Posted on 04/09/2012 2:18:46 PM PDT by xzins
It was just one line slipped into the middle of a paragraph of Mitt Romney’s speech on April 3 celebrating his primary victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia: “And the most vulnerable have been hurt the most — over 30 percent of single moms are struggling in poverty.”
Seemingly unremarkable, these 19 words represent one of the many steps Romney will be taking as he treks back to the center in the aftermath of a primary campaign dominated by the hard right. It was only two months ago, after all, that Romney told CNN: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”
Without drawing attention to his rhetorical shift, Romney, in a speech on March 30 at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisc., abandoned his attack on President Obama’s “entitlement society,” faulting Obama’s “government-centered society” instead.
There is a powerful rationale behind this shift.
In the primaries, Romney’s target audience was well to the right of the mainstream and deeply hostile to the notion of entitlement programs. In the minds of many conservatives, such programs are direct transfer payments from “hard-working” better-off citizens to the “undeserving poor.” Denouncing Obama’s “entitlement society” played well to angry Republican primary voters.
In the general election, however, voters are less inclined to adopt hostile views of redistributive government programs.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Or, as the saying goes, we don't need a third party, we need a second.
But it appears you believe it is hopeless (short of armed revolution). You are welcome to move out of the country (or not, we still have some freedoms). I choose not to debate someone like you (my freedom).
This isn’t about purity; this is about principle. Part of politics involves compromise, which is why I’ve said over and over again that I’d vote for Santorum or Gingrich. Paul never really had a chance, so the question doesn’t apply to him.
But part of compromise is having enough -principle- to know compromise becomes caving. And you know what? There are certain things that aren’t worth compromising over, like supporting an open socialist. These are the sort of distinctions that party-line Republicans are incapable of making. They’ve pulled the GOP lever all their lives, and they just can’t imagine doing otherwise.
If you want to blame someone for Obama’s re-election, blame the establishment for backing a far-left radical who has sharply divided the GOP and destroyed voter enthusiasm nationwide. Turnout is abysmal and Willard looks even worse in the polls than John McCain did.
The Republican base has basically already given up. It’s like 2008 but twice as bad. That’s what will re-elect Barack Obama, not people like me. If you want to vote for the person responsible for that, be my guest.
We’re not even close to the GOP convention, and already you are confidently proclaiming Obama will win.
Gosh.
That’s helpful.
Fixed it.
Nice use of html tags, but that’s not the way I remember it.
Water under the bridge it seems. Pretty clear the big guy is not anywhere near unleasing FReepers yet to side with (whomever) ends up being our nominee - in the historically critical job of getting America’s first marxist president out of office.
But let’s start turning our focus toward that, to the extent we have the latitude to discuss it without straying inadvertently into a zot-mine field.
It very well be all or nothing this election, for America.
Imagine what Obama’s already done, starting from that point, with “flexibility” to tear down more US institutions, cancel more fighter jets, destroy more oil drilling, rise the price of gas more, unilaterally appoint more “czars”, need I go on?
This isn’t just about conservatism, or about the GOP.
Constitution Party needs to be up and running by the next presidential election. It’s unreal that we have a lib light as our nominee at this time in history. Right now, though, we have to get rid of the Obamas and Romney is it.
You people that aren’t going to vote for Romney are just flat out crazy in my opinion. Do you really want Michelle, Baracka and Valerie jarrett communists to finish off America as we know it? If he gets re-elected all hell will break loose. Romney is not perfect , but he is an American and he is not a communist. I would vote for a leaf over the Obamas and anyone that cares about the USA should get out and vote against him no matter who it is during this particular election.
>> Excuse me, but talking about Ross Perot only reminds me that we got 8 years of Clinton
Which gave us 9-11, DHS, Obama, etc... and I’m not being sarcastic.
“If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.” - Alexander Hamilton
By the way, Romney is socialist. Maybe you are happy splitting hairs between Romney and Zero, but I’m not.
Call me crazy. I really don’t care. I refuse to support a gun grabbing, baby killing, global warming, socialist sleaze bag who masquerades as a conservative.
Rotflol!
Try this instead:
Don’t be hard on Cato since he’s right. Romney has never been electable.
He is not now and never has been a conservative. He is the author of the $50 abortion, gay marriage licenses, and government-forced health care. That is social issue, social issue, fiscal issue. He isn’t a fiscal conservative; he isn’t a social conservative....he isn’t any kind of conservative.
He's right.
This is just one more example of Mitt Romney’s plan to “move to the center” for the general election. This is no longer a trial balloon being sent up by campaign staffers. Articles like this don’t run without clear indicators by the candidate to reporters that it’s the intent of the campaign — and if Romney had a major problem with this article we'd all know it because he'd be on the stump claiming the New York Times misunderstood him.
It may well be too late to stop Romney, but the least we can do is make sure Republican voters know what they’re picking in the remaining primaries.
Exactly, DM. Romney is a liberal, he wants to contest obama for liberal votes, and the conservatives will be abandoned.
It has already begun.
I have listened to him(as well as our other candidates) closely on this issue in the past, given its critical impact on our nation, and I sense(perhaps wrongly), that Romney is more interested in skilled than unskilled immigrants. That, in itself, can pose a problem for Americans, but less so than the continued influx of unskilled workers. The question is, what does he intend to do about the millions of illegals already here. That remains to be seen, but I fully expect him to soften his hard-nosed stance, which is unacceptable.
I agree with you on everything you’ve said about Romney, except for your conclusion he’s not electable.
There’s a reason he’s leading:
He’s ruthless. He has gobs of driven supporters - almost as dedicated as moonies.
He has deep pockets. Very powerful interests on his side.
And he really, really wants to win this. Unlike McCain.
Romney will in my opinion, if he’s our nominee, trounce Obama.
If he’s nominated, and if he does indeed defeat Obama in the election (now just 208 days away) Romney will walk into a buzzsaw of MSM bias which has been waiting to resume their role as “opposition press”.
He’ll spend four years defending from media ferocity, and we can replace him with someone like Palin as our candidate in 2016.
I completely understand those who don’t yet want to go there, and tactically we all should focus on finding some way of causing a brokered convention to derail this juggernaut.
Still could happen...
But Romney’s must definitely (not) unelectable.
Agreed.
The only hope at this point is that Romney's overconfidence will anger enough Pennsylvania voters to prevent Romney from being the “inevitable” winner there, and then spark a backlash in Texas.
Things could get interesting after that, but without a Romney defeat in both states I see no way to stop his nomination. I'm speaking here as someone who believes in miracles; by cold political calculus it's already too late.
Stranger things have happened, however.
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