Posted on 02/22/2012 3:32:24 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
......Deference to leaders who do not necessarily share your background or agree with you on everything is in the fiber of representative government. It is enshrined in the Constitution. In fact, there probably never would have been a Constitution if the Americans of 1787 hadn't been willing to defer to the "assembly of demigods" (as Jefferson described them) that convened in Philadelphia, closed the doors to the press, sealed the windows to eavesdroppers, and privately debated the future of the nation.
....What the Tea Party needs to do is look for allies. There are other people in the country who share their concerns, if not their bitterness. Who are some of those natural allies? The most obvious are people who have been successful in the private sector but who have remained true to the system that made them.....
In other words, a natural ally might be Mitt Romney, or someone very like him.
When the alliance of labor unions, urban Catholics, and Southern rednecks combined to take over this country in 1932, they didn't do it by nominating Huey Long or Al Smith for president. They did it by choosing a Hudson River aristocrat who had so much blue blood in his veins that he didn't mind becoming a "traitor to his class" and trashing a few Wall Street plutocrats along the way. They chose someone outside of their class who was willing to speak for them, yet someone prominent and successful enough to become a national hero. And it worked. Cue John F. Kennedy in 1960 for the same result.
Tea Party members seem unwilling to do the same. They don't like Mitt Romney because he is not "one of us." He had a rich father and went to Cranbrook and Harvard Business School.....
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Bump!
LOL.
Hell, I'm just some dumb yokel.
Milton Friedman: "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 isnt 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!"
Well, if you agree with Friedman and if, as many here believe, Romney will do the right thing if it is "politcally profitable", then Romney would be that natural ally. (Romney - "I believe in a lot of things the Tea Party believes in.")
Exactly.
Rush has said he won’t endorse, because he has to be careful to preserve his ability to support the ulitmate nominee.
Levin has been the most openly critical of Romney, but has already said he will vote for him if need be to rid us of Obama.
But sweep away their self serving statements and get down to the bottom line...
They are stretching and twisting themselves into corkscrews over helping some candidates and not others. Ignoring bad things about certain ones and magnifying things about others out of all proportion.
And in the end, they and the WSJ who has been for Romney but is now open to Santorum, agree on which candidates are underserving of support or defense.
And those candidates are the most qualified ones to lead a nation in these times.
And those candidates are not lawyers.
Romney’s words are meaningless.
Too many incarnations.
Liberal.
Moderate.
Conservative.
Blowing with the political winds.
With ever changing words.
Once Santorum starts spouting about banning birth control and abolishing public schools, he will be like those Populists who were suddenly heard sprinkling their calls for free coinage of silver with vegetarianism and mystical interpretations of the Bible -- the things that historian Richard Hofstadter said reflected "too many long nights on the prairie."
The author knows this is a completely false analogy but wants to make it anyway, and in doing so completely loses his argument.
... Rush and Levin, especially, helped Santorum's rise...Levin openly endorsing Santorum, Rush tacitly helping him while stopping short of endorsing.
All the media from all spectrums have generally treated Newt as if he had a catching disease and needs to be quarantined.
Glaringly, instead of trying to help Mitt by dissing Santorum, their tactics were to treat Santorum with kid gloves.
I think they realize Mitt is in bad trouble and they have to be careful how to play this.
Yes! Nobody from GOP-E came out at Santorum, the way they came out at Gingrich not just personally but also sought to destroy his small government / Reaganite / Tea Party credentials ("Reagan didn't really like him | he dissed Reagan 'in private' | he was a 'lobbyist' | he was 'ethically challenged' and 'fined' by Congress | his Congress 'colleagues' didn't like him | he was 'erratic' and not focused...)
Rush is now "carrying water" for Santorum, trying to "explain" and "translate" him positively in the way he was "carrying water" for Bush, McCain and Romney, but was regularly negatively "translating" Newt Gingrich, even after Newt explained to him and audience the problems he was seeing ("Ryan's Medicare plan," Boehner's budget fight and government shutdown and other strategy mistakes by GOP Congress) and where he wanted to take the party.
Others (like Levin) have either endorsed Santorum or have no problems with another big government guy, as long as he is social conservative.
See The GOP's Working Class Muddle (Santorum, Romney and class-warfare) - FR, 2012 February 02 / WSJ, by Kimberley A. Strassel, 2012 January 06
Nobody is even trying to link Romney and/or Santorum to Reagan or Tea Party movement. But that is OK with them, that absurdly vicious overkill attack was only aimed at Gingrich.
Newt is the only one in the race to represent small government / Tea Party, and they are afraid to death of him... Santorum, not really a problem to them, he is one of them, the insider playing outsider.
Romney vs Santorum is like Clinton vs Obama 4 years ago - Dems knew Clinton was one of them (it was her turn), but Obama was fine with them too - both were Alinsky disciples.
Santorum is not getting vetted, and whatever the flaws are, they are being smoothed or hidden by omission or commission behind the veneer of the "man from steel [union] town" ("place called Hope" anyone?) by elite in "conservative" media) for the exact same reason they all so furiously attacked Newt from the left (calling him anti-capitalist) for exposing Romney, actually accusing Newt of attacking "from the left" their chosen favorite son.
Santorum is their "strategic alternative" - Santorum/Romney is fine with them just as it would be Romney/Santorum (or other accepted "social conservative" to "balance" the ticket.
Gingrich is a "leper" to them all (including Rush, who Newt expected would be naturally receptive to his ideas, or at least not an enemy) because of Newt's small government mindset and Tea Party credentials.
If the Tea Party people don't get organized and vote now in support of Newt, they will not have a champion or representation in Washington, they'll be fractured and marginalized, from both the Right elite and the Left, time and again - they'll be just another small "group" / faction, like [now badly fractured] social conservatives, that the GOP-E will only cater to when they need votes.
I usually think of pretzels in this context, instead of corkscrews, but that's exactly right and has been pretty transparent since SC - FL time frame.
Thanks, cp, for the added analysis.
Today Rush did try to tie Reagan to Santorum. CW heard it, although I didn’t.
Seems he said Reagan spoke of family values and of evil, and that the left tried to get Reagan to back down but he didn’t, and now they try to get Santorum to back down because they hate him like they hated Reagan, so that’s how Rush tried to tie them in.
Hello??
The left also hate Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich.
But that doesn’t qualify as tying into Reagan, in Rush’s book, if your name is Newt Gingrich.
Bump!!
Mitt is out of touch with anyone not in his pup tent on the country club’s golf course. They got the Rinos guards dressed in pink pants armed with golf clubs, beating off voters who try to get in.
I have often said, Rinos do not mind being a permanent minority wing of the Democrat Party. Their real opposition is the majority of Americans - conservatives. They would rather have Obama in the White House than a conservative. They want the Senate and don’t mind the Dems controlling the House and White House. They were not happy with the Party movement that made the GOP the majority in the House because it added conservatives. They have to be sidelined - again.
They believe “independents” will rationalize leaving Obama in the WH, ‘cause they’ll vote for a power split and give RINOs control of Congress.
They assume independents are moderates - liberals. They are not. They are conservatives, communists and most who don’t know their foot from the leg of their chair.
The last group can be swayed by whoever comes up with an appealing freedom spirit and agenda and can argue it. Newt. Obama got them last time with the messiah act.
Rinos like to pretend, like the other party, that the independents are all “moderates” (liberals) like them wanting to be ruled and controlled by their politically correct betters in life - the “smart” people.
“In other words, a natural ally might be Mitt Romney, or someone very like him.”
In other words...
Nahhhhh...I’ll pass...
And anyone very like him...Pass...
Why would Mitt Romney be the political standard that the Tea Party needs to emulate???
If anything, people who have genuine/honest uncompramising conservative beliefs will eventually disengage from the increasingly politically moderating/compramising Republican party and form their own political force, that will have the weaker moderates caucusing with the Tea Party, or whatever it may eventually be called...
It is only a matter of time, and it will not be the end of the world if the Republican party disintegrates, as many opther political parties in this country have done...
It is nothing to be fearful of either...
Just my opinion...
I am so disappointed in Rush. I haven’t been interested in listening to him simce that day he came down so hard on Newt.
I haven’t bought any Two if by Tea since then either.
Of course, they urgently need to put forward either Santorum or Romney (as the author of this article tries to do) as the "natural ally" of small government / Tea Party voters, or they have major problems even in the primaries (as suppressed voter participation has shown) let alone in November, because TP is not represented / "balanced" by either one of them.
There is a reason why Santorum talks only (and not very articulately) about religion and presumed, but artificial, "family values" issues, and why Romney talks about "executive/management experience" with the rest filled in with platitudes - it's because they have nothing else to fall back on, in their actual public or private experiences.
But neither has the credentials to show for small government (a unifying "glue" which represents and unites a majority of conservatives) so the "conservative elite" media has to emphasize that aspect to "pump up" their conservative image - therefore, they will use any buzzword or reference, however tangential, that can tie them to "Reagan" - just as they used "Reagan" in attacking and trying to destroy Gingrich.
McCain constantly talked about being a "soldier in the Reagan's army" and nobody was buying it - just like they are not buying it from Romney or Santorum, so the established practitioners of "conservative media" have to artificially "implant" the "Reagan" credentials into them, to give credibility with the small government / Tea Party who are already leery of GOP (as evidenced by 2010 elections and the turnout in these primaries).
As W.C. Fields said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull [manure]."
That seems to be exactly what is going on now with the "conservative" media.
As W.C. Fields said, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull [manure].”
That seems to be exactly what is going on now with the “conservative” media.
__________________
Exactly.
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