RUSH: BROKERED CONVENTION Chatter on Rise

www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 20, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Yosemitest]

Brokered Convention Chatter on Rise
January 20, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me tell you, I mentioned this yesterday, I mentioned this some time ago.
There are rumblings in the Republican establishment of a brokered convention now.
There is unsettledness and disquietedness in the conservative establishment, quote, unquote, in the Republican establishment, quote, unquote.

Both camps have prominent people who are unhappy with the way all of this is shaking out.
And they talked about it on Scarborough's show today on PMSNBC.
For the conservative establishment it's Newt.
"Oh, no, we don't want Newt. We gotta do something about Newt."
For the Republican establishment, they're getting a little queasy about Romney.
I think the term is brittle.
That's the term Scarborough used, that the establishment is concerned about what a brittle candidate Romney is proving to be.
It's said to be scaring the Republican establishment.
It's something I said back on January 11th, the day before my birthday.
There was a Jonah Goldberg columnz in which he mentioned the possibility of a brokered convention,
but according to Scarborough, top conservative leaders, the Republican establishment, want to keep Newt in the race
so they can get a brokered convention where they can pick the nominee.



Now, the Republican elite is notZ conservatives.
There are two different establishments that we're dealing with here, I think, the conservative establishment, the Republican establishment.
There is some overlap.
But the scuttlebutt is -- and it was on the "Morning Joke" show today -- the scuttlebutt is keep Newt in this.
Keep everybody in this.
Don't let this nomination get decided in Florida.
Keep it going 'cause nobody's happy right now.
I wonder how many of you, "Yeah, yeah," agree with that premise, "Yeah, yeah."
This is something unsettled, something not quite right here.
So there's that scuttlebutt.

Then we had the Marianne Gingrich interview last night on Nightline, and what a thud.
It was a dud. And I asked a lot of people to watch this and share with me their feedback, and beyond the clip that ABC aired yesterday...

this is why they didn't air any more clips than what they gave is there wasn't anything.
I think it was kind of pathetic. I actually felt a little sorry for her.
She's being exploited, I think probably willingly, if there's such a thing.
But there wasn't any bombshells.
There was nothing new that came out of this thing last night.
So the fallout, the damage, no news.
I don't think there's gonna be anything any more damaging to Newt than there was yesterday when it all happened, when it all came out.

Right-Click on the photo below and open in a new window to watch the Fox News video, or go to RushLimbaugh.com's Brokered Convention Chatter on Rise and watch it at the bottom of his article.

Reagan's 1976 Republican Convention Speech
Jan 31, 2011 - 7:25 - Ronald Reagan addresses crowd after narrowly losing nomination to Gerald Ford

Ronald Reagan ran against Gerald Ford for the 1976 Republican Presidential nomination, and lost a close race.
At the close of the convention, President Ford asked Governor Reagan to make some impromptu remarks.
Transcript of Reagan's 1976 Republican Convention Center Remarks, August 19, 1976

Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President to be,
the distinguished guests here, and you, ladies and gentlemen:

I am going to say fellow Republicans here, but also those who are watching from a distance,
all of those millions of Democrats and Independents who I know are looking for a cause around which to rally
and which I believe we can give them.

Mr. President, before you arrived tonight, these wonderful people here, when we came in, gave Nancy and myself a welcome.
That, plus this, and plus your kindness and generosity in honoring us by bringing us down here
will give us a memory that will live in our hearts forever.

Watching on television these last few nights,
and I have seen you also with the warmth that you greeted Nancy,
and you also filled my heart with joy when you did that.

May I just say some words.
There are cynics who say that a party platform is something that no one bothers to read
and it doesn't very often amount to much.

Whether it is different this time than it has ever been before,
I believe the Republican Party has a platform that is a banner of bold, unmistakable colors, with no pastel shades.

We have just heard a call to arms based on that platform,
and a call to us to really be successful in communicating
and reveal to the American people the difference between this platform and the platform of the opposing party,
which is nothing but a revamp and a reissue and a running of a late, late show
of the thing that we have been hearing from them for the last 40 years.

If I could just take a moment; I had an assignment the other day.
Someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that is going to be opened in Los Angeles a hundred years from now,
on our Tricentennial.

It sounded like an easy assignment.
They suggested I write something about the problems and the issues today.
I set out to do so, riding down the coast in an automobile, looking at the blue Pacific out on one side and the Santa Ynez Mountains on the other,
and I couldn't help but wonder if it was going to be that beautiful a hundred years from now
as it was on that summer day.

Then, as I tried to write -- let your own minds turn to that task.
You are going to write for people a hundred years from now, who know all about us.
We know nothing about them.
We don't know what kind of a world they will be living in.

And suddenly I thought to myself,
if I write of the problems, they will be the domestic problems the President spoke of here tonight;
the challenges confronting us, the erosion of freedom that has taken place under Democratic rule in this country,
the invasion of private rights, the controls and restrictions on the vitality of the great free economy that we enjoy.
These are our challenges that we must meet.

And then again, there is that challenge of which he spoke,
that we live in a world in which the great powers have poised and aimed at each other horrible missiles of destruction,
nuclear weapons that can in a matter of minutes arrive at each other's country
and destroy, virtually, the civilized world we live in.

And suddenly it dawned on me,
those who would read this letter a hundred years from now
will know whether those missiles were fired.
They will know whether we met our challenge.
Whether they have the freedoms that we have known up until now
will depend on what we do here.

Will they look back with appreciation and say,
"Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom,
who kept us now 100 years later free,
who kept our world from nuclear destruction"?

And if we failed,
they probably won't get to read the letter at all
because it spoke of individual freedom,
and they won't be allowed to talk of that or read of it.

This is our challenge;
and this is why here in this hall tonight, better than we have ever done before,
we have got to quit talking to each other and about each other
and go out and communicate to the world
that we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been,
but we carry the message they are waiting for.

We must go forth from here united,
determined that what a great general said a few years ago is true:
There is no substitute for victory, Mr. President.

[Yosemitest]

Thanks, Rush.

And thank God, our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ,
for what we have because of Ronald Reagan.

[JSDude1]

Screw a brokered convention when ANOTHER moderate can be foised upon us! You talk about rebellion-there would be SO much rebellion that it would threatend to split or destroy the Republican Party if this happened: GUARANTEED!

[Yosemitest]

Let's remember what a great man said.

"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

September 21, 2011

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, this is a little Inside Baseball, but it's important because
he who controls the language ends up winning the debate,
and it might seem like a small thing, but I have learned and I have been given to understand that the "establishment Republicans" hate the term.
They don't like being called "establishment Republicans,"
and they are trying to change the term to "establishment conservatives" and in the process co-opt the definition of "conservative" and conservatism.
It's not something that you'll notice if you watch cable news or even read.
You have to be able to see the stitches on the fastball, you have to be able to read between the lines,
and you have to know some stuff going on behind the scenes
(and, of course, I am in a position to know these kinds of things).

So don't doubt me on this. The establishment Republicans are the "establishment Republicans.
The Republican leadership is the Republican establishment, meaning the elites.
They hate it and they are in the process of trying to redefine who conservatives are and what it is --
and if they succeed, the conservatism that you and I hold dear will no longer be the definition of conservatism.
If they succeed, the current thinking of the Republican establishment will be what is called modern day conservatism.
Don't doubt me on this.
It sounds like a small thing, but in a daily ebb and flow you'll not even see any news about this,
but it's in important because it's crucial who controls the language, who controls the way words are defined.

You and I know that the establishment Republicans don't like conservatives.
They didn't like Reagan.
They were embarrassed of Reagan.
They were embarrassed of us.
They didn't like the Moral Majority, they didn't like the Christian right, they don't like the pro-lifers.
They don't like the social conservatives at all.
They're embarrassed by us, in many ways, with their other buddies, the establishment Democrats --
which combined gives us the Washington establishment,
and they very much prefer to be members of that club than ours.
But they know that it doesn't help them to be called "establishment Republicans."
So they're trying to take the term "conservative" and co-opt it
and define it as they behave, write, speak, and even vote on matters of politics.

END TRANSCRIPT

"Establishment Republicans" are Lying to Us With Threats of a Dire Default

Let's remember:

Never stand and take a charge... charge them too.

Someone on another thread said

"... Constitutional limitations of government power especially freedom of the press and speech, are designed to make government impotent in the absence of a general consensus ..."

But with the press not doing its job, and the LAME Stream Media trying to silence speech they don't agree with,
we're in a real mess and under attack by an evil force rarely seen in this country.
The Republicans and the God-Given freedoms this country has enjoyed so far, are descending into oblivion.
And the "Establishment Republicans" aren't doing a damned thing to stop it.
The "Establishment Republicans" aren't providing "the boots on the ground" to win.
They're trying to put the public back to sleep, lying to them, in order to keep their power, and "wreck the country as it commits suicide".
So now the "Establishment Republicans" have "fractured their base" and,
because they have taught us "that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics",
they're going to lose, and lose big, if they don't swing to the hard right wing of what used to be their party.
How many conservatives have re-registered as "Conservative Party" or "Independent" because they're fed up with being lied to?
We've been "treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience” ", and we're sick of it.
We don't trust them any longer.

Look, Rush said it best....

Now, the fact that the Republican establishment cannot make that case and other arguments
tells me that they may have already surrendered,
and this is a big difference between us and the establishment.
They're in this defensive posture, I've told you,
I said on Greta how many times, a lot of people inside the Republican establishment secretly don't even believe Obama can be beaten.
And that's why they want Romney,
'cause they think at least Romney will help 'em take the Senate.
He'll lose less down the ballot than Gingrich or some conservative will.
But conservatives, you Tea Party activists, you don't want to give up
and you haven't given up,
and you don't want to accept this propaganda from the left.
We insist on challenging it, we insist on fighting it
'cause there's no other way to save the country,
and continually playing these games
letting the Democrats rewrite the language, change the definition of things,
get away with false accusations against us, never do anything about it,
constantly stay on defense.

So now, because of the Establishment Republicans" there's not just a candle lit, but a bonfire lit ...
in the very heart of the conservatives, and it will burn away the dead wood that is "Establishment Republicans."

Yes, it's time to curse the "Establishment Republicans" for every thing they've NOT DONE!
And CURSE THEM for most of the things they HAVE DONE!

"Attack, repeat, ATTACK!"

[InterceptPoint]

And they talked about it on Scarborough's show today on PMSNBC.

I heard this. My immediate reaction: Scarborough????. Our new trusted source?

Have we heard this meme-candidate anywhere else? Or is it just Scarborough stirring the soup based on a few conservations over drinks with nervous Romney-bots?

[Lockbox]

Appears some group does not really believe accepting the “Will of the People”

[SMGFan]

I consider myself so fortunate to have been at Liberty State Park in Jersey City on September 1st, 1980 and to have seen RWR speak about Jimmy "I'll Never Lie to You" Carter.

"A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

[peyton randolph]

These are the same morons who demanded Reagan take George H.W. Bush as his running mate at the 1980 GOP convention. A decision that has hurt the party for three decades.

You can be damn sure their “solution” will involve a Jeb Bush nomination or something else equally stupid.

[RoosterRedux]

Eff the establishment.

They gave us John McCain and, because he refused to fight, we got that malignant jungle rot known as Obama.

[Venturer]

If Newt is seleected by the voters and the RINO’s decide to interfere, they may as well shoot the Republican party in the head and kill it. It will be dead.

[ClearCase_guy]

It’s a two man race this year, and Gingrich will win. No need for a brokered convention.

[Yosemitest]

"You talk about rebellion-
there would be SO much rebellion that it would threatend to split or destroy the Republican Party if this happened:
GUARANTEED!"

"Establishment Republicans" wouldn't care.
If they can't be in power, they don't want US in power.
It's just that simple.
It's WAR!

"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

"DO CONSERVATIVES WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?"

DO CONSERVATIVES "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?

Palin was my first choice, but she dropped out.
Bachmann became my first choice,and she dropped out.
Cain was my second choice, but he dropped our.
Now ... Newt was my second choice, but he challenged Rush.
So now ... Rick Santorum, who use to be my third choice, is now my first choice.

But Romney, Perry, Ron Paul, Huntsman, and Johnson are NOT acceptable,
and if on the ballot for the general election for President or V.P., would cause me to do a write in.

There's no way in hell I can compromise my values.

Jack Kerwick wrote an article on May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican and he expressed some important issues that I agree with.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct but interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me is a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.

The "Establishment Republicans" can go to hell!

[no dems]

The only thing good about even the prospect of a brokered convention is that the present candidates have pretty well destroyed each other for Obozo in the Fall. Can you imagine what it would do to the psyche of this nation if out of the GOP Convention came a young, fresh face (hopefully with a Conservative brain) and flushed down the toilet all the crap we’ve had with the present, and past, GOP candidates for the past year? Someone like Bobby Jindal of LA or the young Congressman Joe Walsh of Illinois, or New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez........ America would sigh a sigh of relief and probably go viral for that candidate.

Am I right or wrong? Anybody?

[CainConservative]

Bravo, Rush!

[Yosemitest]

I think you might want to read this.

[CainConservative]

The Establishment would try to shove Daniels, Christie, or McDonnell down our throats.

I’m taking Newt FTW!

SC + FL = Newt Will Be Our Nom

[martin_fierro]

Aw crap.

I thought this meant Palin was running.

[Yosemitest]

Palin would pull a lot of power in a "Brokered Convention".

[Impy]

Sounds like the ideal situation we could get a candidate better than any of the ones running.

[Scotsman will be Free]

Wrong. All liberals would vote for obama. Independents would vote for the name they recognize the most. obama. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. Those names you mentioned are foreign to too many people.

[wita]

“A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”

...and inquiring minds should be interested in who’s speech writing fertile brain that line was hatched in. Of course delivery counts too, and RWR was the best. As a cold war player, “Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall” still brings chills and a tear to my eyes.

[upchuck]

Anyone surprised by this is not really paying attention. The GOP elites will do what ever is necessary to get Mitt nominated.

I really don’t understand why since Mitt has zero chance of beating nobama.

Unless, of course, the GOP elites secretly want another four years of nobama destroying our country.

They trashed Sarah, they scared off Herman, they are currently working, without much success fortunately, on Newt.

Newt must become unstoppable.

[catfish1957]

My thoughts too, Santorium, Paul, Perry together shouldn’t have over 50 delegates come time of the convention.

[muawiyah]

The ESTABLISHMENT is likely not to force Daniels down your throat. He’s a good Christian man. There are places he will not go.

[muawiyah]

Nobody knows those folks ~ but here's a thought for you ~ Illinois somehow borrowed $5 billion this last year and presumably that would cover payment of the $4.5 billion in unpaid bills lying about.

Did not happen.

Now they have $8.5 billion in unpaid bills.

To put it loosely, somebody in Illinois politics STOLE $5 billion.

Now who might that have been? Was it the Governor?

He'd be the 7th Governor of Illinois in a row to end up involved in crime.

Maybe it was the corrupt Democrat machine that surrounds the governor and occupies all the top spots in the state bureaucracy. Those are the folks who brought Obama to the top. Did they steal for Obama? Does he have the $5 billion?

There are things cooking in Illinois that may well bring down the Obama regime before mid-summer.

Stay tuned. Theft in Illinois government is always a problem, but this would be the biggest theft in their history. It's big by even California standards.

Stay tuned.

[TomGuy]

One thing that may shake up the Republicans is the State of the Union speech which will be Tuesday evening.

If Obama gets a significant bump, any Republican could be in trouble, because the MSM/Dems still have months to improve and remake Obama into Obama ver 2.0. Incumbency is difficult to defeat.

A significant Obama bump with the voter dissatisfaction with the dwindling field of opposition contenders does will not bode well for the GOP in November. Are they willing to settle for another Obama term and hope to retain the House and gain the Senate? At the rate Obama is issuing Executive Orders and McConnell/Boehner are folding, Obama has already shown he can circumvent the legislative mechanism.

I fear a brokered convention is Elite code for let's nominate Jeb. That would be another sure loser. Obama has run against Bush since 2007 and having another Bush to run against would be every better than having Mitt I never had a position I couldn't change Romney or Newt trainload of Samsonite Gingrich.

[philman_36]

They gave us John McCain and, because he refused to fight, we got that malignant jungle rot known as Obama.

Go back a little further. If establishment Republicans had gotten behind Alan Keyes in the Illinois Senate Race we would never have had Mr. Dunham.

[Pravious]

It’s a nice dream (and one I share, since I don’t really think any of our candidates are acceptable), but it would leave us with a candidate who hasn’t been properly vetted. Whoever it is, The Enemy would find SOMETHING (”In Eighth Grade, Candidate X accidently ran the cat over with the lawnmower!”)to immediately spin that into a Palin-like “Candidate X has been destroyed,” backing it up with quotes from (liberal) polls. And then we’d lose.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I agree - somewhat. America wouldn't sigh a sigh of relief, but genuine informed patriots would. That is the problem, the MSM information machine (contrary to popular notions around here) is not dead. It is alive, well and informing your neighbor as we speak. It is also shaping a myriad of idiots that also consider themselves to be erstwhile Conservatives in their political views.

FWIW, I pretty much agree with the tea party poster above that puts the proposition thus: a loss isn't a bad thing if it clarifies things in the end. For me, now, I have decided that it is the ideals that matter. If some fool tells me he has found his inner core (all these idiots do - including Fig(leaf) Newton) then welcome to the club - but you're hardly an able leader if you just began to figure things out. Not only that, but your track record up until this election is essentially deceit and accommodation - not acceptable.

Yes, I will agree that there is no perfect candidate just as there is no perfect person. However, if you're of a seasoned age and cannot tell a liar from a truth teller in the relationships you're in, you're a hapless fool and only doomed to continue being unable to divine truth from fiction.

An open leader, with the overall direction of duty to the Constitution, would, indeed, electrify the alienated among us; and make no mistake, true Americans ARE alienated. It is because we are now a minority in a drugged and propagandized socialist state that we cannot understand why things are the way they are (why can't Austria be what she was in 1930?). When that simple truth is grasped, our true perspective - and challenges - become clear.

[RFEngineer]

“Screw a brokered convention when ANOTHER moderate can be foised upon us! “

Anything can happen in a brokered convention, but it won’t happen without organization.

There is great danger in putting all the conservative eggs in the Newt basket - especially when he has turned on conservatism many times before.

Neither Newt or Romney are right for conservatism.

Conservatives have been short-changed in this primary cycle, and conservatives are not ready for the possibility of a brokered convention, and should be.

[BagCamAddict]

I'll tell you what...

I don't normally listen to Rush because I only hear him when I'm driving, and I'm never driving when he's on. But last week, I was traveling for business, and I was able to listen to him during some of my road hours.

BITE ME RUSH.

I happened to catch his show the two days when he was bashing Newt and Perry for their statements on Bain Capital, and it became clear he was pimping Romney.

Made me sick to listen to.

Sorry Rush, you lost me at Mittens.

[Varsity Flight]

Keynote speech: “Mark my word, __ new taxes.”

[Las Vegas Dave]

Amen...

[Daveinyork]

I don’t think a brokered convention is possible under the rules in effect since about 1972. Nobody controls delegates, and they are free to vote however they want after a cettain number of ballots have resulted in no nomination.

Under the old rules, and I’m old enough to remember them, primaries counted for very few delegates, and state party bosses selected most of the delegates. I think that still happens, but not as much.

Governors would run as “favorite son” candidates, which gave them control of all their state delegates. In states where the governor belonged to the other party, I’m not sure but I think it was the state party bosses who selected the delegates. After a long, drawn-out process placing all the candidates in nomination, the charade of voting was carried out. Most of the time it was decided in back room deals before a single vote was officially cast.

I can’t see that happening. I think the delegates would not go along with it.

[usconservative]

Go back a little further. If establishment Republicans had gotten behind Alan Keyes in the Illinois Senate Race we would never have had Mr. Dunham.

Absolutely wrong. Alan Keyes was a political stunt - a JOKE here in Illinois.

If the Republican Party had simply STAYED BEHIND Jack Ryan in the first place, Obama would've never been elected to the US Senate, and never gotten out of the Illinois State Legislature where he did nothing but vote "Present" on everything.

Imagine, the Democrat Party making a scandal out of a married man, Jack Ryan, having sex with his own wife. OMG, THE HORROR!!!!!

That's *exactly* what happened, despite the trumped up hype around he and his wife going to (gasp!) a sex club. The complete lack of backbone displayed by the Illinois Republican Party is exactly the reason why we have this worthless piece of crap, George-Soros-Sock-Monkey Obama in the White House.

To deny these FACTS is to deny reality.

[no dems]

it would leave us with a candidate who hasn’t been properly vetted.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yeah; I thought of that. That’s the biggest “down-side”.

[Pravious]

I agree. I blame Obama on Seven of Nine. What a weird world it is, to catapult a NOTHING to the Presidency, and then sit back and wonder why he sucks at the job.

[no dems]

There are things cooking in Illinois that may well bring down the Obama regime before mid-summer.......Stay tuned.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wow! That’s exciting news. Keep us posted.

[redgolum]

The calculation being made is that the religious conservatives will vote for the R no matter what. It may be true, but not in the numbers they are hoping for.

[philman_36]

If the Republican Party had simply STAYED BEHIND Jack Ryan in the first place, Obama would've never been elected to the US Senate, and never gotten out of the Illinois State Legislature where he did nothing but vote "Present" on everything.
You disagree with my opinion. Very well.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.

[usconservative]

You disagree with my opinion. Very well.

You didn't state it as opinion. You attempted (badly) to cite a fact. A "fact" which has since been corrected.

[no dems]

You make good points but the "brokered" candidate would have four (4) months to become well-known to the American people. Most Americans are not following the Primaries and this Election right now. Most Americans will not start paying attention until September and beyond. Everybody is not the political junkies that we FReepers are. I guarantee you that if you stood outside Wal-Mart today and asked 100 people: "Who is Rick Santorum?" or "Who is Newt Gingrich?" or "Who is Mitt Romney?" It would amaze you the number of people who would not have a friggin' clue.

[Yaelle]

I consider myself very fortunate to have been a few feet away from Reagan on election night. I was just a young apolitical girl and I didn’t appreciate it at the time but there I was in the front row.

And other strange things collided in a few more years and I made him a salad. With the Secret Service doggies behind me. I am so honored retroactively.

[Kenny Bunk]

I take it then, that you would be opposed to a brokered McCain-Dole ticket? That young fellow Mitt would be a splendid Postmaster General.

Me? Well, I am going to vote for Obama because it would be really way kool to have a two-term black President to show the world we are not prejudiced or stuck on carbon-generating fossil fuels.

[no dems]

If, by this summer, Unemployment is at 10 percent and gas is close to $5.00 a gallon, I guarantee you, his friggin’ SOTU Speech, made in January, won’t matter a hill of beans.

[usconservative]

I agree. I blame Obama on Seven of Nine.

Not quite. Not sure if you remember, but the divorce records were SEALED, neither Jack or Geri wanted them opened.

David Axelrod and his operatives (using the Chicago newspapers as their useful idiots) managed to get a CALIFORNIA judge to unseal the divorce records so the Obama Campaign could make them public.

Imagine, a court-ordered SEALED divorce record magically being opened by a CALIFORNIA judge. A DEMOCRAT California judge at that.

Now, look what's going on, on the national stage. Accusations against Santorum's wife; Gingrich's wife suddenly goes public; wild accusations about Gingrich's ethics case in the House (where Gingrich was exonerated, and the report is on Thomas); and finally the dust up around Romney's financial records and SOMEONE finding private, Cayman Island bank accounts.

We've seen this act here in Illinois before. This has David Axelrod's and Barack Hussein Obama's fingerprints all over it.

It's incredibly important for EVERYONE on this forum to KNOW and REMEMBER that up until his White House run, Barack Hussein Obama has NEVER won a contested (I should say "legitimately contested") political race.

The modus operandi for Obama/Axelrod is to CLEAR THE FIELD of all opposition for Obama.

We've seen first hand here in Illinois what "clearing the field" means. Obama/Axelrod are up to it once again.

DO NOT let this happen on the national stage this election cycle.

[Yaelle]

I guarantee you that if you stood outside Wal-Mart today and asked 100 people: “Who is Rick Santorum?” or “Who is Newt Gingrich?” or “Who is Mitt Romney?” It would amaze you the number of people who would not have a friggin’ clue.

---

You mean if you spoke perfect Spanish and could ask.

[Kenny Bunk]

.....because he refused to fight, we got that malignant jungle rot known as Obama.

McCain, in refusing to fight, merely copied GHWB's strategy of '92. He took a dive ... there's no other word for it ... to give us Clinton.

[Yosemitest]

Let me add this article:

7 Reasons Why Mitt Romney's Electability Is A Myth
Dec 27, 2011 by John Hawkins



Mitt Romney was a moderate governor in Massachusetts with an unimpressive record of governance.
He left office with an approval rating in the thirties
and his signature achievement, Romneycare, was a Hurricane Katrina style disaster for the state.
Since that's the case, it's fair to ask what a Republican who's not conservative and can't even carry his own state brings to the table for GOP primary voters.
The answer is always the same: Mitt Romney is supposed to be "the most electable" candidate.
This is a baffling argument because many people just seem to assume it's true, despite the plethora of evidence to the contrary.

1) People just don't like Mitt:

The entire GOP primary process so far has consisted of Republican voters desperately trying to find an alternative to Mitt Romney.
Doesn't it say something that GOP primary voters have, at one time or another, preferred Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and now even Ron Paul (In Iowa) to Mitt Romney?

To some people, this is a plus.
They think that if conservatives don't like Mitt Romney, that means moderates will like him.
This misunderstands how the process of attracting independent voters works in a presidential race.
While it's true the swayable moderates don't want to support a candidate they view as an extremist,
they also don't just automatically gravitate towards the most "moderate" candidate.
To the contrary, independent voters tend to be moved by the excitement of the candidate's base (See John McCain vs. Barack Obama for an example of how this works).
This is how a very conservative candidate like Ronald Reagan could win landslide victories.
He avoided being labeled an extremist as Goldwater was; yet his supporters were incredibly enthusiastic and moderates responded to it.

Let's be perfectly honest: Mitt Romney excites no one except for Mormons, political consultants, and Jennifer Rubin.
To everybody else on the right, Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama would be a "lesser of two evils" election
where we'd grudgingly back Mitt because we wouldn’t lose as badly with him in the White House as we would with Obama.
That's not the sort of thing that gets people fired up to make phone calls, canvass neighborhoods, or even put up "I heart Mitt" signs in their yards.

2) He's a proven political loser:
There's a reason Mitt Romney has been able to say that he's "not a career politician."
It's because he's not very good at politics.
He lost to Ted Kennedy in 1994.
Although he did win the governorship of Massachusetts in 2002, he did it without cracking 50% of the vote.
Worse yet, he left office as the 48th most popular governor in America and would have lost if he had run again in 2006.
Then, to top that off, he failed to capture the GOP nomination in 2008.
This time around, despite having almost every advantage over what many people consider to be a weak field of candidates, Romney is still desperately struggling.
Choosing Romney as the GOP nominee after running up that sort of track record would be like promoting a first baseman hitting .225 in AAA to the majors.

3) Running weak in the southern states:
Barack Obama won North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida in 2008
and you can be sure that he will be targeting all three of those states again.
This is a problem for Romney because he would be much less likely than either Gingrich or Perry to carry any of those states.
Moderate northern Republicans have consistently performed poorly in the south and Romney won't be any exception.
That was certainly the case in 2008 when both McCain and Huckabee dominated Romney in primaries across the south.
Mitt didn't win a single primary in a southern state and although he finished second in Florida, he wasn't even competitive in North Carolina or Virginia.
Since losing any one of those states could be enough to hand the election to Obama in a close race, Mitt's weakness there is no small matter.

4) His advantages disappear in a general election:
It's actually amazing that Mitt Romney isn't lapping the whole field by 50 points because he has every advantage.
Mitt has been running for President longer than the other contenders.
He has more money and a better organization than the other candidates.
The party establishment and inside the beltway media are firmly in his corner.
That's why the other nominees have been absolutely savaged while Romney, like John McCain before him, has been allowed to skate through the primaries without receiving serious scrutiny.

Yet, every one of those advantages disappears if he becomes the nominee.
Suddenly Obama will be the more experienced candidate in the race for the presidency.
He will also have more money and a better organization than Mitt.
Moreover, in a general election, the establishment and beltway media will be aligned against Romney, not for him.
Suddenly, Romney will go from getting a free pass to being public enemy #1 for the entire mainstream media.

If you took all those advantages away from Romney in the GOP primary, he'd be fighting with Jon Huntsman to stay out of last place.
So, what happens when he's the nominee and suddenly, all the pillars that have barely kept him propped up in SECOND place so far are suddenly removed?
It may not be pretty.

5) Bain Capital:
Mitt Romney became rich working for Bain Capital.
This has been a plus for Romney in the Republican primaries where the grassroots tend to be dominated by people who love capitalism and the free market.
However, in a year when Obama will be running a populist campaign and Occupy Wall Street is demonizing the "1%," Mitt Romney will be a TAILOR MADE villain for them.
Did you know that Bain Capital gutted companies and made a lot of money, in part, by laying off a lot of poor and middle class Americans?
Do you know that Bain Capital got a federal bailout and Mitt Romney made lots of money off of it?


“The way the company was rescued was with a federal bailout of $10 million,” the ad says.
“The rest of us had to absorb the loss …
Romney? He and others made $4 million in this deal.
… Mitt Romney: Maybe he’s just against government when it helps working men and women.”

The facts of the Bain & Co. turnaround are a little more complicated,
but a Boston Globe report from 1994 confirms that Bain saw several million dollars in loans forgiven by the FDIC,
which had taken over Bain’s failed creditor, the Bank of New England.



Did you know Ted Kennedy beat Romney in 1994 by hammering Mitt relentlessly on his time at Bain Capital?
No wonder. The ads write themselves.

Imagine pictures of dilapidated, long since closed factories.
They trot out scruffy looking workers talking about how bad life has been since Mitt Romney crushed their dreams and cost them their jobs.
Then they show a clip of Mitt making his $10,000 bet and posing with money in his clothes.
All Mitt needs is a monocle and a sniveling Waylon Smithers type character to follow him around shining his shoes
to make him into the prototypical bad guy the Democrats are trying to create.

Now, the point of this isn't to say that what Mitt did at Bain Capital was dishonorable.
It certainly wasn't.
To the contrary, as a conservative, I find his work in the private sector to be just about the only thing he has going for him.
But, people should realize that in a general election, Mitt's time at Bain Capital will probably end up being somewhere between a small asset and a large liability,
depending on which side does a better job of defining it.

6) The Mormon Factor:
This is a sensitive topic; so I am going to handle it much, much more gently than Hollywood and the mainstream media will if Mitt gets the nomination.
Mormons do believe in Jesus Christ, the Mormon Church does a lot of good work, the ones I've met seem to be good people, and two of my best friends are Mormons.
That being said, Mormons are not considered to be a mainstream Christian religion in large swathes of the country.
There will be Protestants who will have deep reservations about voting a Mormon into the White House
because they'll be afraid it will help promote what they believe to be a false religion.
There have also been a number of polls that show that significant numbers of Americans won't vote for a Mormon as President.

Just look at a couple of the more recent polls and consider how much of an impact this issue could have in a close election.


The poll found 67 percent of Americans want the president to be Christian and 52 percent said they consider Mormons to be Christian.
Twenty-two percent of those polled said they don't think Mormons are Christians and 26 percent are unsure.

"I do believe they are moral people, but again there is a difference between being moral and being saved," Linda Dameron, an evangelical Republican in Independence, Mo., told the Tribune.




More than 40 percent of Americans would be uncomfortable with a Mormon as president, according to a new survey
that also suggests that as more white evangelical voters have learned White House hopeful Mitt Romney is Mormon, the less they like him.

A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute released late Monday also shows
that nearly half of white evangelical Protestant voters — a key demographic in the Republican primary race — don’t believe that Mormonism is a Christian faith,
and about two-thirds of adults say the LDS faith is somewhat or very different than their own.


You should also keep in mind that if Mitt Romney gets the nomination, Hollywood and the mainstream media will conduct a vicious, months’ long hate campaign against the Mormon Church.
They will take every opportunity to make Mormons look weird, racist, kooky, scary, and different.
Would this be a decisive factor?
I'd like to say no, but by the time all is said and done, it's very easy to see Romney potentially losing hundreds of thousands of votes across the country because of his religion.

7) He's a flip-flopper.
Maybe my memory is failing me, but didn’t George Bush beat John Kerry's brains in with the "flip flopper" charge back in 2004?
So now, just eight years later, the GOP is going to run someone that even our own side agrees is a flip-flopper right out of the gate?
Romney doesn't even handle the charge well.
When Brett Baier at Fox pointed out the obvious, Romney's response was to get huffy and deny that he was flip flopping,
which is kind of like Lady Gaga denying that she likes to get attention.
If Mitt can't even handle run-of-the-mill questions from FOX NEWS about his flip flopping,
what makes anyone think he can deal with the rest of the press in a general election?

There are a lot of issues with trying to run a candidate who doesn't seem to have any core principles.
It makes it impossible for his supporters to get excited about him because you can't fall in love with a weathervane.
Even worse, since politicians tend to be such liars anyway and you know Romney has no firm beliefs, it's very easy for everyone to assume the worst.
Democrats will feel that Romney will be a right wing death-beast.
Republicans will think that Romney will screw them over.
Independents won't know what to believe, which will make the hundreds of millions that Obama will spend on attack ads particularly effective.
Ronald Reagan famously said the GOP needed "a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors."
That's particularly relevant when it comes to Mitt Romney who has proven to be a pasty grey pile of formless mush.

[SaraJohnson]

I keep repeating that Rinos do not mind being the permanent minority of the one-party international socialist camp. They did it for forty years until people like Reagan and Newt came along and turned their world up-side down.

Their only political enemy is conservatives. They have stood by while the Department of Homland inSecurity has classified conservatives as domestic terrorists. They attack only conservatives - never liberals - their friends across the aisle.

[philman_36]

Imagine, the Democrat Party making a scandal out of a married man, Jack Ryan, having sex with his own wife.
On, BTW, nice twist there. The problem wasn't with him "having sex with his own wife", it was him having sex with his own wife in an open and public setting.

And to use your own words...To deny these FACTS is to deny reality.