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From Rudy to Romney [Patrick Ruffini says Mitt is "vastly more conservative on everything else"]
hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog ^ | 1/29/08 | Patrick Ruffini

Posted on 01/29/2008 8:28:02 PM PST by RonDog

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

From Rudy to Romney

Posted by: Patrick Ruffini

I’m a longtime Rudy guy. In 1989, I remember staying up late on Election Night watching his losing battle with David Dinkins, and cheering four years later when he put New York back on the road to recovery. Even before 9/11, he was a fighter who brought his city back from the brink, and he wasn’t embarrassed to publicly shame the corrupt and depraved New York left. I remain convinced that had he brought a little of that pugnacity and grit to this campaign, he would have won Florida and the nomination. He didn’t wind up running a great race, but Rudy Giuliani is a great American, and I continue to believe he would have made a great President.

With Mayor Giuliani now all but out of the race, I have no qualms about supporting his fellow chief executive Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination.

Despite the outcome in Florida, Republicans across the nation should spend the next week thinking long and hard about the demoralizing prospect of a McCain nomination.

There has been a fair amount of discussion of flip-flopping in this race. Well, McCain has changed a few of his positions too. He changed away from conservatism. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was a solidly credentialed member of the Reagan-Goldwater coalition who was right in line with the people of Arizona. In the late 1990s, when he saw that he could get better press for his dark horse Presidential aspirations as a “maverick,” he changed. McCain could fairly point out that he stood on “principle.” But it is equally fair to point out that those principles aren’t ours.

Over the summer, a few of us — including McCainiacs Soren Dayton and Patrick Hynes — had a lively discussion about the future of the conservative movement. I believed then, and still do, that we desperately need to change. The fractures in the party this primary season — with fiscal cons taking out a hit on the social con standardbearer (who never had a chance to win the nomination), and Huck’s Army refusing to join with the most viable conservative alternative left after all hope was lost — shows just how badly we need to reunify the movement.

While the answers will be different than those of a generation ago, the attitude needs to be the same: that we are reclaiming the Party for long-lost principles with strength and assertiveness, not retreating and simply becoming more like the left. McCain represents the later kind of change.

Mitt Romney gets that you don’t win by retreating. You win by winning. There will be no pale pastels on the Democratic ticket this fall — and I would not want to go up against them with the sense that we somehow had to trim our sails, to elevate our party’s most ardent internal critic, in order to remain in office but not in power. At best, this is a reprise of how Clinton hollowed out the Democratic Party (see how their hearts are with Obama), and what Bush and the Republican Congress did with respect to spending. McCain would reclaim the spending mantle, but would surrender on all other aspects of domestic policy.

Mitt Romney is a better candidate than he lets on. His business acumen has hardly been explored in this campaign, at least not early enough. He is, as they say in Boston, wicked smart. Of all the candidates running, it is hardest to see the colossal managerial failures of Katrina happening under his watch. His plan wasn’t perfect, but I like the fact that he’s a Republican who’s tackled the health care issue. He can communicate about matters of war and peace, and his instincts are sound. He could position himself as a clean break on the economy. Attributes he had to soft sell in the primary campaign would provide attractive contrasts to Hillary Clinton in a general election. And in Presidential elections, Governors beat Senators. Romney is our last chance of getting that historically winning combination.

When it comes to the electability question, don’t focus on horserace numbers. Focus on the fundamentals. After weeks of fawning coverage, and weeks of seeing the press swooning for Obama and beating down Clinton, John McCain is no better than tied against Hillary. When it was last Clinton vs. McCain as the frontrunners, he ran worse than Giuliani and was seen as less dynamic. I expect that with either Romney or McCain, the race would settle into a 3-6 point Clinton lead in the near term, though it would tighten in the fall as voters focused away from Bush and on the choice between the two candidates. Politics is rarely as static as the early polls show, as this nomination fight proves in living color. Remember that Bush 41 wasn’t given much of a shot at this point in the ‘88 cycle and Gore was consistently behind by double digits and came within 537 votes.

None of this is to diminish John McCain as a true patriot. No matter who wins, we must quickly get behind the winner (I’ll have more on this tomorrow). I would gladly support McCain over Hillary because he is right on the transcendent issue of our time. But Romney would do everything that McCain would on the war, and he would be vastly more conservative on everything else.



TOPICS: Extended News; Politics/Elections; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: mccain; mittromney; romney; ruffini
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1 posted on 01/29/2008 8:28:05 PM PST by RonDog
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To: RonDog
I'm with Patrick. Now that Fred and Rudy are out, I guess I'll go for Mitt.

This feels like 1996 all over again...

2 posted on 01/29/2008 8:29:31 PM PST by inkling (exurbanleague.com)
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From www.patrickruffini.com/about:
Patrick Ruffini is an online strategist dedicated to helping Republicans and conservatives achieve dominance in a networked era. He has seen American politics from every vantagepoint — as a campaign staffer, activist, and analyst. This site is his on-again, off-again effort to chronicle the glories and absurdities of American politics; eleven years after coding his first website, it’s a habit he can’t quite break.

Shaping Online Strategy

Ruffini currently advises Republican candidates and organizations on mastering new media, with a disciplined focus on Web site, e-mail, and blog strategies shaped by years of experience in the field. His strategic consulting firm is set to publicly launch in the summer of 2007. For more information on potentially working together, he encourages you to email workingtogether@patrickruffini.com.

From 2005 to 2007, Ruffini served as eCampaign Director at the Republican National Committee, overseeing the Party’s online strategy for the 2006 election cycle. His tenure saw unprecedented outreach to the online community, breakthroughs in online fundraising, and successful initiatives in the emerging worlds of social media, online video, and text messaging. Even during a difficult election cycle, the RNC’s relationship with the blogosphere grew closer and stronger than ever. Beyond these successes, the RNC’s eCampaign serves as the Republican Party’s R&D arm for innovation on the Internet, where no major development online goes unnoticed or is left untapped. In this role, Ruffini advised Republican candidates and organizations at all levels on best practices for winning online...


3 posted on 01/29/2008 8:33:50 PM PST by RonDog
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To: RonDog

“vastly”
hehehe


4 posted on 01/29/2008 8:35:41 PM PST by ari-freedom (Hillary wants to be just like Gov. Granholm except more evil.)
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To: Reaganesque; lonevoice

ping


5 posted on 01/29/2008 8:36:35 PM PST by RonDog
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To: RonDog
I'll support Mitt to defeat McCain. In fact McCains win tonight prompted me to get off my duff and send Mitt some money. What the hell, if he's spending millions to defeat McCain, I can chip in a bit.

As for McCain, I wouldn't vote for him for dogcatcher.

6 posted on 01/29/2008 8:37:23 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: RonDog

Gee, a Rudy-bot moving to the next least conservative candidate? Color me shocked.


7 posted on 01/29/2008 8:37:29 PM PST by Antoninus (All you Mittens out there are going to feel like Flippers come November...)
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To: inkling

Since I’m a conservative, I’ll have to vote that way which means Romney, hands down and without question over McCrazy the covert Democrat.

Good thing I happen to like Romney and agree with him.

Funny how things work like that.


8 posted on 01/29/2008 8:38:59 PM PST by angkor (A conservative without hyphens, qualifiers, or a political party.)
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To: doug from upland; ALOHA RONNIE; DLfromthedesert; PatiPie; flamefront; onyx; SMEDLEYBUTLER; Irma; ...

ping


9 posted on 01/29/2008 8:41:27 PM PST by RonDog
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To: jwalsh07

Ditto to all, I sent money tonight too. If you find anyway else I can help please let me know.
I think the ads McCain ran saying he was the only one could beat the dems had a bad effect., not to mention his other nasty ads. I hope Mitt gets a chance to carve him up tomorrow.... maybe bring out the mcqueeg temper.


10 posted on 01/29/2008 8:42:09 PM PST by libbylu (Smitten I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR MCCAIN OR HUCK..THEY CALLED ME RACIST/BIGOT)
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To: Antoninus
"Mitt Romney IS Giuliani. He's just lying about it." - Alan Keyes
11 posted on 01/29/2008 8:43:03 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping it will eat him last." - Winston Churchill)
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To: EternalVigilance
"Mitt Romney IS Giuliani. He's just lying about it." - Alan Keyes

That's it, in a nutshell.
12 posted on 01/29/2008 8:46:01 PM PST by Antoninus (All you Mittens out there are going to feel like Flippers come November...)
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To: libbylu

Good on ya libbylu, money talks and you know what walks. ;-}


13 posted on 01/29/2008 8:46:03 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: RonDog
RINO MCCAIN DOESNT FIT - VOTE FOR MITT. ... or to put it another way ...

BETTER A CONVERT THAN A TRAITOR


14 posted on 01/29/2008 8:47:08 PM PST by WOSG (RINO MCCAIN DOESNT FIT - VOTE FOR MITT.)
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To: RonDog

I heard McCain is out of cashish. This means, going forward, no last minute lying commercials from Mr Campaign Finance “Reform”.

Regards


15 posted on 01/29/2008 8:49:28 PM PST by ARE SOLE (Agents Ramos and Campean are in prison at this very moment.. (A "Concerned Citizen".)
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To: Antoninus

Yes, compared with the RINO McCain, Romney IS the more conservative. Do you deny that obvious reality?

Florida voters figured it out. Pro-amnesty, pro-abort, moderates, anti-Bush voters, independents all went for McCain.
Prolife, churchgoers, economic conservatives, conservative voters, went for Romney.


16 posted on 01/29/2008 8:50:58 PM PST by WOSG (RINO MCCAIN DOESNT FIT - VOTE FOR MITT.)
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To: inkling

Patrick’s view is well thought out here.


17 posted on 01/29/2008 8:51:33 PM PST by ilgipper
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To: ARE SOLE

I would hope so, but I fear the establishment special interests in DC smell McCain as the victor and will throw him cash... the proamnesty candidate can get all he wants from the cheap labor lobbies and the multi-culturalist/Soros types (check FR article on the Univision head helping McCain).


18 posted on 01/29/2008 8:53:21 PM PST by WOSG (RINO MCCAIN DOESNT FIT - VOTE FOR MITT.)
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To: RonDog

“Mitt Romney is a better candidate than he lets on. His business acumen has hardly been explored in this campaign, at least not early enough. He is, as they say in Boston, wicked smart. Of all the candidates running, it is hardest to see the colossal managerial failures of Katrina happening under his watch. His plan wasn’t perfect, but I like the fact that he’s a Republican who’s tackled the health care issue. He can communicate about matters of war and peace, and his instincts are sound. He could position himself as a clean break on the economy. Attributes he had to soft sell in the primary campaign would provide attractive contrasts to Hillary Clinton in a general election. And in Presidential elections, Governors beat Senators. Romney is our last chance of getting that historically winning combination.”

Well said.


19 posted on 01/29/2008 8:56:43 PM PST by WOSG (RINO MCCAIN DOESNT FIT - VOTE FOR MITT.)
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To: EternalVigilance
Mitt Romney IS Giuliani. He's just lying about it."

Yea, that's why liberal Rudy is endorsing liberal Johnny.

20 posted on 01/29/2008 8:57:04 PM PST by Prokopton
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