's futile to talk facts to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance)
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To: Elsie; night reader

More like “Bad Religion”...


286 posted on 01/25/2010 10:33:11 AM PST by reaganaut (It's futile to talk facts to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance)
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To: restornu

People need to stop fighting and learn how to live among each other and find common ground rooted in the council of the Lord!

- - - - - - - -
Even the atheists?


287 posted on 01/25/2010 10:34:28 AM PST by reaganaut (It's futile to talk facts to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance)
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To: GOP_Lady
GOP_Lady, it does not say anything positive about you,
that you approve of the attacks on Gov. Palin during Election 2008. Shame on you.

Nor that you backstab, like your Master Romney, by attacking someone without a 'ping'. Shame on you.

Why do you support Team Romney's attacks, RomneyBOT?
Don't you care about America, at all? No, you don't.
Don't you care about Team Romney's hatred and demeaning of a woman? No, you don't. Shame on you.

Look, GOP_Lady, at what you actually approve of:[Shame on you.]

The McCain/Palin ticket was up ++8 to 10 pts. in some polls, days prior to the election.
So rather than helping the GOP, poor loser “I am Myth” Romney and
TeamROMNEY decided …… to attack Gov. Palin (and her defenseless children) to throw Election2008.

"Frum was indeed a critic of Palin, calling her nomination a "huge mistake" during an October 13 (2008, weeks before the election) 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… I will support him without qualm."


Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers…
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…
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
"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 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."
… 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:
"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."


"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
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?"

288 posted on 01/25/2010 12:25:29 PM PST by Diogenesis ("Those who go below the surface do so at their peril" - Oscar Wilde)
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To: Finny

“Those who support Romney over a Liberal Democrat are choosing the Hindenberg instead of the Titanic. “

You are missing the whole point. Romney haters are the same ones who love Brown. It’s like they have lost their minds. Or they don’t really know what they believe.

It has been very telling . . . and interesting.


289 posted on 01/26/2010 5:04:37 AM PST by Saundra Duffy (For victory & freedom!!!)
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To: Saundra Duffy
You are missing the whole point. Romney haters are the same ones who love Brown. It’s like they have lost their minds. Or they don’t really know what they believe.

That isn't accurate but I get your point, there is a lot of crossover.

You do understand the difference of supporting a man to the right of Romney for the Ted Kennedy Senate seat, versus supporting the scummy, anti military Mitt Romney for President of the United States don't you?

Even a conservative hater like you must remember that many of we conservatives were eager for Mitt himself to run for that Senate seat.

290 posted on 01/26/2010 12:02:10 PM PST by ansel12 (anti SoCon. Earl Warren's court 1953-1969, libertarian hero, anti social conservative loser.)
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To: Saundra Duffy
You know what's telling? That you consider those who reject Romney for his politics as "haters."

We all know, you included, that you mean to imply that our rejection of him is irrational, based on "hate" instead of reason. In other words, you use the word "haters" to deliberately insult me and those like me who reject Romney because of his politics. Like a third-grade child who cries, "Mommy, you hate me!" because he cannot conceive why Mommy won't let him stay up until 11 on a school night, you call me a "hater" because you cannot conceive why Romney betrays conservative principle.

THAT is very telling -- the behavior of Romney supporters speaks volumes about their candidate. Very telling indeed.

291 posted on 01/29/2010 7:57:45 PM PST by Finny ("Raise hell. Vote smart." -- Ted Nugent.)
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To: restornu
Welcome night reader you are added to the LDS ping!

Uh...

Did you use INVISIBLE INK?LDS PING LIST

Adam-ondi-Ahman ;America always; Antonello; Arrowhead;asparagus; ;BlueMoose; ; Come Up Higher; Dan(9698 ; DanielLongo; DelphiUser; Enough_Deceit ; ;frgoff; filospinato;Grig;GovernmentShrinker; ; Haroldson;Hodar; ;jared; Jenny Hatch ;jeff head; JEFF FULLER; JustTheTruth;jafojeffsurf ;KateUTWS;kbennkc;killermedic ;kkmo9; LeGrande; Lachoneus ;lady lawyer; LakerCJL; LemurFox; Logophile ;maui Hawaii;night reader ;novemberslady; old mountain man ; old student;Monkey Face;panaxanax; pseudogratix;radiohead;Ragtop; Rameumptom;Reaganesque; republicanbred;reno232; restornu;rscully;Safford; Sandude; Saundra duffy; sevenbak;; siunevada; ;spiff; Stourme ; sundog ;sydneybristow;teppe; TChris; TheDon;T. P. Pole;urroner ; utah girl; VegasBaby;Yellow Roses; ; bone52;; JDW11235; Normandy; 1010RD; Paragon Defender; CARTOUCHE;Saundra duffy; killermedic; ;1010RD; Ripliancum

292 posted on 04/13/2011 10:46:29 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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