Posted on 05/01/2012 1:42:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
With President Barack Obama's officially starting his campaign this Saturday, many are wondering whether the GOP front-runner and former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, has a real chance at winning the general election. But I know a way he could pull it off, and my wife, Gena, even dreamed about it.
I said that I would vote for whichever candidate won the GOP nomination. As of this writing, it appears to be Romney. Truthfully, I believe that Mitt has the skills and organization to defeat Obama and stop his fundamental transformation of America. We all know what four more years of increased socialistic decisions would do to our country.
By all reasonable rationale and political forecast, in a couple of months Romney will reach the necessary delegate count and become the Republican Party's official nominee. And before the GOP fractures with a third-party candidate (as it did in 1992 and 1996) and hands over the election again in doing so, I want to propose to Romney a way to rally the GOP base and even, I believe, those who dislike him.
Typically, this is the time when we all speculate about the GOP nominee's choice for vice president -- his running mate -- and we pray to God that his decision is so magnanimous that it instantly will rally the entire spectrum of political preferences at his side. Of course, that's a political pipe dream and, I believe, a shortsighted, typical campaign technique in a unique election war that requires a very unconventional strategy for winning. With existing polarities (indeed, divisiveness) in the GOP and conservative base alone, choosing the right VP is alone not going to be enough, inasmuch as a Super Bowl team couldn't rally its fan base based upon just a controversial quarterback and a great wide receiver.
For those optimistic statisticians who would point out that just last week a Fox News poll showed that the race between Obama and Romney is dead-even -- with 46 percent of society favoring each -- I would remind them that those numbers are equal despite four years of President Obama's reckless decisions against our republic and despite the fact that his re-election campaign hasn't even unleashed its billion-dollar war chest against Romney. (That sum makes Romney's effectual $20 million he used to destroy Newt Gingrich's candidacy back in the Florida primary look like chump change.)
If the Obama campaign machine and its mainstream media minions are already pigeon-holing Romney as "extreme" and "right-wing" (are you kidding?!), imagine what they will say and do to his likely more conservative running mate. (Does anyone remember the plight of Sarah Palin with Sen. John McCain in '08?)
I think Romney and maybe even most Republicans are underestimating the difficulty of persuading conservatives, evangelicals and libertarians, let alone the rest of the country, to vote for Romney, despite the prospect of the sultan of socialist swing's remaining in the Oval Office. General election apathy and depression in the fall could take their toll.
It doesn't take a political scientist to see that if liberals such as former President Jimmy Carter say they would be "comfortable" with Romney, conservatives, evangelicals, libertarians and others are going to have a gigantic struggle rallying around Romney. But if he would take the following course of action, they might find backing him much more palatable.
Enough talk. The idea is this, and it is not my idea but the action of President Abraham Lincoln.
A book that highlights Lincoln's brilliant action is titled "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian. In addition to topping charts and receiving scholarly acclaim, the book itself is political genius and outlines the crucial strategy needed not only to rally the present GOP base but also to win the White House and save our republic. (I also wrote about this unifying strategy in a former column, "The 8th Miracle To Save America," which can be read at http://www.creators.com/opinion/chuck-norris/the-8th-miracle-to-save-america.html.)
Goodwin's prize-winning treatise details how Lincoln brought together his candidate rivals by appointing them to key positions in his administration when he became president.
Let me re-highlight a few critical points from Goodwin's book review in The New York Times:
"The party in the 1860's was a coalition of politicians who only a few years earlier had been Whigs (Lincoln, Seward, Bates), Democrats (Blair, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Vice President Hannibal Hamlin), Free Soilers (Chase), or had flirted with the short-lived anti-immigrant American Party, or Know Nothings (Cameron and Bates). In addition, several cabinet members personally disliked each other: Blair and Chase, Seward and Welles, Chase and Seward, Blair and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who replaced Cameron in January 1862. Lincoln's 'political genius' enabled him to herd these political cats and keep them driving toward ultimate victory.
"How did he do it? Goodwin deals with this question better than any other writer. Part of the answer lay in Lincoln's steadfastness of purpose, which inspired subordinates to overcome their petty rivalries. Part of it lay in his superb sense of timing and his sensitivity to the pulse of public opinion as he moved to bring along a divided people to the support of 'a new birth of freedom.' And part of it lay in Lincoln's ability to rise above personal slights, his talent for getting along with men of clashing ideologies and personalities who could not get along with each other."
Whether you agree with Lincoln or not, his team of rivals worked, propelled his leadership and ultimately unified the country.
Isn't our divided country again ripe for a new "team of rivals," made up of past presidential candidates and other vetted, qualified and esteemed national leaders, rather than merely a dynamic duo fighting the Obama campaign machine?
Lincoln recognized the wisdom of Jesus when it came to collective success: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
The question is this: Will Romney?
Next week, I will not only elaborate more on this concept of a team of rivals and the people I believe should be a part of it but also share the inspiring dream Gena had, which we both hope comes true.
I’m sure you will, and you’ll have to do what you think is best. So will we.
You’re right about my figure being somewhat dated. However, the current RCP Favorability/Unfavorability matchup is
Romney: Favorable/Unfavorable 36.6 41.4 -4.8
Obama: Favorable/Unfavorable 49.8 44.8 +5.0
They are both even, on the voting @ 46%, 4% Third party and 4% Independant. (Rasmussen).
I interpret those figures as a very “lukewarm” acceptance in the electorate for Romney. No one is excited about him and many of that 46% vote for Willard will stay home.
It might be possible for him to change that with the choice of a very solid Conservative for VP, but as another Freeper predicted, he has a very scary possibility of choosing a Huntsman.
His favorability is weak, and I don’t expect it to ever be strong, but I would expect it to turn positive, as it always does after a primary battle ends and people become resigned that their candidate is gone.
I also don’t believe people are going to stay home, not with Obama destroying our country. But I certainly will not stay home, and I will make the argument why nobody should stay home (I say it that way because I can’t tell people what to do, nor will I bash people if they don’t want to vote for Romney — everybody has to make up their own mind what they think is best, and I can only present my opinion on the subject.
Excellent post.
How does the election of a Saul Alinsky fan like Romney do anything to change that scenario?
What kind of leverage upon a President Romney will the Mexican drug cartels and illegal Mexican immigration lobby have upon a Romney Administration whose Mexican Romney cousins have already had to ransom the freedom of their kidnapped community leader?
Too many cannot or refuse to comprehend the truth of where we are currently arrived. They are stuck in the paradigm served to them by hope and dissonance that they have a choice by voting for a lesser of evils.
They refuse to understand they have been forced into a trap, played upon them by the very machine they think is supposed to save the country from Obama.
They aren’t willing to ask themselves WHY Obama, the media and the Ruling Class oligarchs who have given Obama a pass, chose Romney to be Obama’s opponent this November. Neither will they look at the machine that steamrolled through the primary cycle to ensure Romney was the nominee either.
They have all been left with only fear, of which the desperate are then easily manipulated into acting precisely as intended.
Which we see on these threads. You can urge alternative solutions for the long war to rectify how far we’ve fallen, and you are discounted and called a ‘liberal troll’. You can state you are only voting for Conservatives this Fall, and you will be set upon by the fearful who will accuse you of telling people to sit out the election. They will scream “Vote Romney or you hand Obama the election and you are responsible for the consequences!”.
Every cycle since Reagan, the reasoning has been “Vote this Ruling Class pick - because the alternative is worse”. So we do and the party and the nation slides further and further left, and very little difference is able to be discerned between the DNC and GOP.
As a result, we now have MarxoFascists running the show, aided and abetted by the very Ruling Class oligarchs who have worked with the Democrats to destroy Conservatives and feed us Romney as the only choice.
They refuse to allow themselves to understand that there will be no opposition to Obama coming from the GOP. The proof is in the candidate they selected for the chumps to be frightened into nominating so Obama can be assured a “win” n November.
Romney was chosen for the purpose of an assured Obama “win”, and then even if by a miracle that Romney’s numbers overcome the ridiculous fraud that the machine will propagate, nothing changes in the course we have been set upon by those who have invested their power in a centralized government power structure dictating every aspect of life.
Playing the game they set for us is not going to stop the very thing these frightened people fear. We’re going to have to think and act outside of what we have been conditioned to think is our only options.
“We’re going to have to think and act outside of what we have been conditioned to think is our only options.”
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Seems your only chices are: 1) vote third party, 2) do a write in, or 3) don’t vote.
Any other options available?
It does scare me. However, Romney’s record of picks is no better. That scares me as well.
(1) A Centrist-Left candidate who, while many hope he will move to the Right, is already moving to the Left and "Me tooing" Obama. One who will likely neuter any Conservative gains in the House and Senate and crash the country as bad, giving Conservatives a bad name as well.
(2) I'll give you this one.
(3) Supporting the GOP Leftist so that the future will hold candidates further to the Left for both parties.
The elder Romney doesn’t appear to have been very savvy—he destroyed his own Presidential campaign by saying he had been “brainwashed” on a trip to Vietnam (into believing what the US military told him). The Communists were experts at creating nice-sounding front organizations and suckering in “useful idiots” to work with them. Until I hear more I’m guessing George Romney was a “useful idiot” who heard Alinsky say things on one or two issues
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As the Gov from MI George Romney went with some other Govs to Vietnam...
When they returned nobody complained of problems
a few years later when it was time for young Willie to be drafted George suddenly remembered that he had been brainwashed and Vietnam was not such a good place to send his boy..
As Gov he was on the draft board so that helped to..
Willie Mitty dodged the draft at least TWO times..
Compel the Republican National Convention to nominate someone other than Romney. Convince the National convention that a Romney nomination is an absolute guarantee of defeat.
Compel the RNC to acknowledge Romney is not eligible.
Prevail upon the law enforcement officers to indict Obama and Biden for the commission of felonies, remove them from office, place the Speaker of the House Boehner or his successor as President Pro-Tem, void and nullify the acts of the illegitimate Obama Administration, and go from there....
I never said anything about not voting.
But to answer your question YES. There are other options.
I choose not to play the game crafted for us, and will vote for only Conservatives and will work tirelessly to get others to do the same.
No option employed however, will bring instant gratification and solution. Every viable option will require the long haul. If you can only see November and getting rid of Obama as a solution - be prepared for major disappointment. We did not get here in one cycle, and neither will we be rid of MarxoFascism in one election either.
Read post 78 for starters. Some very good ideas WhiskeyX suggested that are worthy to not only consider, but to actually begin working on.
Other options that no one wants to discuss, will become necessary if and when that last mistake is made and we have no choice but to act as our ForeFathers did.
As far as this November goes, the Ruling Class already decided the outcome and have hedged themselves upon it.
I’m convinced a Romney win institutionalizes and legitimizes everything Obama has done already, because neither Romney, Boehner or the Ruling Class are going to risk the ire of the outraged Left by reversing anything.
Obama may really overstep if he “Wons” another term, as I expect he will. I then expect his regime to make that last mistake, which at that point - is an unknown in terms of how it turns out. We are not even a shadow of the character and moral fiber of our patriarchs, and the risk is either a walk to the gas chambers or a French Revolution bloodbath - of which the ingredients have already been set by the Left and the Ruling Class.
Between now and then, those of God better be getting on our collective faces before Him and spread a message of repentance and 2 Chronicles 7:14. Then a more concerted effort at educating a people who have no principles but hedonistic self or any knowledge of our true history and heritage has to go into overdrive.
Hosea 4:6 says that God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge, having forgotten the Law of God.
We have done worse than simply forget, we allowed God to be stripped from our culture and put out. Do we really have to wonder why it is we suffer under all this? If this people and nation will not be governed by God, it will be ruled by the tyranny of men.
The same logic the "Never McCain" conservatives used in 2008 - and look how 'right' our current candidate is and how wonderful 0bama worked out for us. So let's do that AGAIN because it worked so well the last time! (!)
Conservatism isn't about being so rigid we break - in this case it's about doing what's best for the country with what we have. A hope for a better candidate in 2016 isn't a 'have', it's a hope. There is NO EXCUSE for a conservative-libertarian to directly or indirectly assist 0bama's reelection.
I have seen the enemy ... and it looks a lot like us.
No. Wrong.
It looks a lot like Romney, not like us.
Through the years I learned more about that and then one day her husband, who'd bought that orchard upon Great Grandpa's death took his road builder and tore down the orchard. They said he took particular care in pushing all those little piles of rock into one big pile at the end of the field, and that was the end of the slavecatchers.
Well, an update on the story. I was reading the latest release of "The History of Jennings County Indiana" ~ and came upon the story of the slavecatcher in Ohio who was sent to his reward by a large mob of anti-slavery folks in Xenia. They put his body in a box and dispatched him to North Vernon Indiana where he was taken off and "BURIED IN THE LARGE ORCHARD".
He wasn't the first one put down in the orchard, and he wasn't the last one ~ but there were Fur Shur a bunch.
Now that's political warfare and rebellion against the power of the federal government ~ they were the ones who'd unleashed slavecatchers on the free people living in the MidWest ~ that war could have started just anywhere in the country. With the Runaway Slave Act in place it could have started right there on the banks of the Muscatatuck ~ which, I guess it did eh!
Later on men from that region in various Indiana volunteer brigades burned every city in the South to the ground ~ kind of a retribution for bringing slavery and its evils into their midst.
Worthy of note, the Civil War began at a time when the lower MidWest was having one of the worst "panics" in history ~ all the young men were unemployed ~ just like today ~ and the Democrats and Whigs didnt have any solutions to that problem. Not only that, they seemed oblivious to the plight of those folks ~ just like now.
Obviously, this is where we disagree on how bad Romney would be. As I live in Tennessee, if Romney needs my vote here to win, he has already lost. I have the freedom to vote my conscience. And, by the way, if you listen to what he is saying now, it is as scary as what he said ten years ago.
1) Romney as President is an unknown.
2) 0bama as President is a proven disaster of epic proportions.
Do you honestly believe that Romney will be worse for our country than another 4 years of 0bama (making Romney the worst President in US history)? If so, how?
If you do not believe Romney would be as bad as 0bama, how do you justify indirectly supporting 0bama by not voting for Romney?
There is not one thing of importance in Romney’s record that is better than Obama’s. Sure, he has better rhetoric, but who wouldn’t? The difference is the obligation a GOP House and/or Senate would feel to support his programs.
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