Mitt Romney's symbolic appeals to conservative Republicans. Tribal Warfare {FR mentioned]

The New Republic ^ | February 21, 2007 | Rick Perlstein

[Torie]

Mitt Romney is in trouble. In a deeply conservative party, the former governor of Massachusetts is a ghost of Republicanism past: a moderate. His presidential announcement speech read like a tribute to his father, [who was] liberal enough to get elected and reelected governor in a Democratic state, Michigan. ... "We have lost our faith in government--not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government," as if oblivious to the heresy: Rehabilitating government as a good in itself is not the usual way of introducing yourself to voters in today's post-Reagan Republican Party. Maybe Romney's tried to shake it, but he just can't: He carries progressive Republicanism around in his blood.

Which raises certain suspicions about that announcement speech. As the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) immediately observed, its location, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, is a "testament to the life of ... a notorious anti-Semite and xenophobe." ...

Those memories no longer exist--except to the hair-trigger sensitivities of the likes of the NJDC, which put out their press release and garnered an AP article on the flap. But here's something to consider: The Romney campaign has harvested benefits from that flap, whether it was intentional or not. Consider the sarcastic reflection of this denizen of the right-wing website Free Republic:

Allright, an AP hit piece! The MSM has more acute RINOdar than we. Real RINO's don't get rinky-dink MSM hit pieces such as this. This proves that the MSM believes Romney is a conservative, and therefore must be roughed up.

Translation: I used to suspect that Romney was only a "Republican in Name Only." But now I realize: He bugs the liberal media. By the tribal logic of right-wing identity politics, that is enough--Mitt Romney now can be called a conservative.

...

[EternalVigilance]

Sometimes California gets it right -- sometimes.

Right. They're just brilliant at weeding out socialist destroyers and picking conservative republicans. /extreme sarcasm

[ZULU]

Check out Newsmax.com 's Washington Insider.

Just gives me another reason to write off Romney. Bush has given a lukewarm performance as a conservative and Rove reminds of a kind of weasel - a Republican version of James Carville - willing to bargain anything away to get an election.

[maui_hawaii]

You have your finger on the pulse of freeperdom.

[CheyennePress]

Meaning it doesn't matter as to his managerial expertise. :)

Yeah, they matter to me, too. But those have less to do with management and more to do with conviction.

[Torie]

I am sure that you find Idaho much more congenial. Have you been to Fremont County yet?

[George W. Bush]

I think Romney is a conservative Republican who was pretending to be a liberal when he ran for office in Massachusetts. He was widely rumored to be pro-life, when he ran in 1994.

I think his story is more like Reagan. I think he bought into a lot of lib ideas when he was younger. But he's reached that age where experience and facts have sunk in. And he's abandoned some of those liberal assumptions. I think his record is one of someone who has been trending conservative for a while now. I think a lot of us have this experience as we get older and realize that it's easy to be a liberal when you're young but not when you finally realize the consequences of such policies.

Compare it to Giuliani who is an unrepentant liberal big-government type all the time on every problem.

Romney merits consideration. He also needs to speak out more on his positions on conservative issues and he needs to be vetted by the pro-life/pro-family/pro-gun organizations.

[Domandred]

Consider the sarcastic reflection of this denizen of the right-wing website Free Republic

Hey someone actually didn't call us a "blog" and also didn't call us "left wing".

[LtdGovt]

Here's the NRC post I mentioned earlier:

“I congratulated him on taking a pro-choice position, one of the reasons I had been open to working with him. I remember his response was something like: "Well, this is Massachusetts. I realized I had to take this position," which was the first indication to me that what I had understood to be his personal view was a stance he was actually taking pragmatically. He went on that day to talk about an aunt of his who had died during a botched abortion and how he thought legalized abortion was important. But those around him, and people who knew him closely in the ward, knew that it was a position he had taken because he thought he had to in order to win.”

Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up?

[George W. Bush]

You really only have to look at Romney's handling of the Mass budget and the SLC Olympics to see his management skills at work. Or his business career... The guy is stellar in that regard.

I've been impressed. He made his own money and is actually rich enough he could almost finance his entire primary campaign and most of the general out of his own pocket. Not that he'd have to. But I think the business community will like him.

The GOP is always a pro-business party. What's wrong with considering a real capitalist? Especially one with a record of balancing budgets.

[Eccl 10:2]

I propose we shift the debate away from the traditional "left-right" framework. This implies that there is some legitimacy to the arguments of the left, or that somehow, for the majority of Americans, the answer lies in the "middle".

To call it "good" and "evil" is the right idea, but bad marketing. Same with "right" and "wrong". Perhaps "fair" and "unfair" comes close.

With all the major issues (abortion, security, immigration, taxes, education, health care, environment) there are stances which are fair and unfair. To simply say there are views on the "left" and on the "right" for each of these is to imply an equally legitimate footing for both, when any rational person can see this is not the case.

[EternalVigilance]

Meaning it doesn't matter as to his managerial expertise. :)

Mussolini made the trains run on time. Hitler created the Autobahn. Doesn't mean I want men like them anywhere near power. How about you?

[Lancey Howard]

From the vault:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1689965/posts?page=53#53

[EternalVigilance]

You have your finger on the pulse of freeperdom.

Well, if that's true, then how the mighty have fallen. Torie is FR's most notorious liberal poster. I always figured Jim let him stay around because he doesn't rant and rave like most liberals...he speaks in modulated soft tones most of the time. ;-)

[gidget7]

Typical, they have NO clue what conservatives are about, and certainly not Free Republic! We can read them like books, speed reading through it in record time. And that is NOT even close to what we think.

They should leave that type of thing to us, they are not good at it.

[LtdGovt]

Would that work out? Wouldn't people just call positions 'fair' or 'unfair', based on what they believe themselves? No one is going to call his own beliefs unfair, I assure you.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Good post, but Rudy will have to contend with the leftist media and their reporters DNC operatives and all the filthy trash they've probably got on Rudy. They won't care if it's accurate or not, as long as they persuade enough people to get turned off by it, they'll be happy.

[gidget7]

You have very right to your opinion, as do we all. I just for the life of me, cannot imagine where that leadership was in MA, he did so much for us afterall!