Posted on 04/04/2008 6:39:47 PM PDT by neverdem
Social Conservatives Warn against Romney as McCain's VP
By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
April 04, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - In a full-page letter ad that will run Saturday in an Arizona newspaper where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will be on the presidential campaign trail, leading social conservatives warn the GOP hopeful against picking Mitt Romney as his vice presidential running mate. 
"I know (Romney) to be a very dangerous and deceitful person," Gregg Jackson told Cybercast News Service about his reasons for helping draft and signing the open-letter style ad.
"He's the only one to establish abortion on demand for $50 as part of his very own socialist health care plan," Jackson said, referring to the plan put into place in Massachusetts when Romney was governor of the state.
Jackson, author of "Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies" and a talk show host on WRKO in Boston, said Romney is the most liberal of all the presidential candidates, including Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Conservative activist Paul Weyrich, who supported Romney when he was in the presidential race, also signed the letter.
"We were very grateful when (Weyrich) came to see the light," Peter LaBarbera, founder of Republicans for Family Values and president of Americans for Truth, told Cybercast News Service.
LaBarbera and Jackson joined 24 others in signing the letter, a group that also included J. Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America and William J. Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition.
LaBarbera said social conservatives want McCain to nominate "somebody that has solid pro-family and pro-life credentials."
Jackson said he had no doubts about the significance of McCain's VP choice.
"(McCain) will not win unless he can effectively mobilize and energize the GOP base, euphemistically called 'value voters' or Evangelical Christians," Jackson said. "There are 40 million of us, and I say, 'Hey Pal, if you want my vote, you'd better pick an authentically conservative running mate.'
"We don't want Hillary Clinton dressed up in a Reagan suit," he added.
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I have to admit of hoping the same thing.
McRINO is such a contrarian, only God knows what he'll do. It's not that I have any enthusiasm for Romney, but McRINO doesn't strike me as wanting any unsolicited advice like this letter.
I thought he was going to pick former pa governor/homeland secuity secretary, tom ridge???
with duct tape in hand.
McCain / Huckabee works for me...
I am not particularly dissatisfied with that rule- as compared to letting the early primary liberal states determine our ticket for us as they did this cycle. We need to change the schedule to prioritize faithful states. Republican states go first, dimmacrat states last.
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
From indications and posts removed, I don’t think that is a topic or attitude that FR wants to promote.
Rush only did that after Fred disintegrated.
Can anyone tell me what Watts has done when he served in Congress that makes either of you think he’s POTUS material?
Yep. A bunch of hucksters up in Prescott trashing Mitt and hoping for the Huckster as VP. Mitt was still beating Huckabee in number of delegates 2 months after he dropped out.
That sounds like a very good idea.
After trying to buy three elections, Romney had one win in Massachusetts, with no chance of reelection, oh well.
At least his goofy, anti-war, anti conservative, father became president in 1968.
Yes, which is why the behavior that some conservatives exhibited is astonishing. Mitt made enemies of the NARAL crowd when he became governor of Massachusetts. His changed mind and behavior regarding the sanctity of life upset them very much.
But the right wing refused to see that, focusing instead on his attitude before he became pro-life.
Look, for many many years I was a liberal. Hell, I remember voting for Jesse Jackson. (ugh)
But I changed. No one who knows me now thinks I'm a lib. If one wants to take issue with my positions now, I'd hope it would be on my positions now, not the ones I had when I was a stupid liberal.
“Romney is the most liberal of all the presidential candidates, including Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.”
Adding Romney would win the swing-state of Michigan.
Precisely.
And given McCain’s reputation as a maverick, this letter may have just the opposite effect than what Gregg Jackson intends.
When you *tell* a man like McCain to do something, he often does the opposite.
Well, Romney certainly isn’t as liberal as Hildabest or Mohammed Hussein. But he is NOT a good choice for VP.
1. He had tons of money and (unlike the real conservative candidates) tons of media coverage, but he has proved that he couldn’t hack it. Whether because he’s a smooth flipper flopper, or because he’s a Mormon, I don’t know, but there was definitely a glass ceiling there.
2. What they say about his social conservative credentials is true. He did put through a socialist health plan with subsidized abortions at $50 and a special slot on the board reserved for Planned Parenthood. And there are plenty of earlier soundbites of him saying that he was more pro-abortion than Teddy Kennedy.
Also true: “(McCain) will not win unless he can effectively mobilize and energize the GOP base, euphemistically called ‘value voters’ or Evangelical Christians,” Jackson said. “There are 40 million of us, and I say, ‘Hey Pal, if you want my vote, you’d better pick an authentically conservative running mate.’
So, maybe these are Huckabee fans. But it’s true that tens of millions of Evangelical voters will stay home for McCain unless they are energized.
Please, NOT Huckabee. But someone who is solidly pro-life and pro-family.
“But the right wing refused to see that, focusing instead on his attitude before he became pro-life.”
The newspaper ad in question focuses on Romney’s govt-mandated health plan, which provides a $50 co-pay for abortion on demand. Mitt signed that AFTER his alleged “evolution” on the life issue, which itself was implausible.
Forty million abortions of prenatal children during his adult lifetime, some of them developed enough to feel the horrific pain of it, hadn’t dented Romney’s 57-year old conscience sufficiently to make him stop promoting a woman’s “right to choose.”
But the thought of cells in a petri dish being discarded was just too overwhelming, too much for him to take? That made him finally realize Roe v Wade had “cheapened the value of human life”? Yeah, that’s believable.
Even more believable is that it was all based on political calculation. He just got caught several times AFTER — as with the healthcare plan — forgetting that he was supposed to be pro-life now.
I think the fact that the pro-abortion crowd grew to hate Mitt's actions say so much more.
As way of analogy, many people love Ronald Reagan's legacy...and I do, too...and yet, if the same standard were applied to Reagan that is now being put upon Mitt, they would *hate* Ronald Reagan, because he appointed two pro-abortion Supreme Court justices: O'Connor and Kennedy.
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