DJ, Harmer is running in a district that gave Kerry like 58% and Obama over 60%. He is also a Mormon whose family probably has long ties to the Romneys. It is unfair of you to expect Harmer to denounce Mitt Romney and renounce his endorsement, which would have the effect of (i) driving away a huge number of potential Mormon donors (not to mention businessmen), (ii) making him seem like someone that isn’t satisfied with a Republican unless he’s 100% conservative (like he doesn’t have enough problems as a pro-lifer running in a socially liberal district), and (iii) making him seem like an ingrate.
I know that you loathe Romney, and I don’t like him very much, either (as you know, once Fred Thompson dropped out, I actually supported McCain over Romney for the nomination, which says more about how I feel about Romney than about how I feel about McCain), but politicians facing an uphill battle in a tough district against an opponent that can raise unlimited money cannot be expected to reject the endorsement of someone that not only is one of the most popular figures and best fundraisers in the party, but who is actually, for whatever reason, very popular with the base of the party. Harmer can’t afford to alienate Romney’s supporters in that district—or anywhere, for that matter. Harmer needs every Republican, and every independent, and most moderate-to-conservative Democrats, to vote for him if he is to win, and he’s running to win, not to make a point about how pure he is and lose in a landslide. Heck, if I was running in the CA-10, I’d be happy if Romney endorsed me, or even Arnold (who is 10 times more liberal than Romney) for that matter. I wouldn’t move an inch from my issue positions to get their endorsement, but if they wanted to endorse a conservative I wouldn’t reject their endorsement, since I would want people that agree with me only on a few issues to vote for me as well.
Let me put it to you this way: if Mitt Romney himself was the House candidate in CA-10—or in MA-05, or MA-10, or any of the MA districts that vote pretty similar to the CA-10—I would root for him to win. While I can understand if you think that Romney is so dangerous to conservatism that you wouldn’t support him even running for an office that we normally would have no chance of winning, I can’t believe that you would assign guilt by association to Harmer merely for accepting his endorsement.
“That would be fun, but it would also be dishonest. Better tell Slick where to shove it when he’s writing the check. No selling my soul to Wee Willard Weasel.”
I feel like I’ve explained my position until I’m blue in the face, at least in a 1,000 different ways. There are some individuals I regard as simply so destructive and so bad to the GOP and the Conservative movement that I consider it a moral imperative to oppose them as vigorously as possible, and Slick Willard is at the top of the list. I’ll say again that that man is a user of the worst order, he collects people and groups (via payoffs and other favors), lies to a pathological degree, despicably exploits the loyalty of his own religious sect, and on the whole is a very dangerous individual. Some think I psychoanalyze him far too much, but I think the man is very similar in regard to Al Gore in his obsession for #1, wanting to avenge his father’s loss of the Presidency, and #2, getting it for himself. But there’s even more sinister motives here. But unlike Gore, who did not want to destroy the Democrat party (or use it and discard it), this man DOES want to destroy the Republican party. I submit he hates the party with a burning passion unequaled of any open Democrats. I submit he cares not one whit about using it and discarding it (Why ? Because he already did precisely that in MA, and he doesn’t care that he did).
It is not a “secret” his liberal record, his flipflops, his lying and a host of other negatives. Any Republican that doesn’t know this by now is either #1, an idiot (or completely naive), or #2, fully approving of his actions. There’s no middle ground here, no “pragmatic approach” to dealing with him or his associates. I didn’t spend thousands of hours of my time warning scores of people off him just for kicks. I did so because he is extraordinarily dangerous, and if Harmer is another one of his “associates” he’s looking to install in office to aid his cause in Congress in helping his future Presidential run, I can’t abide by that or support it one bit. Slick Willard and his supporters are a cancer in the Republican party, one for which that needs to be eradicated before they do to us nationally what he did to Massachusetts.