November 8, 2011
"Mitt Romney will be the nominee because the other candidates, right now, are a pretty pathetic lot."
Says Erick Erickson, crabbily conceding what everyone basically knows but might like to pretend not to know. The column goes on and on. Conservatism will die, etc. etc.
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But what happens when Herman Cain will not quit?
He will beat the Obama machine quite easily.
Oddly enough, and actually true, this was the first thought that popped into my head when I was waking up this morning.
Well, among the first thoughts. I was also thinking about how to characterize the Church of England in the 1700s, as well as why I was so gassy all last night.
WV: crepper.
Hell, no wonder he's crabby, how many Republican candidates have soared, then crashed and burned, I bet it's darn frustrating.
``...I was also thinking about how to characterize the Church of England in the 1700s...''
Erastian?
Well good.
By "other candidates" I hope Erickson includes Obama.
A huge factor in the success political actors is who they oppose.
Who's your foil?
Obama's special kind of pathetic incompetence -- the idiocy of an inexperienced man too arrogant to learn -- creates a natural foil for Romney.
Obama is not a good foil for Cain and Perry. They come across the same way -- as relatively inexperienced candidates prone to missteps whose primary appeal is personality.
Romney is different. To Obama's cult of personality he is the man without one. To Obama's habitual arrogance, he is effortlessly mutable. To Obama's irredeemable economic charlatanism he is the polished expert.
In another election -- such as the last one -- all Romney's attributes would work against him. But in this election he runs against a man who's alienation from effective political leadership is belied only by the hypocrisy of his funding operation. For Romney these are in sync. Obama is neither fish nor fowl. Romney is a fish in the water.
Remember, the Mitt Romney conservatives distrust was running for statewide office and governing in Massachusetts with a overwhelmingly Democratic legislature.
If elected, Romney will always do what is needed to get things done with the other branches of government.
Elect a conservative Republican congress and he will govern from the center right.
Conservatives: Don't complain. Get to work.
You may have something there, Champ.
Romney-Rubio
Candidates on both sides have been a pathetic lot for the last 20 years.
I was also thinking about how to characterize the Church of England in the 1700s...
A bitchy teenage girl who wants the weird kids to go away.
Mary Beth, that's the best, most concise, answer I've heard! I might use that.
Anne B., that's probably more the 1600s.
Erickson is generally viewed in the Rightosphere as a blowhard.
He's spent the last few months sliming other bloggers.
Allie's Apple said...
Hell, no wonder he's crabby, how many Republican candidates have soared, then crashed and burned, I bet it's darn frustrating.
No, this is called vetting.
What should have happened before the Demos had to choose between the Smartest Woman in the World, Halo Joe, and the Sort of God.
The irony is that the Hildabeast is regarded by many Demos as all that can save their party.
Now that has got to be depressing.
The most important things is to have a small government coalition in the legislature. The executive can't shrink the government - only put the breaks on growth. Romney won't lead us to a smaller government, but he'll probably follow.
Romney is your man and if he wins I won't be tempted to move to Canada. He is a centrist, he is a typical politician, kisses all the right asses while he has to , to get elected. If he becomes President we will have Romney Care, instead of Obama care, same , same. Both are crap but better than nothing. The Tea Partiers will be crying into their tea.
Hypothetical: Obama wins a second term, but Republicans take the senate and keep the house. Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes a detour to that big bench in the sky.
What happens? Does anyone Obama nominates get through? (On one hand, he's going to have a hard time, but on the other, the right has traditionally given a lot more deference to the executive on court appointments.
The court is the largest reason why I fear a second Obama term. If that reason is neutered, I suspect that it is at least possible that a second Obama term could be better than a Romney term. The people who lived through Jim Crow are dying off. If Obama loses, they will have something new to point to, for the rest of our lives. And they will. A neutered Obama, who can still have his place in history, might be better than that.
- Lyssa
Allie's Apple said...
Romney is your man
That's what they said last time.
Any time the single-celled intelligence has nothing to say, she generally says it.
A couple of thoughts:
1) The primary is a critical part of the vetting process – better we find out these things before we pick our nominee than after it’s too late. Obama has won his previous elections in large part because he faced an opponent (or had someone on the opposing ticket) who was almost as unknown as he was but who had something from their past revealed at just the right moment.
2) The complaints about Romeny seem long on emotional rhetoric and short on any actual specifics. A number of conservative bloggers both at Red State and Protein Wisdom seem to rely more on invoking the boogeyman of the Republican establishment supporting Romney over the wishes of the perpetually persecuted conservatives rather than on pointing out specifics of what Romney has actually said or done that should make him so objectionable.
3) I don’t think that Romney is a flip-flopper – I think he’s just more interested in fixing the economy and balancing the budget than he is in waging the cultural war and was unprepared in 2008 with the extent to which red meat issues like abortion are at the forefront of some primary voters’ minds. Almost all of the vilification of Romney seems to be focused around abortion which gets extrapolated into everything else he does.
4) As I’ve said before, my first choice was Tim Pawlenty and it’s likely that the Republican nominee will have the nomination sewn up before we vote in Minnesota. I’m comfortable with Romney or Perry or any other candidate with executive experience who gets through the vetting process.
Well then vote for Obama for President Eddyboy,and then go ahead and vote Republican for Senate and House. Then Obama's last four years will end up accomplishing nothing, isn't that BETTER than having Romney as President? You folks can't win for losing, ha.
It's embarrassing for you folks watching you pretend you have a credible candidate other than Romney.
Maybe that whole charade is about to come to an end.
My problem with Romney is I have no idea what he believes, or even if he has any core beliefs. He's been pro and anti tax, pro and anti abortion, pro and anti individual mandate, on both side of global warming and on and on and on. Who knows what he would do if elected?
In the end though, he can't be worse than Obama. At least his business background will help him make good decisions on regulation and getting the economy moving again. That has to be the first priority now.
Anyone but Commander Zero.
All the hand-wringing and angst in the right-osphere is healthy and welcome. All that energy, all that stirring of the pot, has produced results and will continue to do so. You see it in Congress with the intense focus on cutting gov't spending and reforming entitlements, you saw it in Wisconsin, you are about to see it in what the Supercommittee will not recommend (tax increases to fund continued gov't spending), etc. Certainly, the political conversation today is much, much different than it would have been without have been without it. And as the conversation moves in a more sensible direction, so too will policy.
Erickson wants it all to move in one direction (his), but never accepts the reality that America is far more complicated than that. he's forgotten the wisdom in the saying that it takes all types. Making things work and happen requires more than just talking to yourself or your own team. But that's all that Erickson does. Today's vote in Ohio will be a rude wake-up call to those who view American poltics in that way. Romney gets that reality (anyone who's had a successful career in business would be hard pressed to have missed it). Reagan did too.
I agree that Romney is quite likely to be the R nominee, and I welcome that result. He's campaigned up to now more or less as Chris Christie did in NJ -- cautious, mostly sticking to general principles and avoiding specifics. (His speech on fiscal policy was a refreshing change from that approach, though.) If elected, I think he'll govern like Christie -- not too interested in the social issues, with the possible exception of abortion, but sharply focused on fiscal and economic issues.
Obama's one accomplishment has been to render large swaths of foreign policy essentially bi-partisan, by continuing so many of the Bush Admin's policies (I'm referring to the policies, not the rhetoric in which Obama prefers to frame them). Presumably, Romney as president would continue those policies, while dropping all the 'reset button' and anti-Israel stuff. Iran may well pass the point of no return before the 2012 election, giving the new president (Romney or whatever other R gets nominated) few options. If it hasn't, that will be the new president's first test. Anyone's guess what any of them would do or what there may be left to do if Iran already has a deliverable nuke by then.
Cain's not done yet. Anyone here remember the name of the guy who claimed he had a 'relationship' with Nikki Haley? I don't. She was elected anyway. People don't believe these kinds of smears anymore.
@Andy R. It's embarrassing for you that your candidate is Obama. Unless he pulls an LBJ and you get Biden.
I've been saying this for the past two months. It just takes a while for some conservatives to embrace the fact.
I'm less concerned about Romney being a "flip-flopper" or lacking core beliefs than I am about the tendency that all middle-turning Republicans tend to have towards big-government statism. We've seen that Romney is not above that based on his governorship record, and, assuming a compliant congress (Republican, as it is likely to be), I think that the temptation towards solving the world's problems with government will be too great.
As a candidate, I see him as another McCain, the one that people support because they have nothing better. As a president, I see him as another Bush.
-Lyssa
Andy R. said...
It's embarrassing for you folks watching you pretend you have a credible candidate other than Romney.
Maybe that whole charade is about to come to an end.
11/8/11 10:52 AM
Thats the wonderful thing about Obama: he has set the bar so low that the town drunk is more credible than Obama, even the court fool Biden is more credible than Obama. You are right about one thing, the charade that is the democrat party is coming to an end next November.
Erickson's right about Romney winning. He's wrong abut the death of conservatism. It takes patience and incremental change, the principle of successive approximation in action.
Romney will be a fine president.
I think Romney will beat Obama, but I don't think he'll be much better as a President.
He flatly refuses to consider entitlement cuts, and tax increases aren't going to happen under a Republican Congress -- so the budget deficit will keep getting worse.
He might not issue as many idiotic regulations, but who knows? Bush did.
If Mitt Romney is the nominee for the GOP, then it means no one at the convention who votes for him. And, then he gets in. Learned a single thing when McCain got chosen in 2008.
Meanwhile, There's gonna be an end run made around the GOP's "mess tent."
How can Sarah do it? I dunno.
But if I had to guess ... and guessing is free ... I'd suspect that she hooks up with Donald Trump. And, this way the media is given a run for its money.
Will the GOP also be serving up the Pizza Guy?
He flatly refuses to consider entitlement cuts,
On Social Security, Romney’s come out for phasing in a higher retirement age and slowing the rate of growth of benefits for higher income seniors. On Medicaid, he’s come out in favor of turning it over to the States. On Medicare, he’s come out in favor of allowing seniors to choose a voucher system similar to what Paul Ryan has come out with.
Not as far as I’d like to go, but it’s hardly “flatly refus[ing] to consider entitlement cuts.” If he’s the nominee, I’ll take it – as a starting point.
More of the same.
Business as usual.
Mend it, not end it.
At best, we take the frog out of the 190-degree water and put it in water that is 150 degrees and rising.
All with the added benefit of being directly and personally responsible for it by abandoning principle and voting for a Weasel. A Weasel who sure as hell is NOT going to fight very hard for anything that you care about, e.g. the Supreme Court.
What I do care about: ObamaReidPelosiCare (Romney was for RomneyCare—actually still is for it—before he was against ObamaCare);
Romney’s been pretty consistent in saying that he’d repeal Obamacare and why he thinks that the two aren’t comparable e.g. the constitution doesn’t give Congress the power to enact an individual mandate but the States do have that power.
cap and trade and other environmentalist suppressive measures (Romney was for them before he was against them, even employing the services of John Holdren);
Not worried about that. A lot of conservatives were in favor of cap and trade at one point since it worked with dealing with acid rain as a more market-oriented means of dealing with environmental emission issues. Romney initially expressed support for it early when he was governor and as the evidence shown that was likely to be economically harmful, dropped it in 2005 and hasn’t gone back since.
taxes (Romney's been in favor of raising them);
I don’t think that’s correct. He successfully cut taxes while he was governor of a very blue State and has campaigned on cutting taxes as President. With a Republican House and/or Senate, I don’t think we’re likely to see any tax increases under the next President.
That being said (this is my thought not AFAIK Mitt Romney’s), depending on the specifics, I would not necessarily oppose tax reform that lowered rates and eliminated (not just limited to some earners and not others) or phased out some deductions/exemptions that resulted in the federal government collecting more revenue.
and reining in public employee unions (Romney wouldn't take a public stand on the referendum in Ohio while speaking at a Republican phone bank in Ohio).
It doesn’t bother me if a President or presidential candidate chooses not to express an opinion on what amounts to a State or local issue although I think his presence there means it was unlikely to oppose the referendum and more importantly, if he really does respect federalism, unlikely to try to have the Justice Department change the outcome.
Romney will win the presidency in 2012 the old fashioned way, he earned it, simple as that.
"Romney will be a fine president."
I think so, too.
But first, he has to get elected, which is going to be much more difficult than many here seem to believe.
Let's see if the Obama campaign can tag Romney as the boogeyman for the OWS crowd and its sympathizers. If they fail at that, Obama does indeed become the perfect foil for Romney, just as Henry described.
Romney seems like a credible President. None of the other Republican candidates do. Of course, Romney might turn out to be as bad as W. and Obama.
The problem of the pundits of liberal and conservative media entertainment is they make more money ranting about ideological purity and naming the most laudable liberals and conservatives that happen to run in solid blue or red constituencies.
The problem for true believer conservatives is the same as Democrats that try and run a conviction Leftist for statewide or national office because liberal true believers in NYC or California love them:
(1)You end up with unelectable people.
(2) You get people that play well in Philly black ghettos as a mayor or Congresswoman but not for a more moderate constituency voting for Pennsylvania Senator.
(3)And when you get a person of true lideolocal purity in a governorship or Presidency, they rapidly lose that purity due to the need to negotiate or compromise. Reagans record as Cali governor was termed "betrayal" by the purist Goldwaterites and Birchers of his day.
(4)Purists that refuse compromise fail as Senators or as governors. Rick Santorum got deeper into Purity and lost his Senate race by 18 points, a modern record, because he was deemed too radical against the more moderate Casey.
The result is obvious in the 2008 Dem Presidential Primary and the 2012 Republican field. A few plausible candidates, then the Bozos that claim they have Party Purity.
Ranks in both contests had a hefty compliment of proudly never elected to statewide office ideologues, has been pols that pander to the Left or Right bases once they were tossed from lower office, clueless Senators,....and a few normal people that are competent, experienced, but impure.
(Obama was inexperienced, and proved incompetent - but he hit a perfect spot following Bush's failed Presidency, promising Hope&Change for a Purple America while running against a horrificly bad John McCain candidate.)
Romney is your man and if he wins I won't be tempted to move to Canada. He is a centrist, he is a typical politician, kisses all the right asses while he has to , to get elected. If he becomes President we will have Romney Care, instead of Obama care
Whether Obamacare survives or perishes will not depend on Romney. If there are enough votes in Congress to kill it, President Romney will sign the legislation. It's more likely that the courts will strike it down before any repeal legislation is passed though.
New story in the Post via Newsmax:
"New questions are being raised about the motivation and background of Sharon Bialek following her accusation on Monday that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain groped her 14 years ago.
One source who knows Bialek told New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser that the 50-year-old bleached-blonde single mother is a “complete gold-digger.”
Reports have also surfaced that Bialek has not held a job for more than two years and has filed for bankruptcy twice.
Peyser writes on Tuesday: “Sharon Bialek is 50, out of work, and according to one who knows her, she’s a smooth operator living way above her means.
“Enter Herman Cain.”
Erickson is a loser. He's done everything he could to drive away everyone except Perry. Now that Perry's fizzled, we're left with Mitt.
Way to go Erickson. One heck of a job, Brownie.
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