Posted on 12/18/2011 10:55:03 PM PST by neverdem
Knute Romney is not going to win one for the Gipper.
It's deja vu all over again: as in 2008, the two frontrunners are not conservatives. The recent National Review editorial, despite reading as if it were written by a committee, was nonetheless correct. Newt is not a conservative. It's easy enough to count the ways, but there is one albatross that's particularly heavy and odoriferous: his tie with Freddie Mac.
The $1.6 million is not just part of his baggage -- of which he has more than the Partridge family on tour. "It's the economy, stupid" may be a motto for the ages, but it's going to be particularly spot-on in 2012. This election should be a referendum on the four-year recession. Blaming high unemployment, anemic growth, a swooning stock market and a moribund housing market on Bush, "deregulation," and the 1% may not play with informed voters, but we're a minority and this is going to be BHO's theme song. Let's not forget that Roosevelt -- the brilliant con artist whom Newt admires -- was reelected in 1936 with an unemployment rate of about 17%.
To win on this issue, the GOP needs someone who can connect the very large dots in the mortgage and credit meltdowns of 2008. That means, to shift metaphors, someone who can point to the fingerprints of the feds and quasi-government agencies. Someone who can talk about the role of the SEC, following Basel II, in lowering leverage requirements for investment banks in April of 2004. About Clinton weaponizing the CRA and, later joined by the Bush administration, pushing banks to write...
--snip--
If Newt can rise from the dead, Michele can, too. At least in the primary elections, we should be willing to vote for someone without first having to swill Pepto-Bismol.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I agree with that sentiment, but, IMHO, it's better to try to take over the GOP by the Tea Party folks first.
I won't say whether your suggestion is good or bad, or sorely needed at this point in history. You may be right. But you have to appreciate the real risks in the first year of venturing into this. The split went very poorly in 1992. Ask Italy or Canada how splitting parties works out in the end. Coalition governments are a nightmare.
Here are some stats, try comparing Clinton vs Bush+Perot on the popular vote.
1992 Election
Clinton 43.0%
Bush 37.5%
Perot 18.9%
I think the only sure way to dump the GOP is for a coup...a complete takeover, fold their tents, and then a name change. I have a feeling it's working, slowly but surely.
Now let's see, if we could only convince the communists/socialists to split the Dems and then take their d--n media with them......yeah, that's the ticket, let THEM split.
Perry or Bachmann for me. We’ll see who’s still standing when the primary rolls around.
Michelle Bachmann is definitely the most solidly conservative candidate the GOP is running.
Bachmann’s only flaws are her media-overblown gaffes. She does not have the liberal baggage of the other candidates...note:
She does not sit on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and push the fraudulent Global Warming agenda. The current “frontrunner” is stealing from Al Gore...help
She does not promote Open Borders, North American Union (EU for the USA), Illegal Alien Amnesty, nor give Illegal Aliens in-state college tuition...as one candidate has done
She did not pass and sign ObamaCare before ObamaCare came about
She did not support a Liberal RINO who later jumped shark and joined the DNC anyway
She did not turn tail on the situation in the Middle East, nor on Israel
Are we conservatives? Lets them support Conservatives. Support Michelle Bachmann
” I am in my 90th year and served with men and women of honor for 5+ during WW2 which gave you fools almost 67 years of freedom to waste..” AMEN
Thank you! You are an american hero....
My dad did 92 missions over Europe, We lost him in June of 2011. The best man I have ever known, My Hero, And my fishing partner...
http://www.303rdbg.com/
http://www.36rcm.com/
http://www.303rdbg.com/pic-glendening-vane.jpg
http://www.303rdbg.com/grave-glendening-vane2.jpg
“You are disingenuous if you portray Perry as a land grabber.”
You don’t understand what almost happened. He wanted to take land from owners all the way from the southern border to the northern border and sell it to a French company that would build a toll road and that company would get the toll money and there was no upper limit set on what that toll would be.
It was to be mainly a truck route from Mexico to link up with a route to keep going all the way to Canada.
My state senator was on the state transportation committee and he was instrumental in stopping this travesty. Yes, it was a serious problem in Texas and it was Perry’s project. Part of the legal work was given to Rudy Guiliani’s law company in Texas. That was shortly before Rudy ran for president. Guess how his VP was probably going to be?
This road problem happened the same year Perry tried to, by executive order, put the Guardasil shots in schools. We had to fight that plus that road to stop both of those. What I have just written is the absolute truth
The total truth. Thank you
Even more troubling...Perry’s NAFTA Superhighway was to cost over $150 BILLION DOLLARS to the taxpayers....in effect, Texas and US taxpayers would have been giving money to a foreign company to build roads for Mexican trucks hauling goods made in Communist China.
Not conservative at all
I am NOT voting for crazy Michele.
Then there’s Santorum’s 16-point loss in his last run for the Senate,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
How many Elections did Abraham Lincoln lose before he was elected President? I know he lost a race for Congress. He was nominated as VP and that ticket lost. I believe he also lost a race for the IL State Legislature. And, he started a business that failed. Cut Rick some slack on that one.
God help us if all we’re left with is Michele Bachmann. Hell, maybe it is time for Donald Trump to run. We’re going to screw around and lose this Election and give the Marxist Muslim four more years in the White House so he can finish destroying this nation.
This native-Texan Conservative cannot stand Rick Perry. If he gets the nomination, he will lose to Obozo worse than McCain did.
Mitt Romney would never pick Michele Bachmann for VP.
I agree. I support Michelle Bachmann. Nothing she has said or been wrong about has been any more so than some of the things Romney or Gingrich have put into practice. Conservatives are not the sum of their gaffs because if that were the case both the so called front runners would be laughing stocks.
I will say that Newt has a record of conservative accomplishment and that it sets him aside from Romney who I still struggle to find even an undercurrent of conservatism. Sure he has position pieces now but trust isn’t gained by look at what I say but not what I did. If anything Romney has avoided easy chances to show us he is the real deal instead he manages to show that he is still the same old soft NE Republican he always was the only difference is he wants to be President.
Bachmann on the other-hand has the right instincts. She voted against her President GW Bush and against medicare Part D, she voted against what turned out to be a useless program in ‘No child left behind’, she fought Obamacare and aligned herself with the Tea Party before there was any idea where the wind was blowing. She has been with us over and over again and her depth of principle is Presidential. She doesn’t blow in the wind. Now she just needs to convince people she is up to the job of President. I think that she is and most importantly she is undoubtedly conservative. Bachmann also will have the luxury of choosing a VP that can boost her standings and she doesn’t have the baggage.
Let’s at least go to the firing line for someone we can trust. She’s the only candidate in the race who has never betrayed us. She also isn’t a naive nut on foreign policy who thinks Iran and radical Muslims are only targeting us because we pissed them off. Nor is she a Christian Socialist like Santorum appears to be at heart.
We need to stop looking for the ‘acceptable’ candidate as if the left or media will ever accept our candidate. We need to change the paradigm and choose a candidate based upon the principles we hold true and their ability to stand up for the America we believe in and love.
Watching the arguments and apologetics for the same old political retreads is so disappointing. I thought we were looking for change from the the status quo in 2010. Instead we are only slightly removed from the bad reasoning that led to defeat in 2008. Even now we have congressional leaders acting as though they can just roll the ball forward and ‘run out the clock’. What we have is a strategy to fail. We are letting the media and the same old bad arguments from the inside the beltway crowd drive us like sheep. Look at the herd mentality as we swarm from one candidate to another according to the polls.
Let us put a stake in the ground because time is running out and their is no one candidate that will save us. That is our job. The candidate we choose will either be a vessel of the Constitution, the people, and God which grants us our liberty or they will be something less. Haven’t we had enough of something less? Let’s choose with a clear heart and mind for once unclouded by chorus of confusion of our politics. A house built on sand will not stand.
Bachmann is nothing more than a would-be spoiler. If anyone thinks Newt shoots from the hip, Bachmann has him solidly beaten in that department. She may be conservative, but she is a back-bencher who will do more to turn off independents and Dems than Newt.
She will not “come back.”
I wonder if Gingrich had been a consultant for Planned Parenthood or the Muslim Brotherhood if so many people would find it a yawn.
It’s not consulting that is a problem.
It’s the lack of conservative instincts demonstrated in the decision to shill for, or in some other way create a friendly political alliance with, an organization and its particular course of action that is the problem.
Granted, Michele Bachmann isn't Ronald Reagan and this isn't 1980 but Obama is Carter, squared and he's ripe for defeat. I suspect some of the knee-jerk opposition to Michelle Bachmann as the GOP nominee has a misogynist basis while some is likely based on the criticism of her gaffes and sometimes shrill demeanor during the debates. O.K., she doesn't have a deep voice. So what? I simply cannot support either Romney or Gingrich - but I could support Bachmann. Her conservatism isn't newly acquired or based on long-ago collective actions and she is impressively fearless.
Yes, she has flaws - they all do - but her detractors, standing arms akimbo and chanting 'she can't win' are not convincing. Bachmann could win if conservatives rallied behind her instead of allowing ourselves to be divided and our collective power diffused among four or five non-conservative candidates while others are driven out of the race. I enthusiastically agree that Obama must be defeated but I also believe that his defeat will be both easy and massive. The claim that to defeat Obama conservatives have to leave their principles outside the voting booth is simply wrong. I will not - and I don't understand why others are willing to do so when it is not necessary.
Obama's presidency is hardly analogous to that of FDR. His misbegotten ultra-liberal policies- foreign and domestic - have epically failed. This is hardly in dispute anymore, even in the liberal media that attempts to distract Americans from noticing by dwelling on superficial aspects of the Republican primary campaigns. From the economy to foreign policy, nothing that Obama has done is working in any substantive way. Democrat hacks pretending that Republican primary voters must choose between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (Mitt or Newt) haven't persuaded me that this Hobson's Choice is simply the only option available, take it or leave it. I'll leave it - and I'll take Michelle Bachmann.
Yes, Gingrich should receive credit for the things you mentioned, but they also should be viewed in perspective:
For example:
Blocking socialist HillaryCare, reforming welfare and reducing unemployment are not conservative?
On Hillarycare, for example: Doctors to Gingrich: Republicans Need to Repent on "Healthcare": Newt Gingrich and other Republicans promise to repeal ObamaCare, but doctors remember what they did in 1996. Just after they “defeated” ClintonCare, they changed its name and enacted the very worst parts of it.
On reforming welfare, here's what Gingrich did:
The first bill Gingrich got passed was vetoed by President Clinton.
What happened next?
Gingrich and the GOP caved. They added in BILLIONS in NEW ENTITLEMENT SPENDING, including federally-funded child care ($14 billion in 1996 dollars alone for this), new Medicaid eligibility, job subsidies, etc.
President Clinton then signed the new bill because, he said, it now included "his improvements" (billions in new entitlement spending, above).
So this reform was passed the old-fashioned way: the GOP bought it. Moreover, some economists believe that 40-80% of the people who moved off welfare after this "reform" did so purely because the U.S. entered the longest, biggest economic boom in the post-WWII era.
On reducing umployment, see the point above. This also was part of the boom that was started by Ronald Reagan's tax cuts, among other things, and which "lifted all boats."
This isn't to suggest conservative ideals and strong conservative leadership had nothing to do with these events. It's just to state that they themselves also provide perspective in terms of how much of a pass Gingrich should be given for subsequent un-conservative things he has pursued.
Like Sarah........ she’s dead Jim
Suicide by mouth
Kelo v City of New London (a 2005 Supreme Court decision)
was wrong. Allowing eminent domain of taking private landowner property and transfer it to another private party.
Bad decision by our Supreme Court and unconstitutional.
But the TTC eminent domain, unlike Kelo, would benefit Texas Public at large by adding infrastructure.
Key word being benefiting the Public.
So it was a constitutional taking of private land to develop roads for public use.
Perry was trying to address a problem we in Texas will soon be realizing in that with the completion of the Panama Expansion Project, Texas roadways and ports will soon be overwhelmed with over 200% increase in cargo traffic and railway transport in the next 10 years. He was trying to get ahead of the game and get these roads, railways, pipelines and utilities built to deal with this and all the while by not increasing Texas State Taxes or using Washington DC to do it.
He did have the vision to be looking way way ahead.
In two more years, Texas is going to get hit and hit hard.
It is a good thing for our economy but are we going to be able to handle it? Our ports, our railways and our roads?
Right off the bat, the Houston Port is going to have to deal with 11 million 20’ cargo container units coming in compared to 1.8 million now.
Perry signed HB2702 to address the private property owners and strengthen protections. The bill also insured that the roads that were not toll roads now would remain toll free.
He had private investors willing to pay the initial investment of over 7 Billion dollars with no upfront costs to the taxpayers.
Before that law, the private landowners were offered either
a lump sum payment or long term royalty payments like those in the oil and gas industry. But HB2702 gave extra assurances. Example:
The state had to offer to purchase all of the tract if it was left with little or no value.
If the property loses value as a result of the TTC, the
state had to provide compensation for damages.
The State was prohibited under this law from condemning land along the Corridor.
The State was prohibited from taking groundwater.
Commercials development was limited to only gas stations and convenience stores.
The bill stated that no tax-funded highways would be converted to toll roads unless the local voters approved it.
But, in the end, when he came to the conclusion that Texans were not happy about the project he dropped it.
MrEdd, I respect your opinion and I understand. I myself saw one of the first projected maps and had property within 2 miles of one section. But when Perry dropped it, I was satisfied that the Governor did indeed listen to us Texans. And when I looked into it further, it became clear to me the whys and hows of why he would even consider it.
We still have the problem coming up that he was trying to address without raising taxes or going to Washington DC to beg for money.
The problem is already being talked about and here is an example:
http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Panama-Canal-project-may-affect-local-roadways-2270177.php
“The state’s roadways and rail lines might not be able to keep up - there’s little state and federal money on hand for improvements, Wilson said.”
and
“TxDOT anticipates truck traffic statewide to pick up 226 percent by 2025 because of effects from increased canal imports, Wilson said. And rail traffic is expected to increase 227 percent.
They are alarming figures, said Kevin Cole, chairman and co-founder of the Greater 288 Partnership, a group focused on improving the region’s infrastructure.
Safety issues come into play with that many trucks on the road, said Cole, who is running for Pearland City Council’s Position 5 seat in a Dec. 3 special election.”
{this is just one area out of many many areas that are going to be effected}
Is it possible that Perry just might have been ahead of the game?
MrEdd:
Please do not be offended. I respect you and know this is a huge issue to you.
I just had hoped that I might explain why Perry might have seen this as a solution in the first place.
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