Posted on 04/02/2012 1:33:26 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
In many ways, the story of the 2012 Republican primary has been the inability of Mitt Romney to win over more than a third of self-identified “strong Tea Party supporters” or “very conservative” voters. If he had received the support of those voters, even a slim majority of them, the race would almost certainly have been over weeks ago. Where Romney hasn’t yet succeeded with most grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers, he’s had remarkable success in the past two weeks gaining the support of their leaders... It would seem, then, that everyone associated with Romney’s campaign would avoid saying anything to erode this fragile trust or to jeopardize this budding relationship. But in a Washington Post article on Romney’s thinking about a running mate published this weekend, someone from “Romney’s team” may have done just that: "The conventional thinking has been that after a long and divisive primary campaign, the challenge of uniting the GOP would force Romney to pick a running mate with strong appeal to tea party activists and evangelicals. But Romney’s team thinks he may be liberated from that pressure if he can finish off remaining rivals Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul in the next few weeks." “Liberated” from having to choose a candidate who appeals to evangelicals and the Tea Party? It’s the kind of formulation that would only be used by someone who sees those groups as liabilities, not assets.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Mitt Romney, or someone in his campaign, appears to be sending up a trial balloon to see if he can get away with nominating someone with even worse conservative credentials than himself.
Guys, it's well-known here that I support Santorum. But this is an issue on which secularists in the Tea Party movement, “Teavangelicals” (i.e., Sarah Palin people), as well as more traditional evangelicals and conservative Catholics need to unite with an overwhelming shout of “NO!” to Romney.
Whether you support Gingrich or Santorum, if this trial balloon is correctly representing Romney's views (or even of a significant element in his campaign leadership) we're dealing with a candidate for the Republican nomination who, much like Bob Dole, once securing the nomination, will try to torpedo his own party's conservative base by “moving to the center” in an attempt to win moderates away from the Democrats instead of trying to energize conservatives.
That worked really well for Dole, didn't it? And he was running against someone who, compared to Obama, was a moderate Democrat. Obama is far, far worse.
By comparison, at least John McCain had brains when he reached out to conservatives with two different VP proposals in 2000 and then again in 2008. In both cases he knew he needed to solidify support from conservatives; apparently Romney hasn't learned that lesson.
Newt Gingrich may have been right when he said Mitt Romney is the weakest Republican frontrunner since Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood in 1920. On that point, I think Gingrich is right and he needs to be commended for his grasp of history. Apparently Romney either hasn't learned from Republican Party history, or perhaps he has learned the wrong lessons from 1964.
The press, Hollywood, and the Washington establishment see conservatives and ‘tea-baggers’ as an embarrassment. I think it has something to do with in-breeding among the aforementioned cliques.
If the United States still has enough people who know right from wrong, we might gain a respite from what is happening to our country. If, (as I believe), the indoctrination of America’s masses by the left has been successful, then Romney will fit right in with the New Order. Then we will all sacrifice our liberty for ‘security’, which will turn out to be a hollow deceit. This is the price of following the myriad human ordained values systems rather than the one God ordained values system.
Pray for our country. Any other hope is now false hope.
Romney is barely more conservative than Obama, if at all.
I agree but the problem may well lie with the conservative base for being unable to rally around a strong conservative candidate as VP. Bear in mind that Romney won’t have Santorum on the ticket, he’s already said so, and for other reasons he would not choose Gingrich. Obama is opening up a gender gap with Romney and adding Gingrich would only widen this divide against Romney.
So who is in the running from the conservative base for VP? To ask the question highlights the nature of the difference. Some would want Rick Perry to shore up the southern flank but Perry’s poll numbers are sinking in Texas. Rubio? This appears the likely choice to firm up both Florida and improve the level of Hispanic support. Perhaps Paul Ryan but this would commit Romney to Ryan’s budget plan and would give the Democrats a shooting target. So who’s left who can energize the base and at the same time is not vulnerable to a media onslaught?
"And Senator Ron Johnson announced on Meet the Press not only that he was backing Romney but also that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell asked him to coordinate messaging between the presidential campaign and Republicans in Congress. In the space of two weeks, the candidate who struggled to convince Tea Partiers to join him had gotten the support of many of the most prominent elected leaders of that movement."
"Will it matter to Tea Party members that several of their most visible spokesmen have endorsed Romney? We may have a better idea from exit polls Tuesday night. Romney may well get the nomination without strong backing of rank-and-file Tea Party members, but it’s hard to imagine him getting elected without their enthusiasm. After all, it was on the strength of the Tea Party and other conservatives that Republicans won historic gains in the 2010 midterm elections."
and you are absolutely correct, everyone needs to read this...
“...unable to rally around a strong conservative candidate as VP.”
Who really cares? The VP slot has been famously valued on par with a bucket of warm piss, and has as its only marginally redeeming quality the faint hope that this year’s VP MIGHT be Presidential candidate material in four years (or eight, or twelve, or never; take your pick).
Don’t expect Conservatives to be all gung ho about settling for having one of their favorites “ride b!tch” to Romney. The only plus to that is Ted Kennedy won’t be doing the driving, but that’s no guarantee Conservatives won’t be taking an unscheduled bath.
However, I do not believe he can win by choosing a strong SoCon who is not held in high regard by the Tea Party.
I also believe the "independents" are generally repulsed by any SoCon issue besides abortion...and if it's of a low enough priority, Homo Marriage.
Any further discussion of contraception once Romney wins the nomination, and I believe it's nearly certain at this point, will ascertain defeat.
My experience is that most "Social Conservatives" are not hard-core or binary. That role is left to the folks who turn out in every GOP nomination and VOTE. And I believe that committed faction amounts to about 5% of the general electorate...though those who are "moderately" SoCon probably constitute about 50% of the general electorate. Many of those can swing between GOP or Democrat...depending on who is on the ballot.
For instance: Jews and Catholics are, for the most part, Social Conservatives. And for the most part they vote Democrat.
No, How about, "Liberated from the Republican Party"
If the Whigs are stupid enough to nominate OBamney, than 2012 will be the Republican Party's Last just like 1852, and they can golf with the Dem's till their hearts content, because they won't be representing us anymore!
PS. Sodom and Gomorrah had full employment yet look at how it turned out for them. It's not always about jobs, especially when your society is dying from the rot of decadence.
“Where Romney hasn’t yet succeeded with most grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers, he’s had remarkable success in the past two weeks gaining the support of their leaders...”
Then those “leaders” like Paul Ryan shouldn’t be allowed to lead anymore. Sell out to the devil, and you can then go to him. You will never get my support anymore.
“PS. Sodom and Gomorrah had full employment yet look at how it turned out for them. It’s not always about jobs, especially when your society is dying from the rot of decadence.”
Indeed, Lot chose the green areas of the plain and look at what it cost him. Prosperity without morality is a dangerous thing.
Even my “moderate” left-leaning uncle in Seattle told me yesterday that he really hates Romney. He likes Newt! I almost fell over in surprise.
I think he may be referring to religiously observant Jews who are not Reform Jews.
For a variety of reasons, Modern Orthodox and Hasidic Jews who should be voting for Republicans are still more likely to be voting for Democratic Party candidates, although Barack Obama’s anti-Israel policies are doing a good job of alienating that segment of the electorate. With a good solid pro-Israel Republican candidate — either Santorum or Gingrich would fit that bill — I think it's possible to turn socially conservative Jews into Republicans just as was done a generation ago with socially conservative Roman Catholics.
Rick Santorum is just one example of somebody who based on ethnicity and religion would have been a Democrat three generations ago; the old Reagan Democrat coalition brought conservative Catholics and conservative Southern evangelicals into the Republican Party, and the same needs to be done with Hispanic and Jewish voters.
11 posted on Mon Apr 02 2012 20:03:57 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by Flavious_Maximus: “PS. Sodom and Gomorrah had full employment yet look at how it turned out for them. It's not always about jobs, especially when your society is dying from the rot of decadence.”
We fully agree. as was said later in the thread, prosperity without morality is a very bad thing.
Mammon is a false god, but it can be very satisfying in the short term because its rewards are immediate rather than eternal.
Romney just isn’t a trustworthy person and people sense that.
Yep. I think his exact words were “smarmy” and “used car salesman.”
“Amen to that! If the GOP wants to be nominated by a pro-abortion, gro-gun grabbing, pro-gay marriage Democrat pretending to be a Republican, then the GOP does not represent me.”
If the GOP embraces the left with a Romney nomination, then there is no point in supporting it.
“Liberated” from the Tea Party? Well, maybe just enough to win a divided primary, but without Tea Party support, just how does Romney believe he can win the general election?
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