Posted on 10/05/2012 3:40:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
very well articulated article....
Romney did a good job but his positions were largely espousing progressive positions that are traditionally not considered conservative. He continued to espouse the current high taxes on “the rich” and the wasteful spending on “education”.
It wasn’t that Romney’s performance was the best ever. It was just that Obama’s was the worst of all time. Obama proved he is not qualified to run a hot dog stand. Romney proved he is a very smart RINO.
Romney will probably win but let’s not pretend he was Reaganesque. He wasn’t even close.
Romney was great, not to doubt it. But it was like watching a football team win by a huge margin. You look closely at the aftermath and wonder about the margin. Was the winner THAT good, or was the loser SO BAD it made the winner look so good? In that context, it still doesn’t explain the margin we saw Wednesday night. Add “expectations” to the mix and you learn more. The news media painted Obama as “expected” to be great, Romney was painted to be “weak.” When the result was the opposite of “expected” the margin was magnified. Most if the shock of the results was the flash of backfire from too much hype from the media. We simply saw Romney at his very best and Obama at his very worst and the result is a margin of victory or defeat that will be studied for years to come. But a great deal of that perceived margin belongs to the press who also was SOUNDLY defeated Wednesday night. To me, the defeat of the press was a greater victory. It was heartening that Romney won soundly. It was more heartening that both Obama and the press were defeated by an historical margin of their own making.
Really hurts you to write that. I wondered how the FReeper Romney haters, the only, self declared, real conservatives, would react to the debate, and you have shown it.
Newsflash !!! Ronald Reagan is dead {oh, BTW, he was a great President, but he was far from the stature being attributed to him}.
“It was just that Obama’s was the worst of all time”
I disgree. Romney was superb. He reduced Obama to what we saw, and he’ll do it again in the upcoming debates. Obama can come out next time with more gunpowder but he’ll still be shooting blanks.
Romney’s positions on so many issues are not conservative. In order to support him, most conservatives on Free Republic have said that it is only because Obama is worse, and that they’ll give him heck while he’s in office any time he strays from conservative principles. We’ll see if that’s true.
I worry about it, though. There’s much exultation over Romney’s debate victory over Obama. The issues touched on highlighted a few non-conservative positions, as you’ve pointed out. RomneyCare is one and the Education Department is another. Imposing health care at a state level is still a violation of personal freedom and imposing federal education directives on local schools is another violation. The constitution does not say that because the fed can’t violate freedom that a state can. That is not the intent nor meaning of states’ rights.
So, Romney did NOT say that he considers these a violation, he said simply that his ideas in those areas are not as much a violation as are Obama’s.
We haven’t even begun discussing abortion, guns, gay marriage, and a host of other concerns. On all of these, Romney offers a “less of this” view instead of a “none of this” view.
If Romney wins, and he might, we will have conservatives exulting over installing a person they know to be a liberal. I’m fearful they’ll forget their pledge to hold him accountable amidst all the celebration over defeating Obama.
And, I’m certain that Romney’s “slower/lesser erosion of freedom liberalism” will get more firmly implanted in the republican party.
Conservatives will have to go elsewhere. We’ll be viewed as the Amish and the Hasidics of the political landscape; not keeping up with the new republicanism that incorporates gays, gun control, aborted babies, federal education directives, libertarian justices, and mandated health care. This will have us being the outcasts.
We’ll be outside the camp bearing reproach.
Watch and see. It’s a matter of time....and not that much time. It’s already well down the road.
I have always said that Romney will probably win. He is going to win by angling for votes of dissolutioned liberals and “moderate” independents.
Romney did a good job of expressing his concerns for continuing many of the wasteful entitlement programs and high tax rates for the rich and high rates of Federal spending on stuff like education.
There were many times during the debate where I just cringed at Romney’s knee jerk liberalism. He did, however, make it sound like he was espousing conservative principles. But when you examine what he said, not much of it was what I would consider conservative by any measure.
I can vouch that marlowe has been saying for months that Romney will probably win. I, on the other hand, even though I agree with Marlow on many things, did not buy into that.
I believed Romneycare, acceptance of gays, limited pro-choice, and limited gun control would render Romney unable to defend against Obama’s simply being able to say, “You support this, too.”
But, in the debate, when Obama cited RomneyCAre, Romney told how his government health care was better than Obama’s health care. First, Romney said that kids still get to stay on their parent’s policies until they’re 26 years old, and that pre-existing conditions won’t keep them from getting government-directed insurance. He then pointed out that his plan doesn’t have death panels and a few other items that ObamaCare does.
NOTE: Romney didn’t say “Government imposed health care is a violation of individual responsibility and freedom.”
I’m beginning to slide Marlowe’s direction. I do think Romney improved his chances of victory the other day, but I also think that Darth Barry has 2 more debates and a month of free air time from the media to brainwash the people.
Since the voting public gets its news from Letterman, Comedey Central, and sitcoms like sex in the city, I’m sure their writers at the start of their new seasons have already coordinated their efforts with the Obama team.
I do not think it will be an easy task for Romney.
All 3rd party candidates, in my humble opinion, have been dismal at working to get out the message that they are attempting to build a new conservative coalition for the future. Part of that is the fault of being blocked by laws designed to help the 2 major parties and hinder 3rd parties, but another part of that is simply lack of ability.
At this point, I’m despondent about any candidate I know of.
The media keep claiming that this is a "new" Romney, but it's not. This is the same Romney that's been out there on the hustings. It's just now that most people got to see him without the "news" media "nothing-to-see-here" filter.
The Romney people need to realize this and keep it up. Slam the media hard, they're not going to cut Romney any slack, especially now that he has cut their puffed-up, seemingly larger-than-life selected boy-king down to the midget size he belongs.
When it comes down to brass tacks Romney looked great and Obama looked like a tired tyrant awaiting the inevitable.
There is a lot of glee on what a spectacular job Romney did, but when you examine what he actually said, there wasn’t a lot there that would give comfort to small government conservatives.
The image he portrayed was Reaganesque, but the positions he espoused were Romneyesque. Obama’s performance was so bad that the janitor who cleaned up the auditorium after the debate would have mopped the floor with him.
Look at the Obama jobs numbers in the chart on Household Data I posted on Front Page sidebar.
The guy has a brilliance for manipulation, and it shows.
I wouldn’t count Barry out yet.
I know that the two of you, both self declared, the last of the real conservatives, the FReepers that denigrate the rest of us, as rinos, hate the thought of Romney as President.
I'm not wild about mittens, BUT I look at obama, and there is such a gap between those two men and the way America will go, there is no comparison.
I am praying for, working for and donating to the Romney campaign and hope that the President in 2013 will be Mitt Romney. We cannot stand four more months, let alone four more years of obama.
Thanks, SoCon.
Something like illegal amnesty would wake them up, but no one’s going to talk that subject.
It’s a 3rd rail for Romney with his ABO conservatives.
If you had paid attention to the debate you would have realized that Romney won the debate by taking “moderate” positions and taking away Obama’s thunder. Romney advocated continued high taxes on the rich, continued unnecessary spending on education, Government mandated healthcare, and really didn’t espouse any conservative principles other than a general call for more “limited” government, and states rights.
Again, Romney controlled the debate, made Obama look like an idiot, and will probably win the election. That does not make Romney a conservative, and does not mean that he won the debate by advocating conservative principles. He didn’t. He won the debate because Obama was completely unprepared to even stand at the podium.
Actually, I haven't denigrated the rest of you. I've pretty much said that I think that you're wrong and that I hope you live up to your pledge to hold Romney's feet to the fire.
Saying someone is wrong is not besmirching you any more than saying my grandson worked a homework problem wrong.
Marlowe is right, though, that Romney did not espouse any conservative economic plans the other day.
His riff on the declaration of independence...life, liberty, pursuit of happiness...that was conservative. (Although I doubt he'd end up in "life" at the same place that Rick Santorum does.)
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