Posted on 12/12/2007 8:34:52 AM PST by RCFlyer
Mitt Romney loves data and lusts after process.
In a recent cover profile in The Weekly Standard by the magazine's Fred Barnes, Mr. Romney is portrayed as the man who would be the CEO of America. Says Mr. Barnes, quoting Mr. Romney, a Harvard M.B.A.: "His idea of the perfect deal is not when one side wins but when 'you find a new alternative that everybody agrees is the right way to go. That doesn't always happen.' "
Indeed.
Mr. Barnes says Mr. Romney's "approach to government is not ideological." A Romney adviser is quoted as saying of his candidate: "He's super-pragmatic. He's an eclectic conservative." And Mr. Romney himself says flatly that as president he would "insist on gathering data . . . and analyze the data looking for trends."
Uh-oh.
Make no mistake. If the leading candidates in the GOP presidential race are to be litmus-tested as conservatives, all would cause conservatives sleepless nights. If the Reagan coalition was of economic and social conservatives combined with national security hawks, each group has something to be disturbed about with this batch of front-runners. [snip]
Yet the Romney approach as described not only by Mr. Barnes but more importantly by Mr. Romney himself is an approach that goes far beyond any particular issue. It is, as Mr. Romney himself freely admits, all about process. Whatever the issue--economic, social or national security--Mr. Romney would gather the data, look for a trend and thus "you make better decisions."
This should cause conservatives to break out in cold sweats.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
The WSJ let this show in their editorials?
This is not from the WSJ Editorial page, but from their OpinionJournal. This is my first post. I’ll will look through the FR posting rules.
opinionjournal.com is their editorial page.
As recently as 2004 when Mitt was running for Governor, he supported the Brady Bill, gay rights and Roe vs. Wade. When he ran for Governor in 2002 he supported access to the emergency contraception pill and promised not to change the State laws on abortion.
Ughhh....
Can’t we just elect an adult who knows right from wrong? And knows you don’t find it by analyzing data.
jw
“...the facts cannot even be percieved as facts without a theoretical orientation, explicit or not.” —Bernard Baars (The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology)
Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum. One’s theoretical orientation directly informs how data will be interpreted. IOW, you find what you’re looking for. Anyone who fails to understand that, is naive, at best. Someone admitting they would govern by trend is rather scary, kind of like SCOTUS quoting Scottish law as precedent for a ruling.
“Go back to Fred Barnes’s Romney quote, the one in which Mr. Romney says he looks for a “new alternative that everybody agrees is the right way to go.”
That is frightening. It’s apparent that Romney has no core values unless you count expediency. That, by definition is not leadership. That sounds much more like the Clinton presidency where polling determined nearly every move.
I’m a Hunter guy but Thompson had better start making his move, the other 3 front runners at this time are no option at all.
Good (sobering) article. Thank you for posting it.
I found the contrast between Lincoln/Reagan (principle presidents) and Carter/Bush(I) (process presidents) enlightening.
From the article: “What Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan shared was a core belief that in fact it was a better thing for some principles to triumph over others. ‘Everybody’ did not agree with Lincoln that freedom was better than slavery, that keeping the Union together was better than not, or with Reagan that the free market and tax cuts philosophy was a better philosophy than one of big government and tax increases. But they went ahead anyway.
Is there a place for data? Is there value in process? Sure.
But base an entire presidency on the importance of data and process over principle? Is this what Mitt Romney would do? Is this where a Romney presidency would lead? If so, conservatives have been here before.
It is not a good place to be.”
BTW, it appears posting from OpinionJournal is ok.
I’m a conservative because when you do the review Romney mentions, the smart person chooses the conservative viewpoint as the best answer.
I won’t be a conservative simply because I like the label. I’m a conservative because it is the RIGHT choice.
People who are conservative because they want to be “conservative” are people who can easily change their mind later. Give me people who came to the conservative position after a long, hard investigation of the alternatives.
I would be surprised to find too many people here who would choose conservatism even if it led to bad decisions and policy. Conservatism is not a religion, after all.
I’d rather hear an interview where Romney is asked about this, rather than trust Fred Barne’s view of what he thinks Romney was talking about.
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