It Is Not Too Late To Stop Romney's Coronation

http://libertarian-neocon.blogspot.com/2012/01/it-is-not-too-late-to-stop-romneys.html ^ | libertarian neocon

[libertarian neocon]

I know many in the Republican Establishment media want to coronate Romney as the GOP nominee and get to the general election but there is no reason why we have to let them do it. Yes, he won in Iowa and New Hampshire and no GOP candidate has won the nomination without first winning in either Iowa or New Hampshire but, besides tradition, there is really no reason that needs to be true:

• Remember, Iowa doesn't actually select any convention delegates on caucus night and Romney only won about 7 delegates last night out of a total of 1144 delegates needed to win the nomination.
• Also, the modern primary process is relatively young, only really starting in 1976, and there were only 6 contested GOP primary contests since then. So when someone tells you if something is ALWAYS true in the nomination race, they are using a very small sample size to reach their conclusions. If you are flipping a coin and you come up heads the first six times, that doesn't mean that heads is any more likely than tails. It just appears so due to the fact you only flipped it 6 times.
• It wasn't that long ago that a Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, was able to win the nomination and the Presidency after losing both Iowa and New Hampshire. Conversely, the only two Democrats to win both contests, Al Gore and John Kerry, never actually became President (strength in Iowa and New Hampshire clearly doesn't necessarily correlate with strength in the general election).

Most importantly, I would argue that we HAVE to stop Romney from being nominated. We just can't let the Republican Establishment media decide who our candidate is. It is effectively disenfranchising the vast majority of conservatives and is akin to the days when the political machines made the nominations. They were talking about Romney being inevitable before a single vote was cast! And while they would attack people like Rick Perry for a word that was painted over on a rock on a piece of property he leased, it was considered forbidden to even question Romney's tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, despite the fact that he uses is to provide evidence of his job creating skills! Somehow you are in league with the Occupy Wall Street folks if you question how Bain made millions off of companies they drove to bankruptcy through excess leverage and dividend payouts to themselves but it is okay to expect Newt to enumerate EXACTLY what he did while consulting for publicly traded companies. If we wanted to have politically correct restrictions on issues that we could or could not bring up about a candidate, we would be Democrats. It's not as if anyone has said that anything that Bain did should be illegal, they're just questioning whether you want someone like that to be President. Believing in free market capitalism doesn't mean you need to worship every capitalist. Otherwise we would constantly be bowing down to George Soros, Mike Bloomberg and the street corner drug dealer (technically a capitalist as well). It is also amazing how media types keep saying that Romney is actually a conservative, being able to point to nothing but his speeches and promises. Obama was middle of the road if you only looked at his speeches in 2008 and ignored his record. How did that work out?

Besides sticking it to the people who brought us George H.W. Bush, a great reason to stop Romney is that he would be a complete disaster both as the nominee and as President, if he is actually able to win. Please let me know when any of these country club establishment types has been good for the promotion of conservative ideals? How about never? There have been two Republicans who have done an effective job of promoting actual conservative ideals of small government and more freedom in the last 50 years and those are Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. They both challenged the established order and won on their own terms despite being born to meager means. Nixon, Ford, Bush I, Dole, Bush II and McCain, they have all been disasters who have hurt the cause. What is the point of voting Republican when you get someone who acts like a Democrat. And that is exactly what we would be getting with Romney. You really think that independents are going to rush to his emotionally cut-off, vacuous, believe-in-nothing self, who is probably going to raise their taxes? Why would they? It's clear that they haven't been in either Iowa or New Hampshire. When you adjust for the Paul surge (given that he is a fringe candidate with borderline connections with the GOP) turnout actually went down in both Iowa and New Hampshire! Does that sound like people are excited? And just wait until every single Bain deal is picked apart with interviews with people whose lives were ruined by Romney. It's only the tip of the iceberg so far. Also, when people are down, they want someone to empathize with them. Romney has all the empathy of a wet sponge (kind of like George H.W. Bush). Romney is going to have a horrible time in the general election, he'd better hope Obama self-destructs (a good chance but not exactly guaranteed).

Even if Romney wins, it will be a disaster for anyone who believes in liberty. This guy with the timid 59 point plan brought to you by Bain Consulting is not the answer to our problems. He is going to tweak Obamacare, tweak the tax code (cut some taxes, raise some others), tweak our foreign policy, offering no real changes to the status quo. Does Romney strike you as someone who will suspend the environmental regulations that are keeping the United States from rightfully developing its energy resources? Nope. He is going to come in, and just like Obama, think about what he has to do to get re-elected. He will pander to Democrats to appear bipartisan and completely betray real Republicans. And Israel? Forget it. We will be stuck in the same place as before. All Romney has promised to do is to not criticize them publicly, that doesn't mean he actually agrees with them and will stop putting pressure on the Jewish state to negotiate with terrorists. After 4 years of a Romney Presidency, government will be bigger, our taxes will probably be higher and Congress will probably be in Democratic hands as the Tea Party support that helped propel us to victory in 2010, withers away after being betrayed in 2012.

Anyway, I know this is a long rant but I really feel strongly about this. We have to stop Romney, he is the antithesis of a Reagan Republican and will do more to destroy the Tea Party and the cause of liberty than Obama ever could.

[central_va]

Pat Buchanan scored an upset win in New Hampshire’s 1996 primary

[arthurus]

Nothing would be worse than Obama getting re-elected.

Except for Romney getting elected. But it won't happen so we won't really find out for sure. Romney is as electable to the presidency as were Dole and McCain. And we really don't need a competent manager for American Socialism, anyway. He might make it look like it is "working" for a short time.