Ronald Reagan and What I Got Wrong [Note to Mitt Romney: really, it’s you, not them. Seriously.]

RedState ^ | 11/20/12 | Erick Erickson

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Every person who talks and writes about politics gets stuff wrong. I’ve gotten my fair share wrong. But what I think I got most wrong in Campaign 2012 was the damage Mitt Romney’s “47%” remark would do to him.

It may seem obvious, but bear with me.

Mitt Romney was talking off the cuff to a supposedly off the record group of donors and muddled several data points together, ultimately telling the tale of the 47% who won’t vote for him for any reason. He was referencing the 47% who don’t pay taxes and interwove it with a 47% of locked in Obama support. The statement was a mess.

I didn’t think Mitt Romney would be as hurt by the statement as he was because I assumed Romney had misspoken in an off the cuff way. I assumed Romney would clarify that he knew many of those who have government assistance did not actually want the assistance, but needed it. I assumed he’d make the case that he’d help those people get off the government dole and back into work.

In other words, I assumed Romney believed what I believe — many of those people are good people who fell on hard times and are not of the same class of people who will vote for Barack Obama for free stuff. I was absolutely wrong. Romney not only believes completely what he said as he said it, he reinforced it with his post election analysis of his defeat blaming gifts to various classes of people. If that was true, as Newt Gingrich pointed out, Romney had plenty to gift to plenty strapped to the back of marching elephants.

Note to Mitt Romney: really, it’s you, not them. Seriously.

What does this have to do with Ronald Reagan? As Dan McLaughlin pointed out, every Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan opposed Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election except John McCain. Think about that for a minute. Every nominee of the party cast by the media as an insane fringe of conservatives actually opposed, from the left, Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Each of those candidates ran successfully as heirs to Reagan or, when they failed, as rich Republicans who believe in some sort of noblesse oblige. George H. W. Bush, embracing his own identity outside the shadow of Reagan in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012 all ran as patrician aristocrats who intended to make government more efficient to help the poor. There really was no theme of elevating the poor from poverty or the middle class to the rich. The theme was the care and comfort of men through the technocratic efficiencies of government and a conservative disposition. Romney did that this time too, going so far as to put his more conservative running mate in a witness protection program for candidates.

Reagan in 1980 ran a campaign on the explicit understanding that government was an obstacle to the poor and middle class elevating themselves from poverty and the role of a Reagan Administration would be to get the government out of the way. George W. Bush largely ran his 2000 campaign in a similar vein, but cast as a compassionate conservatism that quickly morphed into a big government conservatism once elected.

Republicans are not successful when they run campaigns as the rich patrician out to make government more efficient so it can be more helpful. Republicans win with conservative populists who run as men who pulled themselves up in life fighting big government and its cronies.

Fortunately for the GOP, in all this talk about the end of the GOP, people overlook that from here on out for the next decade or two we’ll be in an era of Republican politician who was raised in the era of Reagan and supported either Reagan or the idea of Reagan. Mitt Romney will probably be the last Republican nominee who ever opposed Ronald Reagan. That is a very good thing. From here on out our candidates will most likely speech Reaganese, even if not in a Reaganesque way, without sounding like they learned it from Rosetta Stone because each of them will have formed their world view during Ronald Reagan’s America.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Erickson is right here. Mitt was part of the problem.

Bingo. And never once -- not even for the merest pico-second -- did I entertain the possibility that you'd end up carrying any rhetorical spears for Team Full-Bore Looney, natch. ;)

[ansel12]

Lot’s of good old boys don’t owe taxes, and probably most of the social security collecting people, and they are the most republican voting age group.

It was a very awkward thing to say, and it revealed something remote and unpleasant in him, it was a gaffe that a “president for all the people” can’t make, and it revealed him as ignorant, and shallow, while at the same time exclusive and out of touch.

[lentulusgracchus]

Rubio says one of his best friends is Jeb Bush. If they run together, expect it to be to the left of Romney.

Some RiNO talking head was pushing a constitutional amendment on TV the other day, to repeal the "natural born citizen" language of the Constitution so Rubio (and presumably Bobby Jindal, too) can run.

Let's cut to the chase and just give it to Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, how's our non-natural-born-citizen _resident working out for us?

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

And we couldn't beat him a doctrinaire Chicago liberal with a doctrinaire Massachusetts liberal.

Edited for accuracy.

[nascarnation]

Let's cut to the chase and just give it to Vladimir Putin.

I'd vote for Putin over Baraq any day!

[lentulusgracchus]

We can be as pure as we want, as Reaganesque as we want and it won't matter a hill of beans if we don't alter the balance of power with the democrat/media complex.

Double-bump BTTT.

A creative group of Republicans conservatives needs to get busy examining the structural and institutional and financial weaknesses of the MSM, and exploitable vulnerabilities of its leading "talking heads" -- Mark Halperin's close ties to his dad's suspect career performance on Henry Kissinger's NSA staff, for instance: was Morton Halperin working with/for KGB? Did he give Ellsberg and Sheehan access to the Pentagon Papers?

The objective would be the dismantling and dismemberment of the MSM and the unhorsing of its leading, 'Rat-chant-leading personalities.

Attention should also be paid to the 'RatRoots and exposing any criminal liabilities that its organizers (Rahm Emanuel et al.) might be exposed to. Code Pink, e.g., has exposure to the Logan Act with their intermeddling in the Gaza Flotilla escapades in 2010 and 2011.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Mittens’ wholly predictable (and predicted) loss to Herr Zero has driven a significant number of formerly more-or-less sane Republicans full-bore, weapons-grade conspiracy theory batsqueak insane.

My God! Finally, someone who understands me!

The primary (and fatal) logical fallacy underlying this whole raving, frothing TheySTOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLEIt!!! folles du FReep, of course, is that it's predicated upon a demonstrable imbecility: namely, that Mittens was the perfect candidate -- running the perfect campaign -- and that (therefore) no other possibility exists that might readily or conceivably explain his wholly inevitable electoral thumping.

In the eyes of his shriller, more spittle-fueled adherents and apologists hereabouts, you see, Mittens is much like a cow wandering placidly through the streets of downtown Cairo: immune to any/all criticism and/or impediment by divine principle, if not an object of abject veneration outright.

The cow is holy. The cow is perfect. If the cow, for whatever reason(s) -- by whatever unguessable confluence of events, in the course of its dull, plodding amblings -- doesn't end up wherever the hell it was it wanted to go to in the first place: that's wholly and unalterably your fault, buddy -- NOT the cow's.

The CINOs neither can nor will admit -- now or EVER -- that their rote, repeatedly failed p!ss-on-the-base-and-grovel-for-disaffected-liberals campaign strategy is what's genuinely at fault, for the second presidential election in a row.

The cow is holy.

The cow is perfect.

... and thus, predictably: the cow is now hamburger. ;)

[lentulusgracchus]

There have been plenty of would-be Reagan presidential candidates.... None of them got very far. None of them actually was Ronald Reagan.

Money. Specifically, campaign money. That's always been the bite for what the professional GOP campaigners scornfully call "insurrectionist" campaigns.

It would have bitten Ronald Reagan, too, and forced him into obscurity if it hadn't been for a very wealthy "sugar daddy" who totally believed in Reagan's message and went to the wall for him. Without that backing, Reagan would have been just another John Anderson.

[lentulusgracchus]

I'd vote for Putin over Baraq any day!

LOL -- that's like voting for Wormwood over Screwtape.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

FACT: No political party or candidate in this country has ever won the office of the Presidency while (simultaneously) warring with/actively suppressing its own ideological voting base.

FACT:No political party or candidate in this country incapable of competently closing the sale with the electorate -- after a six-year-long, non-stop effort, and nearly a billion dollars in loosed sofa change -- has ever gone on to miraculously win the office of the presidency in its final two or three weeks of campaigning, as Team Mittens' hopeful supplicants were busily selling here, daily, en masse.

FACT: Pappy Bush (CINO) lost re-election. Dole (CINO) lost, period. McCain (CINO) lost, period. Romney (CINO) lost, period.

FACT: Albert Einstein's definition of insanity ("[D]oing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.") remains verifiable and unwinkable f-a-c-t.

That's the facts on the ground, right here, right now.

That's RealVille.

[Carry_Okie]

The problem with noblesse oblige is that it always entails droit d[u] seigneur.

Yeah, I caught that later too.

And, as we've recently seen too often, seppuku.

I called it "the Bob Dole swan dive" when McCain ran, but I've swapped Dole for the more applicable "RINO" since then. Seppeku it is not. We also are beset with the likes of the "Fred Thompson Fan Dance" in the primaries that kept Duncan Hunter from getting traction. Others did the same this year.

[Elsie]

Nothing will ever work again in American politics as long as we have a ONE PARTY MEDIA-with a criminally free hand in determinging our leadership for us.

True; but WHY won't our Rich Republicans buy it back?

Have they already spent the 30 pieces of silver they got buy selling it to Liberals to begin with??

We one-eyed men need to regain control of the propaganda channels before the blind screw them up SO bad that NO one will want them any more!

[Elsie]

 That and making the wealthy pay their “fair” share will become the new Republican mantra.

HMMmm...

We note that YOU seem to have a LOT of 'income' quarterly.

How many chillren could we feed if you FAIRLY used that money for GOOD?

 

Besides;  Leroy needs some new Adidas to go with his cellphone...

---

http://www.adidas.com/us/shoes-men-s/_/N-svZu2

Men's Originals Jeremy Scott Hiking Boots $400.00

---

 

A woman walks into the downtown welfare office, trailed by 15 kids.

'WOW,' the social worker exclaims, 'are they all yours?"

'Yep, they are all mine,' the flustered momma sighs, having heard that question a thousand times before.

She says, 'Sit down Leroy.' All the children rush to find seats.

'Well,' says the social worker, 'then you must be here to sign up. I'll need all your children's names.'

'Well, to keep it simple, the boys are all named Leroy and the girls are all named Leighroy.'

In disbelief, the case worker says, 'Are you serious? They're ALL named Leroy?'

Their momma replied, 'Well, yes!  It makes it easier.

When it's time to get them out of bed and ready for school, I yell, 'Leroy!'

An' when it's time for dinner, I just yell 'Leroy!' An they all comes a runnin.

An' if I need to stop the kid who's running into the street, I just yell Leroy' and all of them stop.

It's the smartest idea I ever had, namin' them all Leroy.'

The social worker thinks this over for a bit, then wrinkles her forehead and says tentatively, 'But what if you just want ONE kid to come, and not the whole bunch?'

'Then I call them by their last names!

[Elsie]

I caught a lot, and I mean A LOT, of flack on here for predicting that Romney wouldn’t win for several reasons, not the least of which was his attitude of entitlement.

Of COURSE! you hateful BIGOT!

Don't you know we have FREEDOM of religion in this country??

--MormonDude(Just wait 'til 2016!!)

[Elsie]

Unfortunately, Jon Huntsman.

Office of First President & Living Prophet®:

November 8, 2012

Fellow MORMON Freeper Christians!!

 

I must apologize and ask for forgiveness from you all.

 

As you know, we at Headquarters NEVER tell you pew warmers how to vote. It says so right in our press releases. Anyway, we were ALL thrilled to the max when there were two – TWO! – MORMONs being touted in the primaries: Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman.

 

Talk in our upper chambers high above SLC was how our gods were favoring us with these men; who had prepared their entire lives for an opportunity to save this Nation; which so badly needs guidance: OUR guidance even! So naturally, I and the other twelve analyzed and discussed the situation.

 

Consensus was that the voters should listen to the inner urging and vote for the one they wanted; but that seemed to be leaving WAY too much to chance.

 

I decided, that since I am the ONLY man on earth that can hear GOD’s voice, that I would pray for wisdom and clarity in the matter.

 

I hadn’t used the fleece in a while, so I questioned GOD with a test. A paper, with Romney on one side and Huntsman on the other was to be placed by the air conditioning vent high above my desk in the sumptuous office the Full Tithers have provided.

When the air would kick in later in the evening, while I was home, the paper would be blown down and whomever GOD wanted would then be visible on the upper surface.

 

As you can probably guess, when I came in the next day, the paper had landed on my desk, with Mitt’s name on top.

Last night, I was staying late, praying to GOD about how it was even possible that Mitt lost, when the janitorial cleaning crew came in. Being surprised to find me here, they apologized for interrupting me. I said to them, “It mattereth not, as I was about to leave anyway.”

 

As I was going out the door, the foreman of the crew just happened to mention that my office is ALWAYS so neat and tiny, never anything out of place, that they barely have to do anything to tidy up. Then one of the sweepers said, “Except that time in the spring when we came in to clean and found a paper with Huntman’s name on the floor by your desk. We put it back on your desk and left.

 

 

Tommy M.

 

PS Keep praying that Huntsman will add an “H” to his name. Jon looks so dang effeminate!

 

Onward to 2016!!!

[Elsie]

I think you’re right that Obama (LIBERALISM) has purposely put as many people on the dole as possible in order to make them into reliable Democratic voters.

Welcome to INDIANA!!

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http://www.wthr.com/story/20142894/phone-customers-pay-for-programs-lifeline-phones

[Elsie]

And we couldn't beat him.

Sorry; but WE could.

ROMNEY couldn't.

[Elsie]

We also are beset with the likes of the "Fred Thompson Fan Dance" in the primaries that kept Duncan Hunter from getting traction.

Divide and conquer.

Just WHY are SO many folks running at once in the primaries??