Posted on 01/30/2012 5:34:32 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It’s seven months before their convention in Tampa, a lifetime in today’s five-minute-news-cycle politics. But the split decisions in the first three primaries and the personal attacks in the televised debates beg the question: Are Republicans divided into so many parts they are about to engage in 1964-style “politicide”? As a teenage Democratic political junkie, I watched TV with partisan glee as Goldwaterites booed Nelson Rockefeller at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1964.
That was two decades before Jeane J. Kirkpatrick labeled those who nominated Walter Mondale “the San Francisco Democrats,” a year when my party, obsessed with identity politics and disconnected from the middle-class center, suffered a defeat as bad as Barry Goldwater‘s.
It made little difference whom Republicans nominated in 1964. Their chances after John F. Kennedy’s assassination were slim. But this year offers an exceptionally good opportunity for Republicans. Thus, why would the party give even fleeting consideration to a grandiose K Street demagogue like Newt Gingrich or an electorally failed, culturally out-of-touch ex-senator like Rick Santorum?
That observation might be written off as the partisan rant of a former professional Democrat. (I was communications director for the convention of those 1984 San Francisco Democrats.) But, as a now-libertarian Democrat, I admit I might commit apostasy and - though not with enthusiasm - vote for a GOP candidate (Mitt Romney) for president if he served as a positive messenger to markets to stimulate jobs and growth.
Mr. Gingrich’s and Mr. Santorum’s liabilities aside, why would Republicans blow a chance to defeat President Obama? There are three reasons they might commit political suicide, and none is Mr. Romney’s deficiency as a candidate or the absence of some desired but unavailable GOP superstar.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Romney is Obama
Ras has rats up 1pct in the generic polling, first time in 2 and a half yrs
Romney can’t win the general because he loses the base. Newt can’t win the general because he loses the women vote and the so-called moderates.
It’s called a primary. You would think we’d never had one before.
I remember back in 2007 a very smart guy told me “there’s no way Americans are gonna elect a guy named Hussein as POTUS”.
And amazingly it looks like we’re going to do it twice, even after Baraq has totally failed at the economy which is usually THE predictor of elections.
Baraq’s going to retire in 2017 like an undefeated champion boxer who never fought anyone with a winning record.
Exactly! As if we needed to be reminded why we don’t like Romney, why would we want to nominate a guy that the author of this article, a Democrat, could see himself voting for? Even He pretty much is saying that Romney could have run as a Democrat!
Yes, it’s a primary.
But the level of internecine warfare going on here brings to mind what my parents told me about their experiences working on the Goldwater campaign. The “Rockefeller Republicans” were beside themselves that Goldwater *dared* to run for the office. As my parents described it, the “blue bloods thought it was *theirs* and theirs alone.”
What they told me about that campaign was coming back to me as I was listening to talk radio and some babbling heads this past weekend. This is a replay of ‘64, ‘76 and ‘80, when real conservatives were running.
If this goes on much longer, I think the GOP is done as a national party. A big plurality of the “base” will never trust the party hacks again, and the GOP will become a regional party of the northeast. The south and west will start down their own road, and we’ll have something similar to what they have in NY state - a “Republican” party and a “conservative” party that split the vote.
Exactly! As if we needed to be reminded why we don’t like Romney, why would we want to nominate a guy that the author of this article, a Democrat, could see himself voting for? Even He pretty much is saying that Romney could have run as a Democrat!
Exactly! As if we needed to be reminded why we don’t like Romney, why would we want to nominate a guy that the author of this article, a Democrat, could see himself voting for? Even He pretty much is saying that Romney could have run as a Democrat!
I believe Romney IS running as a Democrat, only he claims to be Republican.
He’s right. It’ll be just like 2008 when all the battling between Obama and Clinton lead to the election of McCain. /sarc
People need to ask themselves. Why are the alphabet networks, establishment/leftist newspapers and leftists in general pushing Romney? The answer is that he has no hope of beating their man Obama. There is no daylight between Romney and Obama. How is Romney going to defeat Obama? By sliming him the way he has slimed conservatives? Impossible. The MSM will savagely turn on him should he get the nomination, and his attacks will fail.
As political analysis, however, his diagnosis borders on satire.
There are three reasons they might commit political suicide, and none is Mr. Romney’s deficiency as a candidate or the absence of some desired but unavailable GOP superstar.
The latter is particularly humorous, a rhetorical backflip to avoid invoking the dread name of Sarah Palin. If she's that irrelevant, why are they so afraid of her?
It boils down to this: the last year in American politics has been one gigantic puppet show put on to marginalize the truly populist anger that was displayed at the Tea Parties. It, and not the achingly phony OWS, is a true measure of dissatisfaction and it scares hell out of every establishment politician of either party. As it should. And so we have on the one hand the prancing idiots of Occupy My Mom's Basement and on the other the smooth cadences of Mitt Romney - that's your political continuum, folks, that or something in between but nothing outside it. That's what the puppet show has been all about.
And what's why Romney's candidacy is so vital to political lightweights such as Terry Michael and such party heavyweights as have already signed on to the Romney campaign. It frames the debate into territory in which they can only win. They won't come out, we have to come in. They're holding the country hostage, and our love of it will, they believe, force us to play the game. Hence the threats - this article is one - that this will turn into another Goldwater blowout if we don't play along. I'm not buying it.
Sorry, Barack Obama is no JFK....
And, we'll either win it, or we'll find a new party.
It's OUR choice, not theirs.
A 3rd party will win in the USA before I'm off the planet.
We can trace the origins back to the leftist Romney and his decision to launch personal attacks FIRST against Newt in Iowa:
The line of attack worked wonders in Iowa to reverse Mr. Gingrich’s ...
In Iowa, Mitt Romney’s super PAC spent millions attacking Gingrich. Now the Gingrich Super PAC is fighting back...
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3405586.htm
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