If you’re a conservative, perhaps you’ve had this same experience: In the past few weeks, several people have said to me, “Have you made your peace with Romney? Have you accepted him as the nominee? Are you resigned to him?” My answer is: I actually look forward to his nomination. And to his candidacy in the general. And to his presidency.
I think he’ll be quite good, if he gets a chance.
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Obviously, there is a big sincerity question about Romney: Does he mean what he says? Does he intend to do what he pledges? I think so, yes. All candidates tell people what they think they want to hear, to some degree. Frankly, I imagine most people are guilty of this, whether they’re in politics or not.
But I think Romney is sufficiently firm. I also think he would be much more conservative as president than he was in Massachusetts. Think how free Bill Clinton was, once he left the Arkansas electorate behind! He could unleash his inner McGovern, so to speak. (Both Bill and Hillary Clinton — or whatever she was calling herself in those days — were lieutenants in the McGovern campaign.)
In 2008, National Review endorsed Romney, and I thought that was a good endorsement. (I liked Fred Thompson too, quite a bit.) I thought there was some dirty play against Romney. Mike Huckabee said, “He looks like the guy who laid you off.”
My response was, “Oh? To me, he looks like the kind of guy who can create jobs and make the economy grow. He looks like the kind of guy who makes opportunities for the sadly un-entrepreneurial like me.”
Besides which, I hated the air of class resentment against Romney. That’s one reason I gave up on the Democratic party: I couldn’t stand the class resentment, the politics of envy and grievance.
In that year, 2008, I heard the most bizarre criticisms of Romney: “Too handsome. Too rich. Too successful. Too smooth. Too perfect.” Well, our eventual nominee did not have the handicap of being too perfect, that’s for sure. He had a hard time making a case for himself, his party, and his philosophy.
When you look at the Republican field today — when you watch one of the debates — do you see anyone besides Romney who can beat Obama and be president? Do you really? I find it difficult. And if the nominee is to be someone else, I hope I’m wrong.
Four years ago, I listened to a conservative pundit assess the Republican field, and put down each person in it. I said, “Okay, whom do you want?” He sighed, “Reagan.” I’m afraid I wasn’t very polite. I said, “Great, thanks a lot — very helpful.”
Barry Goldwater once hollered, “Grow up, conservatives!” I sometimes feel the same way. We who are conservative aren’t meant to be 100-percenters. That’s more a Bolshevik trait: “What, you favor a lower grain quota? Up against the wall!” Politics is not for the pure, and ideologues are a nuisance. The American electorate is bigger than National Review Online (unfortunately).
I hope that Republican primary voters will not throw away our chances next year. And I believe that, if Romney is the nominee, virtually everyone right of center will rally ’round.
Before he became our standard-bearer, John McCain was pretty much the media’s favorite Republican. He was Mr. Amnesty, Mr. Global Warming, Mr. Anti-Religious Right, Mr. Reach Across the Aisle. The second he was nominated, he became Attila the Hun to them. He was the obstacle to Obama, the One.
The second Romney is nominated — if he is nominated — he too will be Attila the Hun. And the anti-Mormon stuff will be absolutely ferocious. It will come from the Left and it could come from some quarters of the Right, too. Buckle your chin strap.
I’ll have much more to say about all this later, of course. (That’s a warning, not a promise.) I just wanted to say for now that the prospect of Romney as nominee does not strike me as root canal. We could do worse, much worse. Will we?
The 2012 election is important, y’all — mightily so.
A commentator for MSNBC, that fountain of hate, said this about Herman Cain and white Republicans: “I think they like him because they think he’s a black man who knows his place.”
And what would Cain’s place be? Federal Reserve banker, CEO, presidential candidate?
You cany pretty much disregard anything coming out of MSNBC. It's grasping at straws time over there. Maybe they're worried that this weekend's snowy October surprise just may have exposed some of Obama’s true believers ... External Link
The Cain criticism is in the same line as any criticism of Obama -- always reduced to "racism". It's like, "Yes, conservatives like me have always dreamed of having a secular socialist president, leading this country to hell in a handbasket, but only if he's a white guy. Otherwise, unacceptable."
Unlike 2008, where I had to eat my words of over a decade of vowing never to vote for John McCain, I can look forward to voting for Romney.
Funniest thing I've heard this week: "I wouldn't help Ron Paul if he were running for a bus, let laong president."
As a conservative, I'm always won over by the phrase "Grow up". What you really mean is "SHUT UP" and do like I want you to do, not how you want to do. I say to you "GROW UP" and give me better candidates to settle for.
Give me Give me Give me. Get one yourself. Grow up is right. Grow up doesnt mean shut up at all. You want a purist go get one. Romney will make a great president. We have to pick from what we have. So yes Grow up and lets get Obama out of the white house before its to late.
I seriously hope that Romney doesn't get the nomination. We are at the perfect time to elect a truley fiscal conservative rather than a moderate or liberal in conservative clothing. Something I fear is Romney being elected then not governing as a conservative. Then when his plans fail, and the country doesn't rebound democrats will point to him as another failed republican.
This is our shot for a true bold conservative. If Romney does get the nomination I will not vote for him. I will not vote for another republican that is not conservative.
My only concern with Romney is whether he will take the fight to Obama during the election. If Obama is allowed to define the terms of the debate, he will win. The media will obviously not challenge The One so it will be up to Romney.
From the Column: “Moton reached into the toilet, got the baby out and cut its neck,” the grand jury said in its report.
I don't want to sound "mental" or anything, but if we continue as a society to allow murder through abortion, we will pay a price.
No matter how sanitized some try to make it sound, abortion is still the most gruesome of murders.
Whether it is eventually everyone taking a slide down the slippery slope of inconvenient life or merely a non-sustainable dying population, oh yes, we will pay a price.
I wonder if the right thing for a judge would be to acquit those women, on the grounds that infanticide is functionally indistinguishable from abortion, which the courts protect as a constitutional right.
It might force a reevaluation of that decision, but then, the horror stories aren't new: I'm not sure anything would shock the conscience of those who embrace such evil.
That would be the most logical response Lawrence, but if you believe that by so doing you will cause the bulk of the population to feel revolted and thus demand more restrictions on abortion I believe, sadly, that you are incorrect.
It will, rather be seen as the next logical step.
I didn't realize abortion law had a five-minute rule, like the five-second rule when food is dropped on the floor. I remember a discussion of allowing a baby up to two-years old to be terminated, if it had health issues, as part of that "complete lives" thing (I think). Didn't know it was law. Maybe it isn't, maybe that's the problem.
We can probably get more acceptance of capital punishment by changing the term to "late life abortion".
The love fest for Romney is quite funny. George Will is kind comparing Romney to Dukakis. If you are wondering who the Obamiacs are afraid of, then who is being smeared? Cain.
Obama and Obamiacs are drooling to face Romney. Romney has a less than 10% chance of winning in 2012. He made his money in private equity, whose play book is buy distressed company, fire people and attempt to restructure and sell off. There is nothing wrong with the business, but the campaign commercials will be devastating and it will be like shooting fish in the barrel (See Boxer's commercials against Fiorina in CA in 2010).
Romney is Obama light. His argument will be I saved more jobs than were lost and Romneycare is different than Obama Care because it is done at the State level.
The Republican candidate has to attack crony capitalism and too big to fail, but Romney cannot do that because Bain was part of the new economics of Wall Street. Huckabee's statement, "that he looks like the guys that lays you off" will be viral as the years go on.
NR and NRO's endorsement of Romney indicated a sell out at a time when Iraq and Afghanistan were the key issues in 2008, and Romney had no answers to questions, let alone a plan. It was driven by a deep and crazed hatred of McCain. Racist Robocalls by Rove in 2000 claiming John McCain had a black daughter (an Indian girl that was adopted) was done to attract racists white for Bush in the South Carolina primary. The lack of condemnation by the press, but especially the right of center media, was disgraceful. That planted the seeds for McCain-Feingold. NR's historic disregard for civil rights in the 1950's and the 1960's, which was essentially a support for racial segregation and disdain for Blacks, reared its head in 2000. It looks like we will see a return engagement in 2012.
Always remember McCain haters, if McCain was elected in 2000, the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not have been done on the cheap to prove Rumsfeld a genius and result in disasters of epic proportions - 10 years in Afghanistan and in Iraq immediate and long term chaos that required a Hail-Mary that has been flushed away because of the disasters. We would not have suffered the loss of national support caused by Bush's handing off his Commander Chief responsibilities to others. Let's also not forget prescription drug benefits and the Fannie/Freddie disaster that Bush ignored.
As to the genius of Romney, Romney's 59 Point plan on the economy is a joke. It disregards most of what has gone on for the past 3 years.
The election will be a devastating loss because by 2016 there will little left that can be fixed and the Courts will be locked-up with hard core socialists. The loss in 2012 with Romney at the top of the ticket will be so widespread and deep that it will crush any opportunity to win the Senate and the Republicans may even lose the House.
"That’s one reason I gave up on the Democratic party:"
So you were a Democrat, Mr. Nordlinger, who is now a big fan of Romney, huh? I'm thinking some of the Right might find that a bit suspicious and therefore continue their suspicion of Romney?
Mitt Romney has proven himself to me to be a good leader and a great turn around guy. I dont really care about the social issues this is about the economy. leave the social issues to the states.
Leaving Arkansas allowed Clinton to reveal his inner McGovern, and leaving Massachussetts will therefore all Romney to show... what, his inner Reagan?
There are problems with that comparison. Clinton's biography showed the Leftist bent, but nothing in Romney's history shows him to be anything other than a progressive Rockefeller Republican. And, when he has every reason to show us his conservatism, he's balking EVEN on those issues that are going to drive the central question of our time, the size of the government: he hesitated to show how "sufficiently firm" he is on Ohio's public-sector labor unions and on ethanol subsidies.
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About being told to "grow up" (and being compared to Bolshiviks, how lovely!), I'm not sure why we should listen to Goldwater, since he was clearly unelectable.
More seriously, conservatives held our noses and voted for McCain, and that got us nowhere. We voted for the compassionate conservative Bush, and that so tainted the party as irresponsible big spenders that we lost Congress.
The state has been metastasizing for a century now, since Woodrow Wilson, and the Republican party has ROUTINELY put up Rockefellers who did nothing to change course -- some, like Nixon (and Bush, with prescription drugs) actively pushed for a more intrusive nanny state.
Mark Steyn is right: we're quickly reaching a precipice. Maybe Romney is more electable than the other candidates, but that's simply not enough. Not any more.
It's not about demanding perfection, it's expecting a candidate who understands the gravity and the urgency of the situation. A Republican(!) who uses scare-tactics against opponents who dare to speak the truth about our entitlement programs CLEARLY isn't the man for the hour.
And those who cannot see past November to the fiscal calamity that's coming are in no position to tell others to grow up.
When I say John McCain debark from that airplane after so many years in captivity, I hoped we'd see more of this guy. He may be a Republican from the time of all-democrat all the time congresses, but he's a good man and a real hero.
To those of us in the "Anyone But Romney" category, myself included, its pretty simple.
1) The author of Romneycare, the prototype of Obamacare, isn't what we or the country need. He STILL, to this day, feels Romneycare is one of his signature accomplishments.
2) One gets the sense that Romney actually IS a 100% er. 100% liberal. It may not be the case, but he will govern far more liberally then even Clinton did in his second term.
3) Romney appears to want to govern as a center-left politician, yet the media will portray this as some kind of evil lurch further to the right, dragging the center even further left. Much like W. -- However even W eventually got 2 good supreme court justices confirmed. In Romney I fear we have nothing to look forward to but a David Souter II, electric buggaloo.
While I would probably hold my nose again (and I'm getting tired of that) and pull the Romney lever if I had to, I'm not convinced that the devistation of another 4 years of Obama/Biden might be a better setup for a real conservative and long term recovery and prosperity.
I have a question, where do you get your belief than Romney is a liberal? Listening to others that think so or from your own information or you just don't like him so he must be liberal? Reagan moved from pro choice to pro life. He was and is for gays civil rights not to include marriage, that has not changed. You cannot forgive him for getting uninsured people insured in his state where the people wanted it. I wish they would have that in my state as I have 2 uninsured grown sons who even if we were rich are classified as uninsurable due to health issues. It isn't Romney's fault Obama used some of the ideas of the Mass plan for Obamacare and the idea they would have never done it or thought of a 2000 page awful law without him is silly. Yes, he changes his mind when he gets new data as any intelligent human should. Our current crop of conservatives has criteria for a candidate that no real conservative ever considered. Reagan, Buckley and Goldwater would be RINOs. I hope we don't loose this election with all these populists thinking they are conservatives or Republicans.
A commentator for MSNBC, that fountain of hate, said this about Herman Cain and white Republicans: “I think they like him because they think he’s a black man who knows his place.”
