Posted on 02/14/2008 9:12:59 AM PST by JRochelle
Snip Let us not forget that Romney snapped his fingers before the election and decided to become a conservative by switching his positions on a litany of key issues, even though his past record was moderate. There were endless gaffes throughout the campaign in which he reinforced the well-earned perception that he would say anything to get elected--from describing himself as a lifelong hunter even though he had hunted only twice, for saying he watched his father march with MLK, for claiming an endorsement of the NRA he never received, etc.
He also failed to emotionally connect with voters. I would go to Romney speeches all year, and talk to audience members after who would tell me they agreed with what he said, but he was "too slick" and "too packaged." It never ceased to amaze me how emotionally tone deaf he was as a candidate, most notable was when he said his sons were serving their country by working to get him elected. I went to a townhall meeting just days before the New Hampshire primary in which a woman said her 26-year old cousin had been paralyzed in a rugby accident, and she asked Romney for his position on stem cell research. Romney responded, "Great, thank you for the question" and he went on with a textbook answer about pluripotent cells without offering any sympathy. Romney's checklist conservatism appealed to desperate conservatives on a cerebral level, but he never reached people emotionally as Huckabee and McCain did. If you want to know why McCain beat Romney, look no further than the final debate between them at the Reagan Library. When they were asked why Reagan would endorse them, Romney recited a laundry list of issues on which Reagan would have agreed with him, while McCain
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
That is simply not true.
And then there's this little gem, right up there with the other "gaffes" the OP mentions but you didn't respond to: "Bob Dole is a guy I, Mitt Romney, do/do NOT want to endorse me". Just Google "Flip Flops by Romney" and you'll find a whole host of issues that you haven't even touched upon in this thread (yet).
Let me give you a piece of advice: don't believe everything you read on the internet.
I don't have time to debunk every lie on the net.
But like I said, it doesn't matter now that his delegates are McCain's. Are you going to defend McCain as tenaciously as you do/did Romney now?
No. Romney is getting behind the McCain because it is now virtually certain that the latter will be the nominee, and Romney is trying to unify the party. That's a very honorable thing to do, but I am not sure it's the right policy.
I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do yet, but I'm inclined to think it might be better for our country and our party for McCain to lose this year. Romney, obviously, disagrees with that position. So what?
Whether to support McCain in the general election is a tough judgement call upon which reasonable conservatives can honorably disagree.
“At the same time, you have to be struck by how Romney played in the South relative to other areas. Recall how he gave up in South Carolina after concluding that he just wasn’t going to gain traction there.”
“Something has to account for why he was able to do much better in some parts of the country than others”
Something that never gets mentioned is that the south prefers masculine men, regardless of what else they are.
Romney was born male, he has married and reproduced, but no one will confuse him with being masculine.
The football star gun lover (Thompson), the Army Ranger (Hunter), the POW (McCain), the outdoor loving hunter (Huckabee), the tough as nails New York prosecutor (Giuliani), I can see all of these guys wanting to share an Alaska getaway of Scotch, cigars, and fresh game together, but I can’t see them wanting to include the granola boy/man, and southerners have a sensitivity to these same things.
I'm sorry but, yes it is. It is soft bigotry. When someone says something is a cult or someone is a cultist it always brings to mind such things as Manson, The Branch Davidians, the Hale-Bopp Doomsday guys, etc etc.
First, I challenge you to precisely define a “cult.”
Then I challenge you to tell me what denomination you belong to, so we can compare your faith to Mormonism and so decide which one is a cult and which one is not a cult.
Otherwise, your last statemnet is a prime example of BIGOTRY.
That’s anti-heightist of you! You’re a raving anti-heightist! Next you’ll tell me they have special clothes sizes for them! /kramer
Let me give you a piece of advice: don't believe everything you read on the internet.
The point is that the majority of hits that come up with the Google search I recommended are ultimately sourced from reputable sources. You apparently do not wish to do the research. I do not either, since ultimately, it doesn't matter now that Romney is definitely out of the race.
I still maintain what I said in my OP on this thread (and agree with the thread starting OP), two whit: Romney ultimately didn't loose because of "anti-Mormon bigotry". He lost because he's a flip flopper and, to a lesser degree, because McCain and Huckabee double teamed him. But, just like all the pro-Romney threads (and anti-whoever else hijack attemps) earlier in the race, those who support him refuse to acknowledge that changing one's position IS a FLIP FLOP, and NOT "bigotry".
So I'm done. I'm not rehashing the lunacy that drew so many who claimed to be thinkers, but weren't, away from REAL conservative alternatives to a "slick package" that looked good on teevee.
“he’s still more right than Bush.”
Not saying much there.
I wouldn't have said it quite the same way.
.
I didn’t say it was the south. That wasn’t the point.
That never occurred to me, but it is a great point.
Thanks for the post.
I’ll drink to that!
“Bias” is not the same thing as “Bigotry.”
It’s funny. I pulled my statements from researching articles written before his candidacy, not after. There was also a peek into the Mass. Constitution and laws on some things he tried to blame on others. I did not look at the attack and defend sites, figuring they both put things in their light.
For example, in October of 2003, he had a meeting with Barney Frank, among others, about the Bush tax cuts. Frank came out of the meeting gushing over Romney’s statements that he would not support them. It was never refuted or denied, simply buried after he decided to run for president.
Car registration fees are taxes by another name. Any fee that cannot be avoided is the same thing as a tax.
Dont buy into coulter saying she is voting for hillary, she was just trying to focus attention to the fact that he wasnt a conservative,you will need to vote, and not for hillary, just listen to either Obama or hillary speak for ten minutes a day, it wont take long and you will know what the right thing to do is.
“Serving in a war 40 years ago, as a lowly junior officer, hardly gives a man national security credentials. So much has changed in the ways wars are fought, that McCain’s outdated low-level tactical experience is pretty much useless to a Commander in Chief who must deal in high-level grand strategy in a world very different from that of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.”
You are only describing his POW years (which would help focus the mind on national security),from a family of admirals he retired in 1981, becoming a two term congressman from 1982 to 1986 when he became a senator, from where he has spent much time as a senatorial leader in national security concerns. All in all pretty much an entire life spent accumulating national security credentials.
‘While he recovered physically, he also continued his reading binge, spending a year studying at the National War College.’
’ He read military histories and the Pentagon Papers and struggled to understand the forces that had led to the conflict and his own confinement.
But if his studies showed him the bungles in military planning and the powerful influence of negative public opinion on war policy,’
‘When his time at the war college was up, McCain was assigned to the Replacement Air Group 174 in Jacksonville. The squadron trained pilots to fly A-7 fighter planes and was the largest Navy squadron in the country, with about 1,000 sailors and 75 planes. It was also among the Navy’s more dysfunctional units. Defense budget cuts had left the squad without resources to buy replacement parts for damaged planes, and nearly 20 had been grounded for more than 60 days - some for years - when McCain arrived.’
’ His first months were spent as the squadron’s executive officer, where he learned to fly the A-7 and mastered the workings of the unit. In 1976, he was made commander of the entire squadron’
‘The day before McCain’s assignment was up, Smith flew the last of the squadron’s grounded planes. As McCain describes it in his memoir Worth the Fighting For, the plane was barely ready for the test and flew with its landing gear down, but it flew. That year, the squadron received its first ever Meritorious Unit Citation.’
Maybe Southerners have long memories of a bad history.
“We are daily told [by the Mormons]… that we, (the Gentiles,) of this county are to cut off, and our lands appropriated by them for inheritance. Whether this is to be accomplished by the hand of the destroying angel, the judgments of God, or the arm of power, they are not fully agreed among themselves.”
- Western Monitor (Fayette, Missouri), August 2, 1833; quoted in Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 1945, p. 131
“If gentiles (Missourian Old Settlers) did not wish to live among the Mormons, they would be forced to sell out to them and most likely at a loss…. On the other hand, if the gentiles attempted to remain in Jackson County, Mormon immigration ensured the Saints would soon make up the majority of the population, which would thereby permit them to oust the old settlers through ostensibly legal methods.”
- Kenneth Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty, p. 93
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.