“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.
And in the present system he is the next in the lineup. Now it is His Turn.
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.