Posted on 02/16/2010 2:17:09 PM PST by publius321
Sean Hannity had Ann Coulter as a guest on his show on Monday night and he asked her the question “how can we screw this up?” referring to the GOP.
I can tell you exactly how we will screw this up and at the end of this column – how we can AVOID screwing this up. The way we can screw this up is the same way we screwed it up last time around. We can screw this up by having pundits trying to shove that snake oil salesman Mitt Romney down our throats in the next Presidential primary.
I am absolutely stunned by the emotional intoxication some prominent conservatives have had for this impetuous RINO. Mitt Romney was and is the Republican’s Slick Willie. He will say anything to anyone at anytime in order to get elected. I consider Ann to be an intelligent women and I am stunned to see her fall for the same chicanery that we have always criticized soccer moms for falling for. All it apparently takes is a handsome man with a silver tongue -claiming- to be a “conservative”.
I mean, it’s not as though the clear cut evidence isn’t there. We have plenty of video of Romney on every side of every issue depending on who he was running against in recent years. This guy was so obviously trying to hit hot buttons in the last presidential primary as he dropped the name of Ronald Reagan ad nauseum. Meanwhile we have video of Romney like Peter before the cock crowed, DENOUNCING President Reagan in a televised debate as he ran against Ted Kennedy a few years back for the Senate seat. (See with your own eyes at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPY61w2mjRc )
We have seen Romney on both sides of the gay “marriage” issue. Last year he said he was pro-life just in time for the primary yet in the gubernatorial race we saw the man bragging about how pro-abortion he and his mother were and how he will “never waver” on that issue.
Ok, so maybe you are a country club Republican and you only care about what affects your wallet and could care less about Ronald Reagan, aborted babies or the sanctity of marriage. Well, we have all of the evidence in the world that this guy is even a fiscal left-winger.
The audacity of this swashbuckler is not even surpassed by Obama. Just a month ago this character was up on the stage in Massachusetts trying to ride the momentum of Scott Brown at his victory celebration! What is incredibly ironic about that is that this guy Scott Brown campaigned and was thrust into office primarily as the man who would vote -against- Hussein & Pelosi’s socialist healthcare plan! This plan was modeled and dubbed as a national version of the same Massachusetts plan that was promulgated as Mitt Romney’s baby! The people of Massachusetts clearly do not like it and they have been warning the rest of the country NOT to adopt it. You KNOW it has to be horrendous when a left-winged nut case of a state like Mass puts a Republican in that seat in order to stop it, after what? 60 years? This is the state whose gracious contribution to the federalist system has been Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy for how many decades?
If any past Romulan including, Coulter, Ingraham, Hannity or Krauthammer try to palliate this fact by claiming that Romney didn’t really like this plan and had no choice but to go along, just take a look at the recently unveiled portrait Romney had painted of himself proudly hanging in the capitol. Romney instructed the artist to paint a copy of the healthcare bill prominently in the portrait.
So what, the guy made a half billion running a private equity chop shop. There are plenty of others who have done that; but does that make them a leader? We might as well elect Carl Icahn. Romney’s just a poor man’s version of Icahn or Kerkorian. Why not hire the best??? I have never witnessed a more glass-jawed, paper candidate to have enchanted so many in this party. This is a guy who is exceedingly high on charm while low on substance and appears to be destitute of any fixed principles aside from a lifelong ambition to be President.
This brings me to my point. We are trying to avoid dealing with a major problem and if we do not confront that problem NOW, we will have another disaster like we did in the last presidential election and like the one we had in 1996. IF the Republican Party wants to avoid another schism, we MUST require a run-off election in the presidential primaries when ANY presidential candidate “wins” without a majority of the party’s votes. I know there are going to be intense factions within this party no matter what happens between now and 2012. There is a faction right now that can’t move on from the past who are saying “run Sarah run”. I am not one of them. I like Sarah Palin and think she can do a great deal of good for this country, perhaps as Chairman of the GOP but I emphatically do not want her to be our presidential candidate.
We will have factions for Palin, for Huckabee, for Romney, for Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal and perhaps Fred Thompson (not likely). They will split the conservative vote so that we will give the nomination to the candidate we all loathe, the liberal candidate, which we WILL secure by our inability to coalesce. That is the ONLY way John McCain could have won this nomination. The same thing happened with Dole in 1996.
If we require a run-off between the top two candidates when no candidate receives a majority in the primary, we will never again be hi-jacked by the liberal minority of this party in a presidential election. We are a conservative party and the only thing liberal Republicans should be given in this party is asylum, if anything at all.
In spite of my opposition to Palin being our nominee, I don’t for a second question her conservatism and would definitely throw my support behind her in the general election - if she won in a run-off. That would assure us a strong candidate and leave the party less disillusioned after the primaries. I could not get enthusiastic for McCain. In fact, I was disgusted listening to him try to sound like a conservative while he bashed corporations, said the pharmaceuticals were “evil” and promoted “climate change” propaganda while standing in front of a green back-drop. Sorry, that doesn’t cut it and I know most conservatives felt the same way.
Sean and Ann also discussed the “tea party” movement. She said there isn’t a leader and wished there was. I would say to Ann, iff you want to contact the head of the Tea Party Movement, call Rick Santelli. The way I remember it, Rick Santelli on CNBC made this appealing remonstrance during which he jested about having a tea party in Lake Michigan. (See original http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA )
I remember going to something dubbed a “tea party” after the 2008 election but as far as I can remember, it all just happened organically. There was no need for a national organization to organize it. Even though I attended the tea party, I saw it as an event – not - an identity. Some of our venerable founding fathers participated in a “tea party” but they certainly didn’t stop there and they didn’t find their identity in a single act. In reality, if we were to have a –true- tea party, if we were to do something actually similar in weight to the founding patriot’s tea party, we would be mailing the IRS a tea bag –in lieu of – a tax return. I don’t think we quite measure up to that standard as of yet and the name is a little bit silly.
If the movement is going to serve as a GOP plumbing tool, I think it will be worthwhile. Great things are happening all over the country regardless of whether a movement officially incorporates.
I really like what Jim Demint is doing to financially support conservative candidates around the country by “money bombing” those conservatives who are running to unseat RINOs. That is powerful. It has certainly worked for Marco Rubio who is running against Charlie Crist in Florida. If conservatives around the country unite to fund primary challengers of the biggest RINO incumbents, we will indeed take our party back. As I write this, I just heard the news that J.D. Hayworth is going to challenge John McCain. I cannot WAIT to throw a few bucks in Hayworth’s campaign coffer. McCain, it is time to retire. Thank you for your “service”; now step aside. The next to go should be Lindsey Graham.
Contact: mrarbitrage@TableOfWisdom.com
Romney care should sink Mitt’s boat. Pile it on.
Yeah.
I’m just not excited about our choices for 2012 yet, just like I couldn’t get excited about 2008.
After 4 years of Socialism in the late ‘70’s I knew exactly who The Man was going into the 1980 cycle. I don’t have that warm fuzzy yet on 2012.
Can you see Mitt in a beat old pick up truck with his suit and tie?
When discussing about Mitt Romneycare, never leave the suffix “care” off of his last name.
If anyone ever objects, discuss why it is appropriate to affix “care” to old plastic hair, and ridicule any attempt by them to claim this is uncivil by recounting Romneycare’s statements about Palin.
“Can you see Mitt in a beat old pick up truck with his suit and tie?” -bwc221
Absolutely. I can picture Mitt Romneycare in just about ANYTHING - if he thought it would assure him the presidency.
He would probably campaign in a thong for the right number of delegates.
Seriously, he will probably be driving around in a pick-up truck during the next primary campaign.
I stand corrected. I vow to henceforth affix the word “care” to Mitt Romney-care.
romney is a LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE dim... he just lies about that as well as most other things. Ann is just plain wrong... and she has a “thing” for the haircut... as she also did in 2007/2008.
LLS
“OK, so now we know whom the author doesn’t like. Which potential candidate does he like?” -Salvey
I deliberately left that out because no matter WHO I say I support for President, a great deal of acrimony and support would ensue. I’ve been down that road many times and I will reveal that in the future. THIS is not the time because I didn’t want that to become the focal point.
As I wrote in the potential -solution- I propounded in the essay - I would enthusiastically support -ANY- GOP candidate who won the -MAJORITY - of the votes in a runoff between the top two primary candidates.
A mandatory runoff election would do a great deal to stop the disillusionment of our party’s base. We are a conservative party with an adequate, conservative platform. We have lost too many elections while running liberal candidates with positions antithetical to our platform. That only happens -because- of the diluting of conservative votes among too many primary choices.
I think it is fine to have many conservatives from which to choose; but without a required majority and run-off election, we get an odious consequence. We all end up with the candidate MOST of us detest. We get hi-jacked by the minority faction of our party.
Subsequently, I don’t believe Romney would have a chance if a majority were required. He benefits most under the current system.
By continuing to put frontrunners like Rumney, McCain, Dole, Gingritch, AAAAARnold, Huttchabeee, Graham (Linsdy) and many other RINO's and Girlymen in the limelight. GOP Get a clue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND stop being closet progressives and lefty Liberals.
Flame me away but the ONLY one in the 2012 pack with a set of chahuna's is Sara Pailyn, and I do hope she can withstand the attacks from the "Good Old Boys" of the GOP and get the 2012 nomination if she decides to pursue it. I for one am sick of holding my nose to vote for a repub candidate and having for nearly 40 years of my voting life to choose between the better of two evils.
And in the present system he is the next in the lineup. Now it is His Turn.
Uh . . . Scott Brown supported the Massachusetts health care plan. It is quite clear that whatever its relative merits or faults, the Democrap legislature changed it beyond what Romney instituted, and in ways that caused it to go broke. Romney may be a salesman (what politician isn’t) but if you had followed him closely, you would acknowledge that he changed his stance on abortion gradually and in a very principled and intellectually honest way. It wasn’t just a flip. Many people are divided on gay rights issues . . . opposed to gay marriage but in support of civil unions. And there is little doubt in my mind that Romney would hold the line on taxes. He might even put the state of Michigan back to work, which would have a positive effect on all of us. Is he my ideal candidate? No. But, I am tired of the Romney bashing. Even Ronald Reagan made deals with the devil (Congress), and if Romney with his “Mr. Economy Fixer” reputation (true or not) can stop the onset of the Obama Nation, I’m all for it. Conservatives tend to allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good, and to love the likes of Palin, Paul, and Demint . . . I do too . . . but they are not going to get elected. I am sure you will tell me otherwise and blast me to hell, but Free Republic used to be a place where one could express one’s mind freely, in a civil way.
“And in the present system he is the next in the lineup. Now it is His Turn.”
Oh Yes, the wonderful mantra of “his turn” that gave us Dole and McCain. I hear you.
P321 replies: "I deliberately left that out because no matter WHO I say I support for President, a great deal of acrimony and support would ensue. "
Well said, P321. As I was reading this excellent piece, chuckling at the fine writing ("swashbuckler," "So what, the guy made a half billion running a private equity chop shop," etc.), the first part that "made my heart soar like an eagle" (a little Old Lodge Skins lingo there) was:
"We are trying to avoid dealing with a major problem and if we do not confront that problem NOW, we will have another disaster like we did in the last presidential election and like the one we had in 1996. " Now, I know that you were using it as a means to suggest a run-off election for the primaries, which is fine. The reason that sentence made me cheer was because I have long maintained, with other FReepers, that Romney is someone who needs to be aggressively, forcibly rejected NOW from the GOP because he poses an immediate danger to limited government conservatism that would be devastating in its long-term consequences; who I or anyone else would like to see win is absolutely irrelevant. What's relevant is that Romney betrays conservatism, therefore endangers it, and needs to be met head on and booted OUT. The sooner the quicker.
I want to see someone win who will promote small, limited government, who stands up against the global warming environmenalist power-grab hoax, who will defend MY and YOUR right to discriminate peacefully in our private, business, and social lives against (or for that matter, for) open homosexuality without fear of legal punishment, will advocate policies that would ultimately lead to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and who will take every opportunity to cut taxes and reduce government. Romney is the antithesis of all those things.
I was dissapointed when you said you didn't favor Palin for the 2012 nomination, but then you wholly redeemed yourself in my eyes when you said that if she won in a run-off primary election, you'd support her. What more could I ask? And frankly, if Palin couldn't win such a run-off, then it would be evidence that perhaps your own appraisal of her is correct, and mine not. But that's a whole 'nother talk show and irrelevant, and I LOVE that you appreciate it.
Romney is like a rattlesnake, poison to the GOP, and he needs to be eliminated (figuratively speaking!) like he was one. Whether I'm for replacing him with a gopher snake or a corn snake is beside the point.
Well said Finny. I think we agree on the fundamentals. I’m not sure who my candidate will be at this point. It might be someone who isn’t even thought to be running.
I just know that we MUST make safeguards to assure that our party is no longer held hostage to RINO’s. It’s absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary.
Cheers!
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