Posted on 03/07/2012 9:20:15 PM PST by Sick of Lefties
William McGurn is his usual magnificent self today.
[quote] Not since Herbert Hoover has a party out of power had such an opportunity to run against everything that troubles the American family—prices, interest rates, unemployment, taxes, or the fear for the future of their old age or the future of their children—than is now presented to the Republican Party.
The Republicans, however, haven't figured this out. This is their basic problem. They have no strategy for defeating an Obama administration that is highly vulnerable on both domestic and foreign policy. [end quote]
Those words were written by Scotty Reston in a New York Times column published on February 29, 1980 about President Jimmy Carter's good fortune, rather than President Obama's, to be facing such a pack stumblebums. We all know how Reston's prognostications turned out.
Nothing has changed. To listen to the media, the Republicans are always stupid and confused, bumbling and inept, obtuse and unelectable.
It's funny how only Republicans palatable to the New York Times lose Presidential elections. You'd think the public would wise up to the ruse.
[quote] Then as now, the chattering classes wondered aloud whether a candidate who could win the Republican nomination could prevail against President Carter in November. On March 1, former President Gerald Ford amplified that view when he told a New York Times reporter, "Every place I go and everything I hear, there is the growing, growing sentiment that Governor Reagan cannot win the election." [end quote]
Can it be long before John McCain, the New York Times preferred Republican candidate in 2008, presents himself for nomination at the convention? Too bad for the Times that Gerald Ford is no longer available to provide sound bites.
Especially of note is what McGurn implies about the standard for Republican candidates: perfection.
[quote] Nor was candidate Reagan without baggage. As governor, Reagan had pushed through the largest tax hike in California's history, had signed one of the nation's most liberal abortion laws, and—as George H.W. Bush pointed out—presided over the doubling of the state budget over his eight-year tenure, to $10.2 billion when he left office from $4.6 billion when he entered. [end quote]
Mitt, Rick, Newt and Ron are imperfect, too, just like Dutch. Get over it.
They can grow. And, unlike our current President, they won't unilaterally pass any trillion dollar entitlements; balloon the size and scope of government; redistribute red state tax revenues to fill blue state budget holes; disarm the nation; abandon space to America's rivals; kill off feasible energy projects that would make America independent of hostile forces; shackle the economy with taxes and regulation; trample on American's religious liberties in the name of women's health and other shibboleths, etc.
[quote] [Reagan] would face Santorum-like fears about his social message, especially after appearing at a mass gathering of Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. A minister with whom he'd shared a stage was taped saying "we're being attacked by satanic forces," which Times columnist Anthony Lewis declared "the scariest piece of television" he'd seen in some time.
Yes, the parallels to 1980 take you only so far, and Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan. Still, at this same point in his campaign for the GOP nomination, neither was Reagan. The President Reagan we rightly admire for bringing down the Berlin Wall, reviving the U.S. economy, and attracting into the GOP millions of disaffected Democrats was still to come.
And he got there by transcending the conventional wisdom rather than allowing himself or his message to be limited by it. [end quote]
That just about says it all. Whoever the eventual candidate is, as President he will have to surmount daily attacks from the mainstream media, just as Reagan did, and probably die before garnering any recognition for saving America from bankruptcy and national decline.
It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. Any of the Republican candidates are sufficiently suited to the task of saving the nation from today's vulnerable administration.
I won’t be voting for Bishop Romney.
Reagan had a name for people like Slick Willard... he called them “Democrats.”
Why not?
What does Mitt Romney stand for? Describe for me the core of this man, what does he truly believe and just how did he arrive at those beliefs?
Our country is about to be overrun from inside by communist radicals, and Mitt Romney is the only man capable of turning back these treacherous bastards because why exactly?
Go.
Politically speaking, Romney is just another version of Obama.
Gosh, you have been here since 2003, and you are totally puzzled why I won’t be voting for Romney?
Are you being sincere and honest?
Running on Reagan’s themes won’t be enough this time. We have a near majority of taxpayers who no longer have a stake in the game and in a general a culture of dependency. Judging by recent surveys, the electorate is incredibly uninformed and the politicians see no benefit to telling them reality, namely that this state of affairs cannot continue. Instead of reigning in our out of control deficit spending the country will likely default in the medium term. Politicians, and the public, will not be able to accept the scale of cuts required and, thankfully, huge tax increases are unlikely to be approved which is one thing the Republicans are good for - strident tax opposition at least until they incrementally cave in the name of bipartisanship.
Romney is just another in a long line of Republican ‘moderates’ who do nothing transformational but continue our long slide into debt, stagnation, and dependency.
When Reagan was running we had a more conservative electorate than the one we have now. Any other country would have modified citizenship laws to include birthright citizenship only for those who at least parent was a citizen. Instead, the majority cowered before the minority and was frightened by being called racists while the real racists were pimping affirmative action. The other minority, businesses, love unlimited immigration in order to depress American wages. The ‘stagnation’ in wages the left complains about, particularly for the least skilled, is a direct result of our immigration policies. We have had a demographic tsunami of third world socialists who are allowed to stay in the country and whose children vote. Ultimately, the illegals will join their legal children as voters when they reach critical mass and have sufficiently changed the views of society at large. It’s not far off considering all the other social garbage which has occurred. America has changed a lot in the last 30 years and not in a good way. These videos of Obama will do nothing to hurt his prospects either since ‘minority’ racism is okay, it’s standing up for ones rights in the public’s view.
If Reagan had this voter base, the tea party, the post Gingrich legislative branch to work with, all the Republican Governors, conservative females, like Palin, and Martinez of New Mexico, talk radio, Fox, conservative internet.
Reagan could be so much more conservative than he was when he was trying to create an America that would eventually lead to all of this.
Reagan had to be the planter, today, he would be harvesting crops that we cannot imagine.
I am on on the same page as you in much of what you said, but we have a conservative core today, that wasn’t there in the 1960s and 1970s, our 40 to 80 year olds today are a true conservative force, while they were liberal in that ugly past.
What an utterly meaningless comparison.
Romney will get fewer EVs than McCain. Count on it.
I know little about him. But, he’s a decent man, and not Barack Obama. That’s sufficient for me this year.
Santorum is my man, and I haven’t given up yet. But, I think a Romney-Santorum ticket is likely, appealing, and makes electoral sense.
“Politically speaking, Romney is just another version of Obama.”
For the reasons I state in my post, I think that goes too far.
I don’t expect President Romney will be a President Palin, President Bachmann, or President Santorum. But, I expect with sufficient heat put on him, he’ll do the right thing.
I also think he won’t be proactive in doing the wrong thing in gargantuan proportions, like BO does.
“Are you being sincere and honest?”
Pretty much always, when I’m not being sarcastic. And, I’m not being sarcastic now.
I’ve been sporadic in my participation, and never heavy. I try to stay out of the daily vortex for my own peace of mind.
My apologies, but I don’t know your opinions.
I know that there is great opposition to MR on FR, and something of the many understandable reasons for it. I also know that Jim Robinson endorsed Newt before South Carolina.
That notwithstanding, Mary Ann Glendon and Jay Sekalow endorsed him, which means that despite his flip-flops, something about him is pro-life. George Bush the 1st was a board member of his local Planned Parenthood, but was a great pro-life litigating President. MR can grow.
This election, I’d even vote for John McCain or Bob Dole. Noman would rather spend his energy blasting a RINO for being a reed in the Leftist gale, than trying to point out the obvious about a Leftist revolutionary.
I’m rooting for Santorum, but preparing for any of them. I’d even support Ron Paul, who I find obnoxious, whiny, simplistic, non-practical and alarmingly naive.
The bond market will supply the dose of reality that the media occults. The Fed won’t let it happen before the election. But the reckoning will come as sure as God made little green apples. Then you’ll see the inner conservative come out of even the most sedated independent.
We all know that the way we’re going is unsustainable. The electorate must be reminded, and educated on the evils of high taxes as the solution to entitlement expansion and burgeoning government debt.
It must also be educated as to the connection between Statism and the culture of death. The ObamaCare-HHS mandate is a prime example.
Romney may not be the nominee.
And, if he is the nominee and picks a solid conservative VP, he’ll get help where he’s weak.
He will do much better than McCain because of what’s transpired over the past four years. BO is farther Left, and has governed farther Left, than the hope and change believers expected. It’s hitting them in the wallet, and shocking them out of their stupor.
People must be reminded that they, and average Americans, are not better off than they were four years ago, and are likely to be much worse off given another four years of BO & Co.
Yes, Romney is likely to be the nominee, and I certainly do hope he can beat Obama, because if he can’t, America is done.
You just avoided FR for the last 5 years?
The years when you could have been fighting for Romney and reading our information telling you why he is the most radical liberal to have ever risen this high in the GOP?
Now you want to start all over, from scratch?
Because he is a pale Obama but without the charismatic sing song preacher voice.
“You just avoided FR for the last 5 years?”
Avoid isn’t the word I’d use. I have long dormant periods. I spent most of 2009-2011 trying to understand the financial crisis.
I’ve been somewhat alienated from politics because it’s so deceitful, the media is so tendentiously Liberal, and so few people fight for the cultural issues that I consider paramount.
Had my classmate from Harvard Law not been such a demagogue and dictator, I might not have started blogging and getting reinvigorated about politics.
Tell me where to look and I’ll dig the stuff out.
Liberal or not, I’d rather fight against Mitt and a Republican Congress for not living up to its promise than I would with Barack and a Democratic Congress for living down to theirs.
In any event, I’m praying for Santorum and haven’t yet thrown in the towel.
Will he fight to repeal ObamaCare?
Will he fight to repeal or modify Dodd-Frank?
Will he lower taxes?
Can he be beaten back if he attempts to introduce a VAT?
If the answer to any of those questions is yes, he’s acceptable to me when push comes to shove.
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