Posted on 10/14/2011 7:33:33 AM PDT by Notary Sojac
A reader writes in, furiously asserting that “the talentless hacks at National Review” are responsible for Mitt Romney’s hard-to-dislodge frontrunner or near-frontrunner status.
As much as I’d like to believe that the magazine and web site alone can determine the Republican nominee, I’d note that the magazine featured a rather positive profile of Tim Pawlenty in the March 7 issue, just five months before he withdrew from the race. Sometimes the cover features Marco Rubio and declares, “Yes, He Can.” Sometimes the cover features Howard Dean and begs, “Democrats: Please Nominate This Man.” (Ted Cruz must be hoping we’re due for another Rubio moment.)
My angry reader asserts that “if the cocktail party crowd in NY and DC weren’t enamored of his important hair and pants crease, he wouldn’t be leading right now.” Except that the cocktail party crowd in New York and Washington don’t make up twenty-something percent of Republican voters. And that’s what Mitt has enjoyed with remarkable consistency.
One possibility is that it seems every non-Mitt candidate has decided that they need to eliminate the other non-Romney options first before going after Romney, which may be a strategic error.
Tim Pawlenty hesitated on “Obamneycare,” but certainly didn’t hesitate to go after Michele Bachmann in subsequent debates. Bachmann has torn into Rick Perry on immigration and the Gardasil decision. Rick Santorum has gone after almost everyone, but seems to have delivered his toughest attacks on Perry and most recently on Cain (asking the audience how many felt the national sales tax would remain 9 percent for long).
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich appears to see his Republican rivals as distractions from his true hated target: whoever is moderating that night, and cheery Herman Cain rarely attacks any of his rivals – probably a big element of his appeal.
Jon Huntsman certainly is trying to hit Romney, but its hard for the most leftward candidate in the race to score points in this area, and Huntsman is in low single digits in most states. Perry certainly tried to go after Romney, but got tongue-tied two debates ago and is now focused on the surging Cain, pointing out what he sees as the flaws in the 9-9-9 Plan.
Perhaps it’s time for a revised strategy. If you want to be the leading anti-Romney candidate, go after Romney. If you become the most thorough and effective critic of Romney’s record and stances, you won’t have to worry about all of the other ones.
Another possibility is that some folks in the field find Romney’s odds of becoming the nominee so favorable that they don’t want to alienate him, and want to preserve their viability as a running mate or future cabinet secretaries, etc.
I completely agree with you. FR is not what it once was. These days it's not really a conservative forum so much as a mix of very far Right and Libertarian populist forum.
I agree with this piece. Romney is not going to beat himself... he has been doing this for 6 years. Everyone who has stepped to the plate has failed to hold their own with him in the debates. If/when Cain falls Gingrich will be next up. Newt can hold his own on policy, but how will he respond to negative attacks from Bachmann and Santorum (at this point, I am convinced that they are nothing but Romney surrogates).
I guess it depends how you define “conservative”. I think FR is more conservative now. Perhaps less republican, but more conservative. Do you think GWB was conservative? I recall this forum falling all over itself defending his nation building and deficit spending. I don’t think that would fly anymore. TARP was the turning point.
Seems to me many don’t want to risk any chance of being off Romney’s veep list.
I know he’s is not conservative, but he can beat Romney for sure. I say we draft the Huckster to trip up Mittens.
Oh, there is still lots of support for “nation building” here. Not from me though!!
Many good conservatives do not want to subject themselves to this kind of slander, so they would rather stay out of it than run. So we get candidates like Bush I, Dole, Bush II, and McCain. Some were more conservative than others, but none were philosophical conservatives. But they had name recognition and GOP Establishment approval.
I don’t know if a tiny core of establishment Republicans can select a candidate.
I do know that we are killing ourselves here on Free Republic as a large group of Cain supporters seem intent, not on Obama, nor yet on Romney, but on trashing Perry.
They seem to thrive on it. It gives them more focus and energy than anything I’ve seen lately.
And it’s all based on a couple of over-hyped, wrong and insignifcant things plus one real thing.
The insignificant and mischaracterized things are:
gardisal - won’t bother to refute, that’s been done.
in-state tuition - not Perry’s idea but passed unanimously by both dems and pubs in Texas and certainly not exclusive to Texas.
Border issues - the mistaken idea that Perry is not serious about the border (hey, people that’s Obama who doesn’t give a flying fig about the border). Perry is working on it.
Perry is a staunch and proven conservative on most issues that matter to us, but people have chosen to focus on these things. Kaye Bailey tried to beat Perry for governor focusing on those things and she was defeated roundly.
The one real negative is Perry’s debate performances, not the last one where he was ignored by the liberal panel but didn’t do badly, but the second one, where people got their feelings hurt.
A large group of people here cannot grasp that they can be for Cain by extoling Cain’s virtues and it does no good to our party or our chances to viciously attack another candidate.
Just do not get it.
No the problem is you are not actually a Conservative if you think Romney is one.
Perhaps you need to be honest in your political label instead of wrongly trying to hijack the Conservative label.
Sorry but that is total projection. The Perry camp, having nothing to offer us in support of Perry, has done nothing but smear anyone who challenged Perry on anything.
Don't blame everyone else for responding to the tactics the Perry camp choose to use on this website.
Tell you what, try actually making a case FOR Perry don't just attack everyone else because they are not agreeing with your opinions.
Apparently the GOP Establishment does not think him the “most Conservative”.
Bill Kristol to a NY Time Reporter telling him how the GOP Establishment plans to deal with “the Tea party mutiny”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2792217/posts?page=3
Kristol told me just after Perry entered the race, a development that essentially ended [the more radical Michele] Bachmann’s brief ascent. Establishment Republicans may prefer Romney to Perry, but their assumption is that either man can be counted on to steer the party back toward the broad center next fall, effectively disarming the Tea Party mutiny.
(K
Frustrating trying to post from a cell phone. My first attempt at a response to you was gibberish because of cell phone error. Anyway, you can search long and hard in my FR posts for Romney support and won’t find any. I’m not for any candidate yet. Soured on all politics and politicians these days. Maybe that gives me a unique perspective. From where I sit, what I said about FR is true. Most here are not classical conservatives, but a mix of far Right populist and a strain of Libertarianism. Same type of folks who supported Perot, Buchanan, the Reform Party, etc.
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