Hard to say. Was Seamus a conservative?
Posted on 07/17/2012 8:47:54 AM PDT by xzins
Who you walk with says a lot about who you are – and this is especially true of candidates for public office and others seeking positions of high public trust.
It is also one of Mitt Romney’s most easily cured problems in closing the deal to bring conservatives fully behind his candidacy for President.
During the primary season, it was no secret that Governor Romney was not the first choice of grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers.
Part of the reason conservatives had difficulty buying into the Romney candidacy was they looked at the Governor’s team and saw an awful lot of the same people they had clashed with or been ill-used by during the administration of President George W. Bush.
Or they saw hired guns from the establishment Republican political consulting world whose advice is always to hew to the middle of the road and run a content-free campaign bereft of any commitment to the small government constitutional conservative agenda.
This is almost the exact opposite of the image Ronald Reagan conveyed during his runs for the presidency.
Reagan largely eschewed surrounding himself with Washington political insiders and notables from the Republican establishment.
His confidants and those you saw with him on the campaign trail were the California entrepreneurs of his “kitchen cabinet” and the outsiders of the burgeoning conservative movement – as well as conservative elected officials, such as Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt and the young conservative backbenchers in Congress who bucked the establishment to support Reagan.
These conservative outsiders, such as Ed Meese, Lynn Nofziger, Dick Allen, Marty Anderson and Judge William P. Clark, Jr. were not merely political window dressing or junior staffers, but serious people who were there day-to-day to advise President Reagan and would later help him run the government.
The typical Washington establishment powerbrokers were simply not part of the circle that ended-up in a front page photo of Ronald Reagan or found their way into his kitchen cabinet.
Governor Romney, on the other hand, can’t seem to appear in public unless he is surrounded by “his people” and without an establishment Republican figure Velcroed to his side.
Perhaps this is due to Mitt Romney’s acknowledged love of “metrics” and background as a CEO, in which having “his people” or experts close at hand to crunch numbers and handle details speeds decision-making.
The establishment Republicans create a bigger problem. Although they are loathe to admit it, the Tea Party rebellion was as much about them, and the Republican establishment’s failure to deliver conservative government during the Bush years, as it is about President Obama and Obamacare.
The problem this creates for Governor Romney is that in every photo and TV segment it ends-up putting him squarely in the middle of a big crowd of people who grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers see as, if not the enemy, at least a major part of the problem.
As things stand now, surrounded as he is by the same establishment Republicans whose failures sparked the Tea Party rebellion, Governor Romney is squandering his credibility as an outside-the-Beltway business leader and state elected official not tied to the old ways of Washington.
Conservatives are not looking for window dressing, or something symbolic, like inviting the occasional conservative leader or evangelical pastor onto the platform at a Romney campaign rally. We are looking for Governor Romney to make serious conservatives a serious part of his campaign and to show us he intends to govern as a conservative by bringing them into his administration.
Who you walk with says a lot about who you are.
If Governor Romney wants grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers fully behind his campaign, the first and easiest step he should take is to make serious conservatives part of his campaign and show he means to govern as a conservative by walking with them every day.
That's a big honkin' IF.
Reports indicate the Romney camp doesn't want Palin speaking at the convention, one simple yet effective step they could take towards reconciliation with the right.
And if FR is any indication, Romney's presumptive nomination has rifted the right wing beyone the wildest dreams of the GOP-E.
Now, the GOP-E has their pet RINO. They have the right wing in disarray. And they have such a weak, enfeebled and unpopular opponent in Obama that they might just be able to win in November without the unified backing of the base, which would entrench their idea that the right wing is an anchor on the party goals and they are not needed except in the occasional close local race.
Which must have them in utter ecstasy.
I agree. Everything Romney is all about his old insiders and his new GOP-E insiders. I don’t expect him to bring real conservatives into any substantial position in his circle.
Hard to say. Was Seamus a conservative?
Jon Lord, keyboard player with Deep Purple.
Hmmmm ..?? Romney seems to have established some real conservative governors as allies .. Wisconsin, Louisiana, Virginia come to mind.
I truly believe Romney can be pushed further to the right .. if it’s done subtly and not angrily. I’ve seen him make adjustments more than once.
Well, sure! All it takes is one or two shakes!
Something about this campaign sounds very like the campaign in 1992. The Republican, a liberal, is running as a disengaged gentleman and the Conservative boosters are insisting that the Republicans are so energized and determined that Democrat would not get a second term that they would surely crawl over broken glass to vote for the Republican. Well the Conservatives don't care much about the broken glass and not so much about voting for a leftist to keep another leftist from winning the election. Most will say they will vote but many of those just won't get around to it on election day. Many don't think it is really the end of the Republic in prospect and many think the chance to save the Republic ended with the primaries. I think the slide into inevitably started when Reagan was replaced by Clinton (Bush I being a perceived extension of Reagan) and confirmed by the statist policies Bush II which got us the kenyan. Obama may not yet be Octavian but when he wins this one he will look mighty like Julius.
To Julius’ credit, at least he didn’t avoid the draft.
:>)
OOOOOOOoooooooo!!!
Did I ruffle your little feathers ..?? LOL
What people don’t seem to realize is the people who are advising Romney are the “go along to get along” people - the ones who cringe at being called racist; when the phrase is so overused that most of us are just Ho-Hum when he hear it.
However, I do believe (after hearing a second speech by Romney today) that Romney was really ticked off by O’s comments. Romney was on fire today too.
I’m hoping enough people will let Romney know how happy they are that he has taken the gloves off; so happy, that he will continue on this road. If so, his poll numbers are going to make a serious jump.
Sorry if my optimism offends you.
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