Posted on 02/03/2012 3:38:32 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The Case for Romney - A president who owes you is better than one who owns you.
[BIG snip]
Let me try to offer some solace. Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you.
A President Romney would be on a very short leash. A President Gingrich would probably chew through his leash in the first ten minutes of his presidency and wander off into trouble. If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments. Moreover, Romney is not a man of vision. He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to “fix” health care in ways Massachusetts would like. He was told to fix the 2002 Olympics. He was told to create Bain Capital. He did it all. The man does his assignments.
In this light, voting for Romney isn’t a betrayal, it’s a transaction. No, that’s not very exciting or reassuring for those who’d sooner see monkeys fly out their nethers than compromise again. But such a bargain may just be necessary before judgment day comes.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Gingrich has actually addressed all these things and explained the reasons for them. He hasn’t run away from them.
And he did it himself, without anybody else running interference.
How did that work out for him?
Jonah is just earning his pay from his mushy NRO paymaster.
Inexplicable, or taking a position that you don't find justifiable? I think he's offered, "can't justify it myself, except to say it was a mistake" for sharing the AGW seat with Pelosi. I haven't checked into whether or if he tried to justify the Dede endorsement (beyond "she's the most electable and is better than the DEM alternative" rationale used to justify a vote for Romney); nor have I poked into his remarks about Ryan's budget plan.
-- In the end, when a candidate says stupid stuff, it can't be only he and himself who are doing the explaining and defending. His supporters must chime in with "what he meant to say" or explain why it should be shrugged off. --
Why is that the case? I'd rather hear the explanation from "the man himself," rather than have others put words in his mouth, so the candidate can later (correctly) claim he never took the position or rationale his supporters assigned. That goes for all of the candidates.
SC was never winner take all. I think there are 2 delegates "up in the air" in that state, but I don't know the exact basis for lack of an outcome.
The FL "winner take all" of the delegates dispute isn't ripe for a contest until the nominating convention, says the RNC.
A romneybot saying that about Gingrich? Romney is the most radical liberal, the only pathological liar, the most inexplicable candidate, that the left wing of the GOP has ever pushed at us.
The man literally believes that he himself is to become as God, he thinks that he and his father marched with Martin Luther King, he taught that blacks were inferior until the movie "Animal House" came out, what stopped him was, in his mind, that God changed his mind in 1978, and told Bishop Romney's Prophet, that he had reversed himself, who then passed the word on to Bishop Romney.
It is impossible for Romney to make sense for very long, off script.
Here is a Romney meltdown, skip to about 4:30 for the action to start.
"People have a great misconception in this way, they think way they solve things by electing the right people. Its nice to elect the right people, but that isn’t the way you solve them. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things!"
So, you're unaware of Romney judicial record in Massachusetts, where he packed the courts with liberals? He required any judge he nominated to support abortion rights. He even put a couple of homosexual activist lawyers onto courts.
Here's a scenario for you to ponder: Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia likely wouldn't retire under Obama. But, both could retire if Romney were elected and be replaced by Romney with a far less conservative justice, maybe even another David Souter.
I'd bet good money any judge Romney would select for SCOTUS would overturn DOMA or Prop 8 in California.
You dance with the one that brought ya. Hardcore conservatives would be responsible for any Gingrich Presidency.
Romney is already running as a moderate in the primaries. He'll go further to the left in the general. His base isn't comprised of conservatives. He'll see his election as a basis for a "moderate" agenda.
If elected, he'll be about as favorable to conservatives as Lisa Murkowski has been since she won as a write-in candidate.
This is the case that Jonah Goldberg makes- Mitt Romney needs conservatives in order to have any chance at winning. Therefore, if conservatives give him CONDITIONAL support, he won’t step far out of line for fear of losing the base he needs to remain politically relevent. It’s Goldberg’s case, not mine. In theory, it sounds plausible. Whether it would happen in practice is another thing entirely. We don’t know what Romney will do, given his history of backstabbing and the fact that he believes in nothing in particular.
If he is the nominee, his choice for running mate bears close watching. I want to deny him the nomination, but we need a Plan B.
Thanks for the civil and thoughtful reply!
Yes, it’s always going to be difficult to predict how any given candidate interprets your correct observation that “you dance with who brought you.”
But a person’s history can give a hint.
If Romney gets nominated, I do think he will understand that he was in no way, shape or form annointed, and that the entire race was about trying to find an alternative to HIM. That would sober up a normal person.
OTOH, Gingrich came in with what was said to be insurmountable “baggage” (and I’m not even talking about the wives), yet suddenly he was not only given a pass, but the trumpets began. That would not sober up a person who has a history of political brainfarts.
But some won’t even consider the accountability issue at all.
Now tell me about the who you think Obama would nominate to the Supreme Court and how they would be better than Romney’s nominees.
Also address the amount of influence conservatives might have over President Obama’s nominees compared to President Romney’s picks.
(HINT: Harriet Miers.)
“Earth Pimp” PING!
“Just off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of ways: The United States Supreme Court.”
With all respect, I don’t buy that line of reasoning anymore. I think it’s a way that the GOP tries to keep conservatives on the plantation. And I point to Roe V Wade as an example.
The GOP has won the Presidency and been in power several times since Roe V Wade and here we are, almost 40 years later, and infanticide is just as legal as it was the day after the decision came down. And the GOP comes out every election cycle and points to the USSC as a reason why we should vote for GOP candidates. After awhile you come to the conclusion that if the GOP reallllly wanted to fix Roe V Wade, it would have done so already. Or at least tried a different strategy.
I’m ready for a different approach. How about this: we remove the issue from the Federal courts jurisdiction, and let the states deal with it. That takes a majority vote in both Houses of Congress and the President’s signature. No Constitutional Amendment, and no need for the us to watch in rapt attention at whatever the USSC decides to do.
Yes, certain states like NY and CA would choose to allow infanticide. But other states like UT, SC, AL, MS and VA to mention just a few could at least get rid of it within their borders. If we can’t win this outright, then let’s at least reduce the body count.
Same for other issues where the court has issued really repugnant decisions, such as Kelo. Take away the Federal courts jurisdiction and allow the states to deal with it. Marxist paradises will deal with it their way, my beloved VA will deal with it our own way, and other states will deal with it as they see fit.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that sort of strategy ever happening as doing so would actually fix some problems. And the current GOP-e, much like the ‘rat-e, doesn’t really want solutions. And therein lies the bigger problem.
Plan B = Third party or boycott election.
VP is window dressing until it’s time for them to run for President.
I’d be interested to know who he would put in key cabinet slots.
So I think that a President Romney would sign each and every bill that passes the GOP Congress and will make judicial appointments that would clear the GOP Senate with ease. The same sycophancy that made him sign liberal-Democrat-approved bills into law and to appoint liberals to the Mass. Supreme Court will work for us instead, and while Romney would be a lukewarm imitation of a conservative president, that would be far better than the lukewarm imitation of a liberal governor that he was in Mass., and exponentially better than the genuine, true-believer of a liberal president we've had for the past three years.
Obviously, I'd still prefer a real conservative, not someone posing as a conservative (and who “speaks conservative as a second language,” having recently learned it and still not achieving fluency) as our nominee to take on Obama and as our next president, but if GOP primary voters end up nominating Romney, I would support him over Obama and would apply pressure on him so that he keeps up his conservative charade for at least the next 4+ years. It's by no means where I thought we'd be this cycle, but I'd rather have a president who, for selfish reasons, will sign conservative legislation into law and make conservative appointments without his heart being into it than one who wants to destroy America and rebuild as a socialist, Godless dystopia.
To expand on that thought, the piece of dog doo that Bush appointed his first Treasury Secretary perfectly foreshadowed what was to come.
I'm not sure Romney is normal person. His ego is pretty large.
His biggest problem is the trust factor. Most conservatives, including me, don't trust him. How many votes he is going to ultimate lose because of that remains to be seen.
Wrong question. The real question is, can Romney be trusted to nominate as or more conservative justices than Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, both of which are likely to retire if Romney is elected but unlikely to if Obama is reelected?
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