Posted on 12/14/2007 5:06:25 AM PST by Kaslin
Pretty much every election year since I can remember, a complaint has arisen that goes like this: "Why are we stuck with these awful choices? In this vast country of highly successful individuals, why don't any of the best people run for president?" Some years evoked more howls than others, and admittedly, 1976 really did present two underperformers, as did 1996. So let's pause to notice the fact that this year we have some exemplary choices.
Fred Thompson is an excellent man who is running a refreshingly substantive campaign. John McCain has demonstrated not just personal courage (which is admirable enough) but the courage of his convictions. And Rudy Giuliani achieved a seemingly impossible task in transforming America's largest city.
But no one running is more impressive than Mitt Romney. It was his speech on religion in American life that caused me to take another look at him. Until then, I confess that I saw him as a sort of robo-candidate: smooth, articulate, but perhaps a little opportunistic and possibly even insincere. The religion speech cast a new light on him.
The question as to whether someone's religious convictions are a fit subject for public scrutiny is not as simple as it sounds. It's too pat to say, "There should be no religious test for public office and there's the end of it." If a candidate were, say, a fundamentalist Mormon like Warren Jeffs, or a Scientologist, that would be an obstacle. But the mainstream Mormon Church has enough of a track record in producing excellent Americans that the particularities of its doctrine are by now a matter of purely scholarly interest. No one thought to raise objections to Mormonism when Mo Udall ran for president, nor even when Mitt's father, George, made a bid. The Senate majority leader is a Mormon and this fact causes not a flicker of interest on the part of his colleagues. Besides, Mitt Romney served as governor of Massachusetts. If anyone felt Joseph Smith's brooding presence during that time, they haven't mentioned it.
What Romney's religion speech demonstrated was not so much his devotion to his own faith (though he declined to run away from it) as his understanding and embrace of America's civic religion. In his telling, that civic religion amounts to a commitment to religious liberty as well as to broadly shared religious values. "It is important to recognize," he said, "that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter -- on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people." Romney went on to paint America as the golden mean between the empty cathedrals of Europe and the violent jihadists of the Islamic world. It was a masterful performance.
But then Romney has been masterful in everything he has attempted. It is not insignificant that this cum laude JD/MBA graduate of Harvard guided Bain Capital to become a hugely successful private equity investment firm and rescued Bain & Company from financial collapse. Romney was brought in to save the 2002 Winter Olympics when the games were mired in scandal and $379 million in debt. Romney was able to turn the situation around completely so that the games actually turned a $100 million profit instead. (He also gave back his salary.) That's not slick, that's substance.
When Mitt Romney took office as governor of Massachusetts, the state had a $1.2 billion deficit. Four years later it was in surplus. He boasts that fourth and eighth graders in Massachusetts achieved the highest scores in the nation in reading and math, though they were doing so before he became governor as well. But his program of assessment, merit pay for good teachers, English immersion and a focus on math and science may have helped keep them at the top.
It is difficult to find any significant weakness in Romney. He is refreshingly articulate, exceedingly well prepared and self-disciplined, clearly an excellent manager with both private and government experience, happily married with a large, supportive family, and well within the mainstream of conservatism on every major issue. His nomination would not divide the base.
He is just the sort of candidate people complain that they never get.
No, Duncan is my first choice, Fred is my second. the huckster would be after mccainiac.
Fred and Duncan are my choices.
“People don’t talk about Hunter mostly because people don’t talk about him. If people started talking about him, maybe people would start talking about him.”
When he started his campaign, more than a year ago, that was clearly something important he had to accomplish.
He did not accomplish that. He did not assemble and use effectively the necessary resources (message, money, people) to succeed.
Others demonstratably did. He cannot blame others, because he is the one running for leader.
Romney has been the one the media has been worried about from the get go. He has everything it takes to win in spades. The have even tried to build up Huckabee in Iowa to derail him.
I am amazed that freepers haven’t the wisdom to have figured this out....oh I forgot, they are too busy pushing their candidate.
That is the gods honest truth. Great post....thanks!
ZERO!
A lot of State fees went up, but taxes were not raised here under Romney's administration.
Romney would be the runaway winner of the Republican nomination in the field of Republican candidates if it wasn’t for the big white elephant in the room that his base of donors in Utah don’t want talked about.
Wow, what an impressive list of endorsements. I think as time goes by, more and more will come over to Romney. Probably not the political hacks around here who bash Romney, merely to try and promote their guy.
I googled William Weld after you mentioned that Mitt was a Weldite. Yes, I’d say - elitist snobs.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_49/ai_59451074
This is one of the best articles on Weld (albeit it is 10 years old, and badly needs an update on his escapades since), in case you hadn’t seen it. This is what happens with the types of people that merely use the party as a vehicle and don’t particularly care about anyone else (in Weld’s case, he screwed anything and everything with an “R” attached, liberals and Conservatives alike). Romney (and Huckster) both followed the model and they left everything in ruins. It’s bone-chilling to realize what they could do from a national perspective.
The reason House members don't get elected is that the US is vastly more diverse than representing a small geographical, usually homogenous, district. The purpose of the Executive branch is to see the laws faithfully executed, and neither the Senate nor the House gives that experience. But Senators at least have to appeal to a broader, statewide constituency.
In all of your quotes, there is only ONE that has a statement that could be considered a “promise”. And that involved what he would do as Governor, and he kept that promise.
Most of the quotes were an expression of his opinion at the time, which were mostly long ago. Expressions of opinion are not promises, and opinions change, in this case for the better.
What’s the big white elephant in the room?
The big white elephant in the room is everything involved in the whole package of his religion including his own personal service for about a decade as a Stake President. If a Catholic Archbishop or Muslim Ayatollah were to run for President then you might see them get some extra scrutiny from voters for their religion and position in that religion. And due to the fact that Romney’s religion has a very recent history (i.e. 1820s onward) and leaders who said things in the 1830s-1850s that were supposedly the definitive word of an unchanging God which are now very embarassing cause no end of problems. If Romney is the Republican nominee then the liberal MSM will eat him for lunch. The liberals want the Presidency under their control badly. And they’ll do anything to win.
If Romney doesn’t denounce the racist portions of the Book of Mormon and denounce the racism and lawlessness legacies of Brigham Young & Joseph Smith then he’s going to have a very difficult time in the long general election race next year. But Romney won’t denounce these things no matter how intense the pressure gets on him. He’ll just stay 10-20 points behind the Dem nominee in the polls and be the standardbearer that helps the Dems have 52-56 seats in the Senate, 240-260 seats in the House and gain a hundred plus state legislature seats plus a couple governor mansions around the country for the Dems this next November.
MITT'S EXTREMEly recent conservative MAKEOVER
How many opinions can one man change in such a short period of time and not cause a reasonable person to question the sincerity of the "new" beliefs?!
I don’t remember JFK being asked to denounce the inquisition or the crusades, nor was Leiberman asked to denounce the pharasees or apologize for Jesus’ death.
If you can’t tell the difference between “promise”, “core belief”, and “opinion”, maybe I can help you.
A promise is a statement of action made to another, with the implication that the person can trust you to take that action.
A “core belief” is a deeply held thought which you generally treat as a fact, but which may not have a basis in reality, thus requiring you to “believe” it rather than “know” it. Core beliefs are generally building blocks for opinions and causes of action, and bias how we see the world.
An “opinion” is a thought based on facts as you know them, but not necessarily all facts, or based on sound logic. Opinions are often changed as more facts come to light.
To show each in use:
“I promise to not change the laws while I am Governor.”
“My belief in God governs how I view science and the world around us”
“I think things have turned the corner in Iraq”.
An example of each in error:
“I know I promised to be at your christmas play, but there was an accident on the beltway and I just couldn’t make it.”
“One day, I suddenly realised that there was a God, and that I needed to have a relationship with him”
“I thought raising taxes would increase revenue, but I was wrong. I won’t make that mistake again”.
There are two or three things where Mitt has really changed his positions. His stance on life could be considered a change in a core belief. Beyond that, he’s hardly been a liberal in the past, and as National Review editors pointed out, he was running on many conservative positions even back in 1994. He was never as liberal as people pretend.
And THAT is the killer for Romney - - he was elected by the same people who routinely re-elect Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barney Frank, Bill Delahunt, and Edward Markey; the same people who haven't sent one single Republican to Washington DC in over ten years; the same people who just elected the ultimate scumbag as governor. If they liked Romney, then I do not.
Mitt changed his opinion on only one issue recently: abortion.
He changed his opinion on gays in the military over the course of 13 years. That's hardly recent.
That's pretty much it.
Some people accuse him of flip-flopping on illegal aliens, but that's simply not true. His first year as governor he vetoed a bill giving drivers' licenses to illegals. He also very soon thereafter vetoed a bill giving them in state tuition in the UMASS system.
The only thing Romney bashers can cite on this issue are some statements from late 2005, early 2006 where he's mulling over some vague proposals that were being bandied about Capital Hill around that time about what to do about illegals already here. However, he was very clear at the time that he had not formed a position. Being a governor of a non-border state with a relatively small illegal population, it should not be surprising that the issue was not at the top of his agenda at the time.
Once those vague proposals gelled into an actual bill, he came out against it, very strongly. There were few voices against the Z visa as strong as Romney's.
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