http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/07/romney_makes_his_vp_case.html Romney Makes His VP Case

Time ^ | July 16, 2008 | Michael Scherer

[Plutarch]

July 16, 2008 11:18

Romney Makes His VP Case

Posted by Michael Scherer | Comments (41) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

On Monday night, at a fund-raiser in New Mexico, John McCain said this about his former mortal enemy, Mitt Romney: “I’m appreciative every time I see Mitt on television on my behalf. He does a better job for me than he did for himself as a matter of fact.” This may not have been a joke.

Yesterday, Romney sat down for an interview with CBS News. It is a striking interview, in part because Romney seems to be making the McCain argument better than McCain, or McCain's campaign. There is a clarity to the soundbites that McCain has mostly lacked, a clear line of attack against Obama's experience and McCain's plans. Add to that whatever fundraising burst Romney could provide as a VP candidate, as well as Romney's strength in key swing states like Michigan and Nevada, and it's not hard to see why McCain may end up with a running mate whose hand he didn't shake in the primaries.

[See video at link]

EXCEPT: Mitt says in the interview that McCain distinguishes himself from Obama on drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. This is wrong, according to the latest McCain statements. Both McCain and Obama oppose drilling in ANWR.

[SnakeDoctor]

>> Yes. Except for the President and Vice-President, the ticket’s ideal.

I never said “ideal”. I said tolerable.

H

[Diogenesis]

Big Dig's red ink engulfs state
Boston Globe July 17, 2008- Massachusetts residents got a shock when state officials, at the peak of construction
on the Big Dig project, disclosed that the price tag had ballooned to nearly $15 billion. But that, it turns out, was just the beginning.
Now, three years after the official dedication of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel,
the state is reeling under a legacy of debt left by the massive project. In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest,
bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion.

Romney: “Make all the promises you have to...”
and hide all those donations from the contractors and builders of the BIGdig in my Presidential account.

[mountainfolk]

A very insightful post. “until finally there are no more posters on the thread besides the Romney loathers congratulating each other for making another FR thread into a vapid wasteland”
That has happened to even some of the favorite threads where misery now reigns with the anti whoever, whatever, dominatig. Nothing left to talk about on those threads and reading them just gives a sour caste to the rest of the day.

[Rome2000]

What the heck is this post that you keep posting?

This is what the con artist fraud MYTH believes in.

You don't know this?

Guy is crazier than Obama the muslim.

[ConservativeMan55]

I’m supporting Romney!

Go Mitt Go!

[WOSG]

“ALL of the attack ads in NH (against McCain) are from ... Romney”

So what? It’s a pity they didnt work better, or we’d have a better candidate for President.

You are full of it if you are claiming the other guys didnt do negative attacks. You seem to forget Hucksters little pre-Iowa stunt, where he had a negative ad, has a press conference to announce that he is too good to run it, and then behind the scenes ended up running it anyway.

You forget the Huckster-McCain double team on Romney in debates etc.

“ALL of the dirty tricks, including push polls,
fake troopers and badges have been from ... Romney.”

your statements are flat-out false. 527s for Huckabee had anti-Romney push-polls in several states and anti-Thompson push polls in South Carolina.
Huckabee’s team was behind push-polling, you are blaming the wrong guy in your misplaced anti-Romney zeal.

[Diogenesis]

FROM TODAY's HEADLINES:

Kerry welcomes HIV-infected immigrants

And who will pay?
Thanks to Mitt Romney, all Americans will pay.

RINO Romney, darling of the Democrats, surrounded by Sen. Kennedy and other beaming Democrats,
who admire their personally owned, trained, and docile, pandering RINO-Governor Romney
who delighted them as he install fascist-socialist HillaryCARE without allowng a single vote by a single citizen.

Sen. John Kerry to Don Imus on RomneyCARE=HillaryCARE: "I like this health care bill".

Sen. Hillary Clinton on RomneyCARE=HillaryCARE: "To come up with a bipartisan plan in this polarized environment is commendable."

Let's let Romney do for America what he did for Massachusetts. [/s]

[WOSG]

" The posters on this thread, the vast majority of whom support Romney, are neither liberal nor RINO's. ... Your obsessive detestation of Romney doesn't render you more conservative than anyone else, nor does it provide you the standing from which you can cast aspersions on any other Freepers conservatism. It does make your posts tiresome, and drives out other posters on the thread (again like picnickers fleeing yellow jackets), until finally there are no more posters on the thread besides the Romney loathers congratulating each other for making another FR thread into a vapid wasteland."

Awesomely and correctly stated.

When I'm President, I'm making you Press Secretary and main speechwriter. You are very good.

[WOSG]

“MA GOP DOA. But then, you know that already.”

I lived in Massachusetts in the 1980s. The GOP was dead in Mass. then. You could hold state conventions in a phone booth. It was pathetic. Anyone running as a doctrinaire conservative would get 35% of the vote, tops, and extreme moron liberals like Barney Frank and Gerry Studds would be elected with huge majorities and serious contenders for state power.

Neither Weld nor Romney really hurt the GOP, otoh, they breathed temporary life into the corpse by managing to be effective enough candidates to win in an uphill battle.
Romney got a bigger percent of the vote against Kennedy than any other candidate since the 1960s. And Romney beat a lib-Dem Fem in 2002, the same year a similar lib-Dem fem, Shaheen, won in NH. Romney was simply a compelling and good enough candidate that he overcome the huge Dem advantage in the state.

The worst you can accuse Romney of is not reviving the MA GOP corpse, dead for generations. You can’t kill a corpse. MA GOP hasnt been vibrant since Coolidge was Governor. Look it up.

[Zevonismymuse]

Taxing consumption makes more sense to me than taxing productivity. I don't think being too prosperous causes the same problems as being gluttonous. And I also like the privacy of taxing consumption. A flat tax still requires the Feds to know personal information.

I am always a little surprised by all the outcry over the Patriot Act and no such outcry re; Income Tax. Only a few people have their privacy invaded by the Patriot Act but almost everyone has every single personal detail of their life recorded by by the IRS.

[WOSG]

“Romney would have made a better *PRESIDENT* than Hillary, Obama or McCain.”

“Yes. For liberal rodents.”

Who are you trying to convince with such moronic retorts?

“The Governor, perhaps the last Republican whom will ever be elected to statewide office in Massachusetts, whose negligence and incompetence was nearly without equal”

Deval Patrick managed more incompetence and negligence and corruption in his first day in office than Romney ever did in his whole term. The idea that a single elected official can dictate the fate of a party is absurd, and your claims that MA GOP was alive in 2002 is laughable.
I lived there. See my other comments. MA GOP was dead for decades.

[ConservativeMan55]

So they are essentially blaming Romney for killing something that was already dead WAAY before he came along.

[WOSG]

“I agree with the last part, McCain/Romney is better than Obama/Whatever, but will it be good enough in the long run?”

Yes, it will have to be good enough because those are the only options. American civilization can continue with McCain in charge. Dunno about Obama, I think he could permanently change a few things that set us on a path towards becoming a declining socialized neutered nation.

So we put aside our few concerns with McCain and support him over the bigger problems we have with Obama.
There will NEVER BE a perfect Presidential candidate. NEVER.
It’s why we keep fighting at all levels and on multiple issues. We try to get the best Presidential candidate we can. Then we try to get Republicans to win. We try to move people’s minds a little bit.

In the end it is all about hearts and minds. If the people want USA to go in a direction, it will go there. I see in Romney more leadership ability than I see in the whole Democrat party.

[WOSG]

Yes.

Remember, Massachusetts was the only state I believe that picked McGovern over Nixon in 1972. Its been one of the most liberal states in the nation. Why that is may be worthy of study but it surely didnt happen on Romney’s watch, it happened well before his time.

Each of us should look at the situation of conservative politics in our state and ask the question - How can we make it better *HERE*? Massachusetts can come to your state if you dont fight back.

[WilliamReading]

I was a major skeptic about Romney during the GOP primary. He morphed into several personalities, and didn’t seem comfortable under his own skin. I don’t think he is necessarily a good choice for the Presidential nomination.

As Vice-Presidential candidate, on the other hand, I think Romney is an excellent candidate and is skillful when going against Obama.

I am now starting to think that he would be the best choice for McCain, though I still would like to hear more from Sarah Palin. If private polling shows that Tom Ridge can carry Pennsylvania for McCain, I would also support him.

The name of the game is winning in 2008, or we will be facing a Leftist President, Congress, and Supreme Court.

[WOSG]

“Tell me more how Evangelicals who are so culturally and religiously conservative as to be spooked by the Mormon Romney as Veep are in reaction going to fly into the arms of the ultra-left, Rev. Wright mentored, Muslim-school educated, Obama? That makes no sense, do you think Evangelicals are stupid or something? “

Usually, the people desperate to remind us that there is this minority among evangelicals of anti-mormon bigots who will never vote a Mormon into the white house are ... well, vocal members of that said minority.

I may be going out on a limb here, but Wright’s Black Liberation Theology church seems no closer to real orthodox Christianity than Mormonism. It seems far worse in some respects in that it is a political corruption of it, wrapping something else in the cloak of Christ.

[WOSG]

McCain will not pick Barbour.

Chances are, if he doesnt pick Romney, it will be someone else *less* conservative, like a Tom Ridge or Gov Pawlenty.
JMHO.

[WOSG]

Look in the mirror.

[ejonesie22]

Yes. perspective can be.

I for one am not much for the hyperbole of Mitt being to the left of Moveon.org, because it is untrue, and the invective is counterproductive to fact one way or the other.

HOWEVER, I also understand the anger and from whence it comes. We have a saying down here in the south, don’t go pissin’ in some one else’s pond. I am not one for conspiracies, but there was quite the organized effort to push Mitt around here, and the similarities in response by some of his supporters added to that feeling for many. Even many of his most ardent supporters, when caught off guard or having a fit of honesty admitted Mitt had a few hills to climb for Conservatives (there were the exceptions of those who denied any of that of course).

Mitt and his folks had a case to play out for the Conservatives here on Free Republic, who already had their conservative champions. Instead of dealing honestly with his shortcomings, it was “He’s the next Reagan you morons” etc. from day one and some very harsh attacks against site favorites Thompson and Hunter, and worst in fred’s case, his wife. When you are late for the dance you don’t come in raising hell, you come in with flowers.

So the animosity, while perhaps over the top in its effect was not totally undeserved.

As far as the Reagan bit, while some of the deepest far right members here may have had issues with him today (say the Ron Paul types and the Birchers) few if any would have issues with the man. See this is where I get a bit “irritated” with the Mitt folks, the whole “Reagan equivocation” bit. Indeed my biggest pet peeve is that damnable “Mitt changed just like Reagan on abortion” shtick. That is far from the truth as can be. There is a difference between a 90 degree turn and a 180 degree one. Mitt, no matter what was in his heart, was actively Pro Choice at one point is his career, while Reagan signed a bill that was not presented to him on the up and up at a time when he, as well as most of the nation, had not really confronted the issue. Reagan went from ambivalence to rapidly being Pro Life. Mitt’s ”Reagan was adamantly Pro Choice” was a low point for him, and does not even remotely reflect where Reagan was. I suggest Lou Cannon’s work for insight into how Reagan agonized over that choice not long after making it.

The Brady bill was an odd bit, but most of us Gun Nuts would be a little forgiving of a man shot, though it would be a point of debate.

The thing is Reagan demonstrated a life of Conservative ideals, regardless of his party. He also shouldered those ideals even when compromising with his adversaries in congress. He set a course and stayed on it, only varying for the greater good, not his own amusement or aggrandizement. He was never one for expediency for it’s own sake. People see through that, and we lowly citizens have the luxury of not having to keep up appearances, of cheering when we really don’t have too.

Has Mitt become a Conservative stalwart and worthy of the lavish praise of these luminaries or are they, like so many, seeing that the pickings are slim and hoping for the best, putting on the game face as it were. Who knows? But it does not and cannot alter the past, and rewrite the hard facts that there were and are issues with Mitt Romney, real ones, not fanciful whims, recent ones, not just 15 year old blurbs, and those have to be dealt with.

[ejonesie22]

I am not expecting him to, Barbour won’t do it anyways, he is committed to finishing his term here.

That’s for 2012