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Posted on 11/15/2011 7:06:48 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Conservatives must unite around one candidate to stop Mitt Romney.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a good catchphrase could stop thinking for 50 years. One of the often-repeated catchphrases of our time — “It’s the economy, stupid!” — has already stopped thinking in some quarters for a couple of decades.
There is no question that the state of the economy can affect elections. But there is also no iron law that all elections will be decided by the state of the economy.
Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected for an unprecedented third term after two terms in which unemployment was in double digits for eight consecutive years.
We may lament the number of people who are unemployed or who are on food stamps today. But those who give the Obama administration credit for coming to their rescue when they didn’t have a job are likely to greatly outnumber those who blame the administration for their not having a job in the first place.
An expansion of the welfare state in hard times seems to have been the secret of FDR’s great political success in the midst of economic disaster. An economic study published in a scholarly journal in 2004 concluded that the Roosevelt administration’s policies prolonged the Great Depression by several years. But few people read economic studies.
This economy has been sputtering along through most of the Obama administration, with the unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent. But none of that means that Barack Obama is going to lose the 2012 election.
Even polls that show “any Republican” with more public support than Obama do not mean that Obama will lose.
The president is not going to run against “any Republican.” He is going to run against some specific Republican, and that Republican can expect to be attacked, denounced, and denigrated for months on end before the November 2012 elections — not only by the Democrats, but also by the media, which is heavily pro-Democrat.
We have already seen how unsubstantiated allegations from women with questionable histories have dropped Herman Cain from front-runner status to third place in just a couple of weeks.
In short, it takes a candidate to beat a candidate, and everything depends on what kind of candidate that is.
The smart money inside the Beltway says that the Republicans need to pick a moderate candidate who can appeal to independent voters, not just to the conservative voters who turn out to vote in Republican primaries. Those who think this way say that you have to “reach out” to Hispanics, the elderly, and other constituencies.
What is remarkable is how seldom the smart-money folks look at what has actually been happening in presidential elections.
Ronald Reagan won two landslide elections when he ran as Ronald Reagan. Vice President George H. W. Bush then won when he ran as if he were another Ronald Reagan, with his famous statement, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
But after Bush 41 was elected and turned “kinder and gentler” — to everyone except the taxpayers — he lost to an unknown governor from a small state.
Other Republican presidential candidates who went the “moderate” route — Bob Dole and John McCain — also came across as neither fish nor fowl and went down to defeat.
Now the smart money inside the Beltway is saying that Mitt Romney, who is nothing if not versatile in his positions, is the Republicans’ best hope for replacing Obama.
If conservative Republicans split their votes among a number of conservative candidates in the primaries, that can mean ending up with a presidential candidate in the Bob Dole–John McCain mold — and risking a Bob Dole–John McCain result in the next election.
The question now is whether the conservative Republican candidates who have enjoyed their successive and short-lived boomlets — Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain — are prepared to stay in the primary race to the bitter end, or whether their conservative principles will move them to withdraw and throw their support to another conservative candidate.
There has probably never been a time in the history of this country when we more urgently needed to get a president out of the White House, before he ruined the country. But will the conservative Republican candidates let that guide them?
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
In a word - YES!
Glad you have feelings. Please stop confusing your emotionally hysteric opinions for facts.
He’s winning most of the primary states. Fact.
Sowell is right. It’s time for some of the conservative candidates with no shot to drop out and endorse one of the others. If we go into the primaries with 8 candidates, McRomney is going to win. One of the negatives of having a debate every single week is that none of the candidates feel any pressure to drop out, since they get weekly exposure regardless. What a nightmare it would be if the establishment manages to push their milquetoast candidate through yet again because conservatives couldn’t get it together enough to get behind one of the 5 tolerable candidates. After all that we’ve been through you’d think we could at least keep our foot on the throat of the Rockefeller Republican wing of the party. Does anybody other than Karl Rove really think that we need a Ford, Dole, McCain type candidate in this environment? If Romney wins the nomination a third party movement is inevitable. Can the party bigwigs really not see that?
Cain killed himself yesterday with that interview performance.
Who’s to say at this point who has a “shot” and who doesn’t? I don’t like Santorum, for example, but he would be fool to drop out now for example with such a volatile race.
Personally, I see Perry as the key to the contest. The votes for e other candidate, if/when they drop out, are likely to go to Cain. Perry is the only other "establishment guy", and a significant pcentage of his votes will go to Romney. While Cain is certainly highly unpolished at the moment, I think he has a better chance than Bachmann or Gingrich. For our economy to have its best chance, Bachmann and Gingrinch need to exit, and soon, so that Cain's numbers can continue to grow. If Perry exits first, Mitt's numbers go up, and the MSM plays defense for him until the summer. Just my simplified prognostications on it.
Agree wonder how many buses are leased for the election.
you think I care about one interview?
lol
Your attempts to try and make a literal rocket scientist look dumb will fail miserably.
If you knew of our involvement in the Cain campaign you would know that I am looking at more than just one interview.
I agree, I had hopes for Cain but the more he talks the less I support him. We are going to be forced to vote for “Mitt the Mormon”. That is just how it is going to be.
We need to continue working on getting a conservative Senate and keeping the house. That is more doable.
I am officially endorsing Mitt because resistance is futile at this point.
Romney/Pick one 2012....
I am unhappy with the GOP right now too. But there is no past or present evidence that a third party candidate will be a viable option.
I say support that most prinicipled Conservative of the GOP bunch and PRAY for America.
No way would I support or vote for Romney under any circumstances. I don’t even believe he will be the nominee but if for some odd reason he is I’ll sit this one out. I’ll support Gingrich in the meantime.
I agree with you bluecollarman, that we should focus on having a Conservative majority in the Senate and House. The presidency is only one part of this and we have to look at that which we have some control over.
If we all work on keeping our states red or turning them from blue to red, we’ll be off to a good start.
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. They’re going to pick our candidate to ensure their victory. There just isn’t enough rope...
The GOP has already blown it, no matter what it does or who it nominates now.
They already have... look at the dregs we are left with to choose from.
LLS
RE: They already have... look at the dregs we are left with to choose from.
In your opinion, who should have been in the race instead of these so-called “dregs” left to choose from?
Jim Demint, Sarah Palin, Mike Pence, Michael Reagan, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell to mention a few. This is the absolute worst slate of candidates we have ever been faced with (in my lifetime)... if the dims had anyone else to run but obama... we would have no chance at all.
LLS
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