Posted on 08/06/2012 12:10:45 PM PDT by xzins
Here’s a test to apply to the names of all potential Republican vice presidential candidates: if the Washington Republican establishment, like the GOP congressional leadership, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, defense industry lobbyists and Capitol Hill political consultants, all applaud the name, Governor Romney has picked the wrong candidate and is in danger of losing the election.
It is not a done deal yet, but if you look past the front page articles on the Olympics and the latest crime news, you will find articles reporting that Governor Mitt Romney is on the verge of announcing the name of the vice presidential candidate he wants to join him on the Republican ticket.
And the names that are floating around sound like Governor Romney is all set to unite the 25% of GOP voters who constitute the Bush-Romney wing of the Republican Party.
That leaves behind the 75% of grassroots conservative Republican voters who backed Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann in the primaries.
Many of these activists still haven’t forgotten -- or forgiven -- the carpet bombing campaign that Romney ran to destroy first one conservative challenger and then another during the primary election season. And they have seen nothing from the Romney campaign that indicates the Governor has an inclination to move beyond the smears to embrace any of the conservative ideas their candidates ran on.
While the media and establishment Republican insiders float names like Condoleeza Rice, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ohio’s establishment GOP Senator Rob Portman -- conservatives are seething.
Because it looks like conservatives are being shut out, not just of the process of selecting a running mate, but even of speaking at the convention.
Moderate GOP Senator John McCain, Bush family acolyte Condoleeza Rice, and big government conservative Fox News personality Mike Huckabee are all speaking -- but none of the high profile speaking roles announced so far are going to small government, constitutional conservatives.
Governor Romney and his establishment Republican advisors and consultants seem to think that the boogie man of four more years of Obamanomics is enough to energize conservatives – it is not.
This is a “base election” where the result will be decided by which Party’s base is most energized. That’s why Obama has embarked on his class warfare campaign, endorsed same-sex marriage, issued an Executive Order to implement the Dream Act (to pander to Hispanics) and why he continues to sit on the Keystone Pipeline to curry favor with environmentalists.
Governor Romney, on the other hand, has done nothing to appeal to conservatives, even when he was handed 20 million conservative supporters through Mike Huckabee’s Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day he ignored them, by saying, “That’s not something that’s part of my campaign.”
Governor Romney and his campaign team just don’t seem to grasp that all the energy in the Republican Party lies with small government constitutional conservatives and Tea Partiers, and to win they need to energize conservatives, not just get their votes on Election Day.
To energize conservatives, Mitt must choose a vice presidential nominee who conservatives see as a conservative, not one the establishment thinks is safe, but one who conservatives will accept as one of their own – a small government constitutional conservative.
In 2006, some 4 million conservative voters stayed home because they were turned-off by the outrages of the Bush-era Republican establishment leaders – many of whom are now Velcroed on to Governor Romney – and Republicans were wiped out at the polls.
In 2010, the Tea Party and small government constitutional conservatives became the face of the GOP and Republicans won an historic – perhaps even realigning – election.
So-called moderate Republicans are, at best, 25% of the Republican vote, and when moderate establishment Republicans were the face of the GOP, Republicans routinely lost presidential elections and were a powerless minority on Capitol Hill.
Now the three-legged coalition of Ronald Reagan has been broadened by the addition of the constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party. Working together, the four legs of this new conservative coalition have created a powerful political movement whose energy won what should be a 21st century American political realignment – the 2010 elections.
Conservatives look to Governor Romney’s choice of running mate as an indication that he shares their commitment to small government constitutional principles and will campaign and govern as a conservative. Establishment figures like Tim Pawlenty, Condoleeza Rice, Ohio Senator Rob Portman or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie are no conservatives and are recipes for a demoralized conservative base!
I think the greatest effect of the tea party will be felt in congress and nearly nonexistent in the white house race.
LLS
I received a GOP platform survey in the mail the other day. Actually, it was a plea for money disguised as a survey (as if they really care about rank and file opinions). It was a rather large packet of literature with no mention of conservatism or conservative values... None. Zip. Nada. I trashed it.
Today’s Republican Party is about as close to Ronald Reagan as today’s Democrat Party is to Henry “Scoop” Jackson.
That’s where you want the biggest gathering of patriots, they can impeach dang near anybody .. sad it has come down to ObamaCare Lite and Obama
Agreed. “Reality” is what you make it.
One could just as easily say that a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for Obama because it keeps the truly conservative 3rd parties from winning.
I guess some people just think power is the GOP’s birthright.
You want him, you vote for him. I’m not stuck with someone I never had any intention of voting for. I don’t vote for liars or Socialists, and since Willard is both...
Because people keep voting for them against their better judgment, lacking the courage of their convictions. They are reaping what they've sown.
75%, really?
75%, really?
Well, one problem is that you have a lot of self-described conservatives who are angry at virtually every possible VP alternative. For some folks, any Republican who has said he/she supports Romney is a "traitor" -- which knocks out everyone from Palin, to Rubio, to Ryan.
But I agree with your point -- Romney must make a real effort to appeal to conservatives, because we are the core of the party. I'd like to hear him give a bunch of those classic Reagan lines at the convention, and to nominate as a running mate someone who can articulate that message strongly.
The core theme of this election -- at least to me -- is for the American people to decide whether the government is the solution, or the problem. For Republicans to win, they have to be able to make that argument convincingly. And that will take someone as VP who can hammer that issue.
I suggest more tea party action at the state convention level. One of the biggest liberals on the republican national committee was thrown out in Michigan a couple months back when Saul Anuzis was replaced with Dave Agema in Michigan. Agema isn’t perfect but he’s a step in the right direction.
In fact, I’m rather sick of listening to moderates flap their gums with holier than thou talk of compromise. They’ve shown again and again that they are the uncompromising ones who will vote democrat before voting conservative.
It’s in the article.
What are you worried about? We surround them. I'm not advocating civil war, but it's time we brought this thing to a showdown anyway.
"It's too late to work within the system, but too early to start shooting the bastards."
~ Claire Wolfe
You can roll over in surrender and vote for a stone-cold demonstrated liberal Democrat registered as a Republican and wish that he won't act like what he is ...
... or you can vote for a plurality and gamble on the fact that the last two times a liberal Democrat was elected president on a plurality, he was steamrolled by the Republican Revolution and then impeached -- in other words, pluralities have a history of FAVORING conservatives. We know that here in Realville.
Reality is that you folks in Wishville lack the courage to fight Obama and believe Republicans in Congress would lack it, too -- yet you wish what that same Congress will "hold Romney's feet to the fire." That isn't Realville, that's Wishville.
Reality is that not voting or voting for a third party candidate will help the Obomination get re-elected.
That sentiment lacks any address in Realville. In Realville, any and every third party vote is entirely neutral withe regard to favoring either major party candidate; it is MATH. Any and every third party vote counts toward reducing the popular vote count of whichever candidate wins. THAT IS MATH. But because you live in Wishville, where wishes are like fishes and you can have them fried, you can demonize those who refuse to vote the way you want them to by pretending that "a third party vote helps Obama get re-elected."
Over here in Realville, we would suggest you take up with HW Bush your idea that third party votes favor the incumbent when he's come to be loathed by the folks who voted for him previously, as Obama is becoming loathed as of now.
Over here in Realville, we remember all the boogie-man threats of executive orders and civil war and "American can't survive" etc. that have been levied at conservative Republicans since the days of Bill Clinton as a means to bully them into voting for liberal Republicans.
Meanwhile, in Wishville, where you and Rush live, you actually buy into the imaginary concept of "voting against Obama!" Maybe you can vote "against" in Wishville ...
... but here in Realville, we understand that indeed, on any ballot ever, you are only given the choice of voting FOR something.
I'm voting for a plurality because I live in Realville. You're voting for a stone-cold liberal Republican because you're in Wishville.
As Rush would say, "It is what it is."
The downside of that is getting increasingly hard to see.
I get a Romney photo and several letters virtually every day. Seems like the RNC and Romney just like to waste money on this junk mail. Why would anyone want to open the 100th letter from Romney if the first 99 never raised a penny? What about the passage of time would have changed my mind? What recent statement of his? Just axin.
Well put!
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