Cheney Rips Obama, Rallies for Romney

RUSH: Dick Cheney, heart transplant and all, back on stage in Wyoming at Republican convention or gathering of some kind. He and his daughter Liz are up there on stage. He spoke for an hour and 15 minutes, and the media said, "Without getting tired," damn it! Well, they didn't say "Damn it!" I added that in there because I know that's what they think. It was start in Cheyenne. It was a Republican state convention. Here is the vice president...

CHENEY: I can't think of a time when I felt it was more important for us to defeat an incumbent president than today with respect to Barack Obama. I think he has been an unmitigated disaster for the country. To be in a position where he gets four more years in the White House to continue the policies he has -- both with respect to the economy and tax policy and defense and then so many other areas -- would be a huge, huge disappointment.

RUSH: Yeah. It would be worse than that. But he was being politic. It would be a disaster, like he said the first time: "an unmitigated disaster" continued. So you can always count on Dick Cheney. Fearless, just right in there. And he said this about Romney...

CHENEY: I think it's very important that we get together and gather together and get behind our likely nominee. It's Mitt Romney. I've known him for a long time. I've got a lot of confidence in him.

RUSH: Speaking of Mitt Romney, Byron York posted at his blog, Beltway Confidential this morning, "At a closed-to-the-press Florida fundraiser Sunday night..." By the way, folks, I know where this thing took place 'cause I was asked to go. I shot 78 Saturday in a member-member tournament. I had five birdies! I had too many double bogeys or I'd have shot even better. I had five birdies. One of the birdies was a chip-in ten feet off the green, but the other four birdies I didn't sink long putts. My approach shots were within four or five feet and I sunk those putts. But I mean, I was striping it! I changed my stance but I used what I learned.

I sent Hank Haney a note: "Hank, I just shot a real 78 here!" It was a tournament; everything counts. None of this trickery. No gimme putts or any of that like when you're just horsing around. He wrote back, "That's the greatest news I've had all week." So, anyway, the guy who hosted the thing was playing in the tournament on Saturday, and I can't go to these things. It was $50,000. As a powerful, influential member of the media, I don't go to fundraisers or contribute to 'em. (interruption) No, no, no! It's not that the price was too high. I'm telling you what the price was. It was the largest one. It was $3 million-plus they raised with 90-something people.

It was 50 grand to get in there. Anyway, I know the guy and his wife that hosted the thing. They're nice people, Jerry Jordan and his wife. His wife has worked for Romney for a long time. Anyway, anyway, the point is here I shot 78 -- and I didn't know it until the round was over! (interruption) No, I wasn't in the zone. I was just caught up in the score of the tournament, how the team was doing. It was two-man best ball. It was a member-member tournament. I didn't figure I was that good. I thought I was gonna be close to 80 but I thought I had too many double bogeys to be under 80, but I had forgotten to count the impact of the five birdies.

In fact, three of the birdies happened the first five holes. I mean I was striping the damn thing. At any rate, at a closed-to-the-press Florida fundraiser Sunday night here in Palm Beach at which his remarks were overheard by some reporters standing outside, Romney was asked about his media strategery for the general election campaign. And according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and PMSNBC, Romney said his campaign's been treated well by Fox News but that he needs to expand his audience beyond Fox. He said, "Fox is watched by the true believers. We need to get the independents and the women."

We need to move beyond Fox's true believers, Romney said. Now, that may well be the case. That's standard procedure, by the way, you secure the nomination with the so-called base, but that's not what Romney's done.

Romney has not secured this with the Republican base, with the conservatives. The Republican establishment kicked this whole primary off wanting to secure the nomination for a moderate with moderate votes from the get-go. They wanted to deemphasize the conservative vote, and they lucked out with so many conservatives running that the conservative vote throughout all those early primaries was split seven or eight different ways. A good friend of mine heard about this and said, "What do you mean, 'Time to move beyond Fox's true believers'? He hasn't hit the true believers yet." I mean, there's some real -- not felt by me -- some real animosity out there and that's why Cheney is saying it's time to unify. It's time for everybody to get together now.

You know, it would help if Romney would reach out to Santorum and get Santorum. It would help if Romney would reach out to Mr. Newt. The whole unity thing. I don't know if it's gonna happen. Don't ask me. I suspect that it will 'cause I think when we get to the point where the pedal hits the metal, when the rubber hits the road, I think the whole specter of Obama will be a unifying characteristic or aspect of the campaign. But who said that before, about having to widen the base beyond conservatives? Somebody said that. Who said, "You gotta widen the base beyond conservatives"? Some establishment guy.

So there's a way to say this. But to move beyond Fox's true believers. "True believers" is not a complimentary characterization, would you say? Or is it? True believers, I guess you could go either way on it.

Romney has not secured this with the Republican base, with the conservatives....I mean, there's some real -- not felt by me -- some real animosity out there and that's why Cheney is saying it's time to unify. It's time for everybody to get together now.

Just sent the following idea to Rush and Hannity separately.

Assuming Romney becomes the (R) nominee, he will need to coalesce the base. He must do this convincingly for conservatives and Tea Party to get on board full throttle, not just halfheartedly.

How many of us were enthusiastic about Reagan in 1980 but thought the "Rockefeller Wing" was going to sabotage our chances when he selected GHWBush as his VP? How many of us were somewhat enthusiastic about Quayle, but not so much about GHWBush in 1988? How many of us were enthusiastic about Kemp, not so enthusiastic about Dole in 1996? How many of us were only cautiously supportive of GWBush in 2000, but roared when we learned he'd selected Cheney as his VP?

How does Romney get us ALL on board? Here's a suggestion:

Run not only with your VP but with your proposed cabinet as well.

Conservatives sometimes have to be reminded that a President is not king. He can't get anything done by dictate. Above all, he must be a quarterback for the team. While a quarterback may sometimes run a ball in to the end zone himself, more often than not he strategically uses the talents of his team mates to move the ball down the field and bring about the win.

Did anyone hear Palin the other night (4/12/2012) on Hannity when asked if she'd consider being Sec'y of Energy? Did you watch her show the following night in place of Greta? Did anyone hear our own FReeper Allen West when interviewed on Hannity (4/11/2012) and asked whether he'd consider being Romney's VP? And BOTH essentially said YES!

Newt has practically conceded. Are any of these folks any less conservative for facing what are becoming our realities this election cycle?

I have proposed cabinet and administration roles for persons who were Romney's rivals at some point. These are the skill sets we conservatives wanted applied to the places of government where they'd be most effective. Instead of rivals let's make them team players:

Rick Santorum - Sec'y of HHS

Sarah Palin - Sec'y of Energy + Sec'y of Interior (merge these)

Newt Gingrich - Sec'y of Education

Michelle Bachmann - Attorney General

Herman Cain - Sec'y of Commerce and Head of GSA (merge)

John Bolton - Sec'y of State

John Petraeus - Sec'y of Defense

Ron Paul - Head of Federal Reserve (let the audit begin)

Donald Trump - Head Council of Economic Advisers

Paul Ryan - Head of Office of Management and Budget

Joe Arpaio - Head of FBI, and Homeland Security (merge these)

Dick Cheney - Head of CIA

White House spokesman: Mark Levin

And our own FReeper, Allen West, as VP.

I was a Perry guy. Keep him as Governor of Texas. He's doing fine right where he is.

Next: Most of these folks are honed primed and stoked from the recent primary debates. They're all sharp. Nationalize the cabinet selection process as much as the Presidential and Congressional elections.

Release every one of these folks back out onto the the campaign trail with an assignment: tackle in an "in your face" way each of these departments - stage a kick-off news conference in front of each one of them. Challenge the office holders to the equivalent of Lincoln-Douglas style debates allowing each Obama appointed office member to defend their record and their (mis)-management of their public trust.

They won't debate, you say? OK, try some new Rules for Conservative Radicals. Stalk them, dog them with cameras, shame them into the arena, watch the cowards avoid the heat, watch for and exploit their mis-steps, create and run ads based on their failures in office and refusal to be made accountable.

While this is distracting the DNCs resources, Romney can land his own punches on Obama in the same way he's managed to blow away all his opposition in the primaries. Use Romney's well funded strike teams to confound opposition at the grass roots, do what they can to discourage and depress Democratic opposition and their voters.

Face it: if Romney was able to take out his competitors in the primary don't you suppose Obama's hacks could have taken anyone of them out in the general?

Have Romney's boys sew the seeds of hopelessness and dissension in the Obama ranks, emphasize betrayal and failure of Obama to keep 2008 promises. Undermine, destroy and confound the opposition into a confused, ill-directed mass who find themselves fighting on more than one Alinskyized, freeze-the-target Presidential candidate, and instead spending their resources fighting 10+ personalities "running" for cabinet offices.

Who are the "generals" they have to call into a fight like that?

Instead of dividing us with all the endless sniping, let's quit doing the DNC's work for them and work on dividing THEM for a change!

Romney and Netanyahu both began strategic business careers at Boston Consulting Group. Agree with them or disagree with them, but admit that they are patient, long range, strategic thinkers.

One of the things Romney has been able to do in large part is to keep his persona distanced from the decisively well-calculated positioning of opposition to rivals in the primaries. His name-less, face-less cloaked "hit-men" are as effective as any guerrilla force out there, but all that activity is maintained at a plausibly deniable, comfortable, arms-length distance from Romney the candidate. I dare say it puts the likes of Nixon's and Clinton's "opposition research" squads to shame.

Sorry George. Enough of the "kinder-gentler" crap. Tight formations, and "gentlemen's wars" provided the fixed targets that let us destroy the British in our War of Independence.

I can see that machine going to work on Obama and leaving more than just a few lumps. Let's turn the "talents" of Romney's henchmen on to Obama, keep them disciplined, focused, and this side of doing any thing "Watergate," and let them go for the DNC's juggular.

If Romney is what we've got to work with this time around let's face that fact head on and let's hold his feet to the fire and make our will known as conservatives. If he's smart he'll seek our trust, and appoint many of our cabinet choices. To secure our trust he's going to have to both earn it and maintain it.

Romney will go a long and convincing way to doing that by arming, deputizing, and funding the campaign efforts of his "cabinet-in-waiting."

FReegards!

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