Romney's speech was pathetic and symptomatic of the demise of the Republican Party. For example:
Our prosperity and security also depend on finally acting to become energy secure. Oil producing states like Russia and Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran are siphoning over $400 billion per year from our economy—
They are siphoning nothing. They are trading oil for our increasingly worthless dollars. If anything, they're the ones squandering their scarce resources. People who call for "energy independence" are insecure nationalists who know nothing about economics.
Don’t focus on the pork alone—even though it is indeed irritating and shameful. Look at the entitlements. `They make up 60% of federal spending today. By the end of the next President’s second term, they will total 70%. Any conservative plan for the future has to include entitlement reform that solves the problem, not just acknowledges it.
Romney never said anything in the debates about ending the wasteful social security and medicare systems or making them more efficient.
These Jihadists will battle any form of democracy—to them, democracy is blasphemous for it says that citizens, not God shape the law.
I thought conservatives also believed in God-given natural law. Democracy without respect for individual liberty is just glorified mob-rule.
I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden...
Anyone who is willing to spend "whatever it takes" on Iraq is a fool. I agree with Rumsfeld that we should have been satisfied with eliminating Sadam and his henchmen (while sending a clear message to anyone seeking to take his place).
Also, I tend to think that George Bush has decided that it is better to pin down an ailing Bin Laden in a Pakistan backwater rather than kill him and make him a martyr. He's been neutered, muzzled, and caged, so spending a zillion dollars finishing him off probably isn't worth it.
Al Qaeda is in Iraq. We should do whatever it takes to defeat them.
The rest of your points are similarly pathetic.