Why the GOP should embrace Mitt Romney (Barf Alert!!!)

The Week ^ | September 28, 2011 | David Frum

[Kaslin]

Rick Perry isn't up to the job. Chris Christie isn't coming to the rescue. Republicans must accept that the candidate they want is right in front of them

The Romney Campaign

David Frum Why the GOP should embrace Mitt Romney Rick Perry isn't up to the job. Chris Christie isn't coming to the rescue. Republicans must accept that the candidate they want is right in front of them posted on September 28, 2011, at 4:28 PM David Frum recent columns

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Attention, Chris Christie fans. If you are looking for a Republican nominee who could actually do the job of president, who does not repel independent voters, who can survive a 90-minute debate without saying anything foolish, why the hell not Mitt Romney?

For three years, Republican activists, strategists, and donors have tried to find a plausible alternative to Romney, and again and again they have failed. For about 15 minutes, that alternative seemed at last to have materialized in the form of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Perry still leads the national polls and is still raising money. Yet it's hard to miss the loud hiss of air escaping this particular balloon.

So maybe it's time to reconsider the long-standing frontrunner — the candidate who was more than conservative enough for party conservatives back in 2008 — and to rediscover his good points.

1) Given the dreadful economic conditions, the Democrats will have no choice in 2012 but to run a negative campaign against the Republican alternative. Message: "We may have disappointed you on jobs, but they will take away your Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment insurance."

Of all the Republicans in the field, Romney is least vulnerable to this line of attack. He did not associate himself with the Ryan plan to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from people under age 55. He did not denounce Social Security as a "monstrous lie." He has not condemned the unemployed as layabouts.

Yes, Romney has vulnerabilities of his own in a general election, plenty of them. But at least he is not adding more. Perry, on the other hand, generates new raw material for Democratic attack ads almost every time he opens his mouth.

2) After the campaign comes the presidency. Who can believe that Rick Perry has the wherewithal to do that job? The global financial crisis still rages about us. Just ahead: Debt defaults in Europe. After that? Perhaps the popping of China's real-estate bubble. What else? Who knows?

The person you want in that job in such a time is someone with a deep understanding of finance and economics. The U.S. is paying dearly now for electing in 2008 a president who lacked such understanding, despite many other fine qualities. As a result (as Ron Suskind now reports), economic decision-making in the Obama White House degenerated into a struggle between advisers to sway a more or less passive president.

Romney spent much of his career in financial markets. One benefit of that experience: He is less likely to be overawed by possibly self-interested actors than a less familiar president. The U.S. has had quite enough of that.

3) Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate best positioned to respond effectively to the challenge bequeathed by Barack Obama's health-care reform.

Tea Party Republicans talk loosely of repealing the Affordable Care Act. That's not so easy for three reasons:

i) It will take 60 votes in the Senate to repeal, and Republicans are unlikely to have them;

ii) Important parts of the Affordable Care Act are very popular, and repealing them will trigger intense opposition;

iii) Private health insurance costs are exploding again, and plain repeal of ACA will expose more Americans to the full impact of those costs — which they won't like.

Republicans need a realistic approach to what is feasible in the reform of ACA.

There are deals to be done to fix its worst problems (the financing mechanism, the additional Medicaid burdens on states, the lack of cost control) — but outright repeal will convulse the American political system for years and very likely end in failure.

The candidate who can make the necessary deals is the one who understands the health system best — and also the one candidate who cannot be accused of secretly wishing to destroy the principle of universal coverage. Mitt Romney delivered universal coverage before universal coverage was cool. That's an achievement to be boasted of, not an embarrassment to be apologized for.

There's no such thing as a perfect candidate. It's hard to predict who will and won't make an effective president. It's natural to repine over the candidates who actually exist and yearn for the candidate who is only imagined. Yet in this cycle, it may be the case that the best choice for Republicans and the country is the one that has been waiting there all along.

[Diogenesis]

Ineligible Romney

Romney BIG DIG

RomneyCARE

Romney Marriage Forced on Clerks and the Commonwealth

Open Border Romney destroying Massachusetts

Romney Dirty Tricks

Romney Taxes (hidden as fees)

====> WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE?

[Kaslin]

The Barf alert is not about the author, it is about the article.

[RhoTheta]

"The nitwit thinks he can tell us who to vote for."

They all think they can stampede us into making an early choice so they can continually batter the front-runner. It is too early to chose! Let's not let the MSM nitwits drive our choices.

By-the-by, what does Christie add? Aside from speaking his mind about the teachers' union, isn't he just another RINO? How many of those do we need in the primary? The MSM would love to see a three-way with Romney, Perry and Christie. Their war would be a diversion designed to bring us conservatives a surviving media-selected RINO to vote for.

[dirtboy]

Those “nitwits” have succeeded in getting all the conservatives to destroy themselves, while Romney remains untouched, which is what the insiders wanted from the start.

Spare me. Mitt has gotten absolutely no traction from all this - his polling remains flat. The fight for the nomination will be on the right. And it will be won by the strongest candidate. This ain't beanbag.

[Beagle8U]

“The only thing I can say about Romney is he’s not Perry.”

Can you name any issue that Romney beats Perry?

[JAKraig]

There's no such thing as a perfect candidate. It's hard to predict who will and won't make an effective president. . . . . _________________________________________________________

What?

I don't know what he's talking about that there is no perfect candidate!

Some of what he says is true, so? If I have to vote for Romney in the general I will but I think the party has found the man for the times, it is Herman Cain. Herman Cain has had even better experience in business than Mr. Romney. Mr. Cain will siphon off some of the black vote. Mr. Cain will garner much of the southern vote. The independents in the NE who voted for the "O" because he was black will be able to vote for a conservative and not hurt their consciences.

Herman Cain may not be perfection but he is as close to it as I have seen since Reagan!

I don't know if Herman can make it or not but I can hope.

[Diogenesis]

Frum does deserve a BARF alert and warning label.

The McCain/Palin ticket was up ++10 pts. (in some polls) days prior to the election.
So rather than helping the GOP, backstabbing RomneyTeam attacked Gov. Palin and her children to throw Election2008.

"Frum was indeed a critic of Palin, calling her nomination a "huge mistake" during an October 13 (2008, weeks before the election) Early Show appearance."

---

David Frum: "Two of our most plausible candidates for president in 2012 are leading Mormons: Mitt Romney and Utah governor Jon Huntsman."

---

David Frum: "I have a lot of regard for Mitt Romney as a man and politician.
Let me say for the record: If Romney emerges as the Republican nominee, I will support him without qualm."

---

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House,
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin.
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
He's in charge on November 5th.'"
The Prowler added: "Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."
The Romney supporters in the McCain campaign had access to internal polling which indicated well in advance of the November 4 election that McCain had no chance to win.
So they began working to position their man Mitt for a run in 2012. Just two days after the election,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."
These 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.

[samtheman]

Well, let the Perry-bashers reap what they have sown. Unfortunately a lot of others have to reap it with them.

But fortunately for at lease SOME of the Perry-bashers, this is EXACTLY how they wanted things to turn out.

Look behind the outrage over Gardasil and you’ll likely find extreme satisfaction with the current revived fortunes of Mitt.

[GeronL]

Do the opposite of whatever Frum recommends, always.

[Chameleon]

I think Frum makes some good points. In the end, there isn’t a candidate that I am particularly crazy about, and I want the one that can win by the most and get the most favorable Congress.

Frum’s best point is that the Dems will go negative early, often and hard since they can’t run on their record. So we need a candidate that the Dems and their allies in the media cannot caricature.

It is basically a 3-way race at this point. They all have pros and cons. Romney is not ideal, and will be caricatured as an unprincipled Gordon Gekko type Wall Streeter. Perry will be caricatured as a stupid, wild-eyed radical. They will break out the racism hard on Cain, and portray his as a crazy black man.

Of the three, Romney is the hardest to caricature, IMO. The Dems/media will Palinize the other two and make them look crazy to moderates. But with Romney, the Gordon Gekko attacks will only work with the hardcore class warriors who are going to vote for the Dems anyway.

I preferred Romney to McCain last time, and think he would have fared a lot better as he wouldn’t have freaked out regarding the financial crisis.

A Romney/Daniels or Romney/Rubio ticket would give us the biggest majorities to make the hard changes that need to be made, IMO. Romney is too liberal for my liking, but he is a problem solver that has a proven ability to increase efficiency and put things on better financial footing...

But it is still early and I haven’t made up my mind yet.

[506Lake]

Here is everything you need to know about Mitt Romney. Click here

Its damning.

[rawhide]

Romney has a big problem with me, and that is RomneyCare. I cannot overlook what he did there. I feel he supports obamacare. Also, I am not convinced he is 100% pro-life. In other words, Romney has a big trust factor to me. The more I know Romney, the less I like him.

[bray]

Does he have a nice crease in his slacks? Sorry go back where your Frum.

Pray for America

[Dr. Thorne]

The kiss of death from David Frum. Bye-bye, Willard.

[Antoninus]

I’m glad to see David Frum wrote this. He’s a known enemy who pimps for known enemies.

[sodpoodle]

The political class have already slammed Cain for lack of elective office (on FR too) - but Romney (after losing a Senate race to Ted Kennedy)- has only held one elective office for 4 years and handled it like a Democrat.

Where is his record more impressive than Herman Cain’s?.

[Turtlepower]

No Romney Period.

[Lexinom]

Nobamney

[Kaslin]

[Graybeard58]

Herman Cain may not be perfection but he is as close to it as I have seen since Reagan!

While Reagan wasn't perfect, he was the best president in my 66 years on earth and farther back than that even, he set the standard for conservatism.

Everything that comes out of Cain's mouth isn't going to be nor has to be music to my ears. It's my firm belief that he is the best of all those now in the running. I plan to vote for him in the primary and I hope also in the general.

I will never vote for Romney in either.

Go ahead, somebody tell me, that not voting for Romney in the general is the same as a vote for Obama, like I have never heard that one before. If Romney is the nominee, this nation is doomed whoever wins the general.