Posted on 01/22/2010 6:06:18 PM PST by restornu
As The Wall Street Journal points out in an opinion this morning, this is a good day not only for Scott Brown, the new senator from Massachusetts, but for Mitt Romney as well. Glenn Beck doesn’t trust Brown, he says. But with Brown toting friends like the popular former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, John McCain and Romney around on his bus, it might not be such a good day for Glenn Beck.
The WSJ’s Kim Strassel pointed out that Romney’s closest aides flooded to Mr. Brown, bringing with them the savvy of his national operation.
“From a perch atop his Free and Strong America PAC, Mr. Romney has been raising money, nurturing his team, keeping himself in the national spotlight. With the Massachusetts Senate race, he sensed an unexpected opportunity to step to the front of the GOP presidential ranks,” she writes.
I doubt that the Tea Party’s tent will fold with the election of Brown, but something else has happened: The river that runs between traditional Republicans and insurgent conservative populists now has a bridge in Scott Brown. In fact, it has another bridge in Virginia with the new governor, Bob McDonnell, who will give the Republicans’ response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech Wednesday. The insurgents have built a new base for organization and now, with the election of Brown and McDonnell, it is being absorbed into the mainstream.
But when the very first thinking about regional identity started to surface here in New England as a militant defense against federal overreach, Romney was the governor of Massachusetts and he was already incorporating the same elements of thinking, not as revolutionary polemic, but as practical and effective management strategies here in Massachusetts.
Thus the phrase, “One size does not fit all,” which he began to use as governor, used throughout his presidential campaign and used again this last week in a Fox Business interview. It is his theme song. Texas Gov. Rick Perry now uses the phrase as well, and so does Sarah Palin.
Republican pundits report that Romney’s stock has been down because of RomneyCare, the healthcare program that Romney instituted in Massachusetts. Some of the features suggest ObamaCare, and as large numbers oppose ObamaCare’s vast federal spending, the thinking goes, they would therefore oppose RomneyCare. But that misses the point.
“The bill that was being pushed in Washington was not good for Massachusetts,” Brown said after his election. “It may have been good for other states, but we already had everything and a lot of what was being proposed.”
That is just the point in Romney’s thinking about healthcare: What is good for one state and region is not necessarily good for others. Romney is in fact in the avant garde with this thinking, which has become the base camp of the states’-sovereignty movement.
Romney was unique in the history of Massachusetts governors in that he came to us from the west. He had personal experience in the Western states, in Michigan and in Massachusetts, where he went to college.
My observation here when he was governor was that he had that rare quality which Zen Buddhists call “beginner’s mind.” He does not rebel from new ideas and new people but continually incorporates aspects of new thinking in his own ideas to make a better fit. And he is aware that the country has changed since 1776, when the west was forest and later when it was frontier, and even the 1930s, when the vast majority of Americans worked in one of two places, the floor of the factory or the field.
One-size-fits-all-federalism might have been the perfect system then. But today for a country as full and rich and varied and alive as ours, the old system is a disaster. Romney was the first to catch on.
LOL
LOL...something about a white donkey right?
Yea, but since he is a libtard wouldn’t it be a white donkey?
Great article!
Which reminds me of an old Red Foxx joke...”just cuz you own a donkey don’t mean you don’t have to wash your @ss!”
A day late and a pound foolish wouldn’t you say?
Bug zapper thread anyone?
Otherwise known as the Socialist Mafia.
BTW the mormon ping list has been activated to this thread. Reinforcements for the "R's"...Romney and resty.
This could be fun...
One of the reasons America is hanging by a “thread”
is Team Romney’s attacks on Gov Palin and her children.
Oh Zotmeister...target rich environment!
You; who choose to ignore the QUESTION; complain about someone ELSE??
HA ha hA!
And in THEOLOGY; too!
The target acquisition list is active...
Considering the unadulterated BS that team Romney has pulled to besmirch the Palin name, your picture is quite ludicrous.
The Palmetto Scoop reported: "One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was
the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
… aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.
Erick Erickson, who organized Operation Leper, said:
"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."
Who benefits most from Sanford meltdown? Californian (that's right) Mitt Romney
"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"
"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"
"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"
"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"
"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"
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