Romney: The Castor-Oil Candidate - Republicans are finding the prospect of nominating Mitt...

Romney: The Castor-Oil Candidate
Republicans are finding the prospect of nominating Mitt hard to swallow.

Nominating Mitt Romney is sort of like taking Grandma’s castor oil. Republicans are dreading the thought of downing their unpleasant-tasting medicine but worry that sooner or later they will have to.

By any logical political calculus, the former Massachusetts governor is an ideal presidential candidate. Ramrod straight, fit, and well-educated, he knows all sorts of facts and figures and comes across like a cinematic chief executive.

At any other time, an informed technocrat like Romney would seem a dream candidate. Yet in the run-up to this election, Americans are completely turned off by Washington’s so-called experts, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Attorney General Eric Holder — and, increasingly, Barack Obama himself.

As a former governor and presidential candidate, Romney has been fully vetted. In these racy times, Mormonism is viewed as more a guarantee of a candidate’s past probity than a political liability. So there is little chance that a blonde accuser will appear out of Romney’s past, or that in late October 2012 the New York Times will uncover a long-ago DUI charge.

The calculating Republican establishment believes Romney has enough crossover appeal to independents to beat a shaky Obama. It still has nightmares of tea-party senatorial candidates Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, whose 2010 primary victories led to inept campaigns and Republican losses in the general elections in Nevada and Delaware, respectively.

Although conservatives dub Romney a flip-flopper for changing positions on abortion, gun control, and health care, the base knew all about those old reversals in 2008, when it nonetheless praised Romney as the only conservative alternative to maverick moderate John McCain. Apparently the party has moved to the right since then. Tea partiers worry that, once in office, a moderate President Romney would prove a reach-out centrist — spending borrowed money like George W. Bush did on No Child Left Behind or the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, thereby ruining for good the now-suspect Republican brand of fiscal sobriety.

The result of those worries is that Romney has become the process-of-elimination candidate. The Hamlet-like governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, hemmed and hawed and bowed out, as most knew he would. The charismatic and controversial Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin decided they were making too much money to go through another nasty political race.

If finger-pointing magnate Donald Trump was going to bet a campaign on Obama’s reluctance to disclose official documents, he would have done better to demand the release of the president’s mysteriously secret college transcripts and medical records rather than his birth certificate. In the debates, the audiences liked what former Sen. Rick Santorum had to say, regretting only that it came out of the mouth of Rick Santorum.

Rep. Michele Bachmann once soared as the anti-Romney and then crashed when 90 percent of her statements seemed courageous and inspired — but 10 percent sounded kind of weird.

Then came the most promising Romney alternative, job-creating Texas governor Rick Perry. He looked as presidential as Romney but immediately proved even more wooden in the debates. His “brainfreeze” moments were made worse by occasional goofy explanations that seemed most un-Texan.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Florida senatoor Marco Rubio were always crowd favorites, and they’re certainly hard-charging conservatives. Yet at some point, both realized that their scant years in office were comparable, in theory, to the thin résumé of Obama when he entered the presidency clueless.

Rep. Ron Paul’s shrill talk on fiscal sobriety is as refreshing as his vintage-1930s isolationist foreign policy is creepy. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman is a sort of weak Romney doppelganger, raising the same paradox that money, looks, polish, and moderation this year are cause for suspicion, not reassurance.

Many like businessman Herman Cain’s straight-talking pragmatism. Yet more are worried that he might not know that China is a nuclear power, or that we recently joined the British and French in bombing Libya. By now, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich knows almost everything about everything. But lots of Newt’s original — and now abandoned — positions were as liberal as Romney’s. And not all that long ago, he seemed as brilliant and glib — and recklessly self-destructive — as his contemporary and antagonist Bill Clinton.

To beat an ever-more-vulnerable Obama, Republicans keep coming back to someone who resembles a Romney, with strengths in just those areas where Obama is so demonstrably weak: prior executive experience as a governor, success in and intimacy with the private sector, a past fully vetted, and an unambiguous belief in the exceptional history and future of the United States.

In short, if Republicans are happy in theory that Mitt Romney could probably beat Obama, they seem just as unhappy in fact that first they have to nominate him.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom. © 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Having a direct hand in expanding socialism, thousands of abortions, and trampling on the 2nd amendment under the guise of "well it's states rights!" doesn't fly if you're a so-called conservative.

You haven't dealt with the ninth or tenth amendments or the Founders' concept of dual federalism via this argument, you've merely employed the invective.

There is a case for the electorate foisting upon the next President a Congress with two bodies WELL to the right of WHOEVER is elected President...I think if we did that, it would "pull along" a President who has a tendency to drift toward the middle...

You're right, we can do better, but it has to start with getting rid of Hussein. I frankly think there are better choices than Romney, just as I thought there were better choice than McAmenesty in 2008.

But even if McInsane were elected in 2008, I can guaran-damn-tee you, we would not have passed a $1 Trillion dollar slush fund for unions or Obamacare.

Politics is the art of the possible, and it is rarely (if EVER) the art of the perfect.

A so-called conservative would NEVER proudly introduce socialism as an option on any level of government. He's still proud of what he has done. You're telling me the ONLY option he had was the monstrosity that is RomneyCare? The law that has bankrupted Mass and that uses tax dollars to fund abortions? Ha! He could have handled that problem in a conservative way, not by expanding government, taxes, and red tape for the people of Mass. But he is no conservative. It's what he wanted to do.

I, and the majority of people in the Republican party, vote based on values. Not solely based on an (R) next to a name. Socialism wasn't in our Founder's vision of America. Period. Killing innocent children for a $50 co-pay wasn't in their vision. Everyone has a right to life. Banning guns wasn't in their vision. That should not be infringed upon. How about standing up for THOSE words used by our Founders? You've got to take a deep look into your values if you think the things he did in Mass are okay at any level. To think he'd actually leave everything to the states is a JOKE!!! Those were his values, before being governor and AS governor. He appointed gay activist to the Mass supreme court. He willfully did many liberal things. Because he is a liberal.

His "states rights" excuse is a talking point, plain & simple. Romney will be responsible for appointing judges at a federal level. He'll be responsible for a lot of things at a federal level. We need someone who will stand up for conservatism. Romney bent over to liberals in Mass and he'll bend over to liberals in Congress.

And if he wins the nomination, I promise you he will NOT win the general election. Only a solid conservative would beat Obama in a landslide. America is tired of socialism and Romney's record is covered in it.

It's the same song & dance the media gave us with McCain, Dole, etc. They always push RINOs in the primaries. Not only will Romney not attract swing voters (ask yourself, why would ANYONE vote for a candidate with no solid principles?), but the conservative base will also stay home. There are simply more people who vote based on values than there are "holding my nose to vote" people. He WILL lose if "we" nominate him.

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