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The Square Can Win
realclearpolitics.com ^ | April 26, 2012 | David Paul Kuhn

Posted on 04/27/2012 1:29:34 AM PDT by neverdem

In 1972, a young aide named Patrick Buchanan suggested that Richard Nixon frame the presidential campaign as "square America" vs. "radical America." The square won 49 states.

Pundits tend to describe Mitt Romney's vanilla disposition as a liability. The Washington Post recently asked, "Why does Mitt Romney seem so stiff?" But there's a more practical question: How much does it matter?

Stiffs can become president, even in this television age. During the 1988 campaign, George H.W. Bush asked reporters, “What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?" The answer came on Election Day. Americans backed the boring guy.

Today, pundits mythologize Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain” personality. But Clinton owed his presidency far more to the recession and Ross Perot than his softer side. Barack Obama, the prof-in-chief, does not lead with his heart. Joe Biden is the more Clintonian pol. But Biden was lucky to be number two on that ticket.

Back in 1972, Nixon didn’t merely campaign for “square America.” He was intrinsically square. His second-grade teacher recalled that little Dick Nixon came to school every day wearing a white starched shirt and long sleeves. That square went on to win one of the largest landslides in American history.

So we watch as this latest square seeks the presidency. Romney does navigate a stage as if the hanger is still inside his shirt. But Al Gore won the popular vote despite his starched demeanor.

Romney exudes 1950s man. Ronald Reagan did too. Even Reagan’s pompadour recalled the “good old days.” Romney’s perpetually coiffed hair may as well. In 1996, a Knight-Ridder poll found that Americans -- including a plurality of men, women, liberals and conservatives -- saw the 1950s as the best decade to live and raise children in...

--snip--

The GOP presumptive nominee...

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012gopprimary; obama; romney; romney2012
Unless there's a Divine intervention, then the GOP presumptive nominee is Romney. I see no profit in attacking him for his lack of conservative policies in Massachusetts. Obama has been a leftwing wrecking ball. I care about my country more than my political preferences. If Romney goes off the conservative reservation while he's president, then he can be opposed by Congress in the meantime, assuming that we take back the Senate and keep the House, and primary him in 2016.

We have to take over the GOP! Go Tea Party!

1 posted on 04/27/2012 1:29:44 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Dude, what?


2 posted on 04/27/2012 1:38:06 AM PDT by allmost
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To: neverdem

Romney has never seen the conservative reservation. He has no principles whatsoever; he’s for sale, as long as he can get his little power trip going.

He’s already appointed an openly homosexual spokesman.

He’s goin’ left, guy, far left.

By voting for Mittens, you are not “taking over” the GOP.

You’re simply telling them that they can safely ignore you, and you’ll continue to vote for anyone they tell you to.


3 posted on 04/27/2012 1:43:13 AM PDT by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves.)
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To: neverdem
Mitt is squaresville for sure, but he's more than that. He's also a little bit dorky.
4 posted on 04/27/2012 1:44:00 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: neverdem
Huey Lewis & the news said it best.
"It's hip to be square"
5 posted on 04/27/2012 2:35:08 AM PDT by DeaconRed (Cold War Veteran. . . . US Army Security Agency 1964-1968- I have now gone pecan.)
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To: neverdem

This was a pretty good article. I liked that bit about William Henry Harrison.

We think pols were better men in the old days, but it seems that really not so.


6 posted on 04/27/2012 4:26:12 AM PDT by jocon307
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To: neverdem

Romney is a square socialist. His only redeeming value is he could dislodge the communist in the WH.


7 posted on 04/27/2012 4:31:35 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: allmost

I’m prepared to see lots of threads like this one from now on FR. This article is the epitome of lipstick on a pig.


8 posted on 04/27/2012 5:41:19 AM PDT by Resettozero
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To: neverdem

Square, white and boring will all play to Romney’s advantage here. Obama is going to give the votes of Middle America away to him by aligning himself with the Black Panthers, OWS, environmental extremists, and every other element of the far-left fringe.

Professional Democrat strategists must be having an absolute cow over how his campaign is being run.


9 posted on 04/27/2012 6:08:04 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: ctdonath2
His only redeeming value is he could dislodge the communist in the WH.

While I don't trust Romney, I hope so!

10 posted on 04/28/2012 4:11:08 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: PieterCasparzen

If as rumored, Gingrich sidelines next week...

Then it’s time to recognize Romney has won, and start turning focus to defeating Obama.

However, it is not yet next week.

And Gingrich has not taken himself out of the race.

So please by all means rage and rant against Romney. But keep in mind, the real problem is Obama.

Palin 2016


11 posted on 04/28/2012 4:18:00 AM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (Obama ate his own dog as a child in Indonesia??)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network

Romney is not my candidate.

He’s the Republican establishment’s candidate.

They, in their great wisdom, must now try to get him elected without me.

They will run to what they call the “center”; those who don’t think it’s any big problem to be anti-Christian, pro-islam, pro-homosexual. These are the same voters who slept for the past 50 years while government grew into the monster that it is today. People who think that TSA patdowns just “have to be done”, people who think that Israeli-style security is somehow bad (it’s not ok to check our backgrounds/papers before the flight, but it’s ok to grope us as we get on the plane).

In short, the lunatics continue to run the asylum.

Thinking that soon to be $16 trillion in government debt is not relevant to them personally.

And if Romney is elected, the Republican establishment, Romney, and the Congress will think that conservatives are wrong and moderates are right. They will think that it’s ok to persecute Christians, advance the homosexual agenda, negotiate with teacher’s unions to protect the teacher’s unions pensions, appoint so-called moderates to the Federal courts; the list could go on and on. Moderates don’t see the world as good versus evil; everything is negotiated, and poorly negotiated at that. “But what else can we do” they say - nobama would be worse.

So see, at least if nobama is reelected - the people in the “middle”, the so-called moderates - will continue to get a good dose of what evil is. If they re-elect obama - they need that dose, since they obviously haven’t made the connection yet in their mind that ruining the nation would be bad for almost every person, even those on the dole. The only ones would be benefit would be those at the top of the employee ladder in crony big business, who would continue to receive fat paychecks.

People who have slept through politics for the last 50 years, actually gone great lengths to ignore it, and boasted of their “non-political” nature (they “rise above” politics because they’re “real” and “good”) - all those people will remain engaged, interested in how their lives and the lives of their children are being destroyed by leftist college professors and corrupt big business and corrupt big government: if nobama is re-elected.

It’s actually quite hilarious to see how ashamed Fox news on-air personalities have become. They know that Romney was who they were supposed to be touting, they did it and now Romney has the nomination. And they were a key part of it, but simply subtlely painting the others as “too conservative” to be “mainstream”. Now, for the next 7 months they have to find something to say about Romney that everyone hasn’t heard a thousand times from them. Now they need to clear their airwaves of anything negative about Romney like they have been. See, the other candidates - GAVE THE PRIMARY LEGITIMACY. IT’S NOT AN ELECTION IF THERE IS ONE SINGLE CANDIDATE WHO WAS PRE-SELECTED IN BACK ROOMS (I won’t even bother saying smokey, let’s say tofu-filled). People in the third world and the communist bloc have always had to deal with fake elections - they know what evil is, they either give in to it or resist. People in America have always had the same thing, really, by means of the party establishments. The press manipulation was through things called newspapers. In between reading them, people talked to each other a lot, so the manipulation was under at least a veil of the image of free and fair elections. Nowadays, with the amount of time people spend in the mind control machines, and how fast people are running away from God, and with the increasing tendency of personal conversations to be drivel, the manipulation by the media is becoming embarrassingly obvious. The corruption of our society is laid bare for all to see.

The “team Republican” establishment, who goes along with government that tells me who to hire, who to fire, what products I can and can’t make, every minute detail of process and procedure, who I can and can’t talk to when seeking investment capital, what I can and can’t raise on my farm and what chores my children can and can’t do (etc.) - those corrupt political whores are advising me that I would do well to join their team. To what end ? Both parties are moving America towards a corrupt police state which would rival Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. Slowly, the personal freedoms described in the Declaration and Constitution are being taken away by elites. To those of us preparing to run away to the hills, we need to think again. There is no escaping a police state. Running away is only running to a prison cell of one’s own making. Trade and commerce for outcasts of a police state are only possible on the black market, which represents cripplingly high prices due to the payoffs required. The noose of the police state tightens slowly. While there may be a point in the future that, looking back, was a tipping point - by then, there really will be no alternative anyway. The tipping point is now, even though with our dollars still worth something and a nice sunny day, the police state seems far off.

The moderates think it all comes down to practical economics. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The truth is, those are short-term concerns; like bailing out the Titantic with a teacup.

The most important issues are those of the morals of the people. The nation will either stop rejecting God, turn back to him and succeed, or she will continue her vain attempt to run from him and reject God and she will fail in misery.

I say to the Republican establishment, you nominated him, you elect him. I’ll be working on something else entirely, restoring America.


12 posted on 04/28/2012 8:53:33 AM PDT by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves.)
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To: PieterCasparzen

“If they re-elect obama - they need that dose”

You’re dreaming. What will happen if Obama is re-elected is that his policies will become the new center. He will be free to really unleash, unrestrained by the concerns of another election. The next Republican nominee will be someone like Chris Christie or Michael Bloomberg. You will get the opposite of what you want if you work for the victory of Obama.

People do NOT “need a dose”, they need a victory. People need triumph, or the apathy will only grow.


13 posted on 05/01/2012 11:12:18 AM PDT by Dragonspirit (Always remember President Token won only by defecting on his CFR pledge.)
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To: Dragonspirit

In 2008, a majority of the population actually wanted obama to win.

If the majority of the American people want leftist ideology, but a true conservative somehow manages to eek out a victory in the next election using brilliant strategies, groundwork, etc., the conservative President would not be able to garner much public support for their initiatives. As they took actions, the liberal media would be constantly painting them in a negative light as well, and they would find the American people and Congress quite resistant to their plans.

If a clear majority of the nation is fed up with socialism and liberalism, a newly elected conservative President will find that they have public and Congressional support for what they try to do. Reagan experienced this; the public disgust with Carter gave him a clear mandate that gave him considerable influence on Congress legislation. Opposing his programs fell out of political fashion.

Mittens has already appointed a foreign policy spokesman that is an admitted homosexual. This appointment was no accident: he is sending a signal to Republicans, Democrats and Independents that he is turning to the left, in an effort to get support from centrists and independents, i.e., people who have no strong feelings one way or the other on many issues. The message he therefore sends to social conservatives is “the Republican party backed me in the primary, I said as little as possible during the primary so I would not go out on a limb with conservative statements that could be played back in general election ads by nobama; I didn’t need your vote to get the nomination, and I don’t need your vote to win the election”. Of course, the Republican establishment has thrown down the guantlet towards social conservatives, telling them in so many words: you guys are going bye-bye, you and your Bibles and guns are not needed any more by the Republican party. The Republican party is going to be homosexual-friendly, islam-friendly, “progressive”, “green”, union-friendly, etc., etc. The Republican establishment plans on drawing from the centrist well of votes and could care less if the Bible is outlawed completely. They don’t care about persecution, statism, American sovereignty or right and wrong: they care only about winning elections. No matter how bad things are, as long as a Republican is in office, they’re happy.

If Mittens loses, the Republican establishment will have to decide whether to go farther left, or back to the right.

The House will still be Republican and will have people like me screaming at them on the phone every now and then.

The Senate will be close to 50-50 or have a Republican majority.

An obama second term will make today’s popular discontent seem like a walk in the park: about 2/3 of the population will be in a tizzy - extremely upset and their tolerance of garbage legislation and regulation will be practically zero. Obama will be treading on some extremely thin ice in terms of popular support. IMHO, there will be disgust with government like there has never been before.

People will realize that their back is against the wall.

When European bank failures threaten U.S. bank failures, the Federal Reserve might be forced by public outcry to not intervene. Put simply, IMHO, there will be one wild, rockin’, rollin’ time.

If Mittens is elected, liberals and independents will say that conservatives “got their way”. When European bank failures threaten U.S. bank failures, Mittens will attempt to bail everyone out by utterly gargantuan Federal debt. U.S. Treasury bonds will become worth nothing as the world realizes they can never be paid back at current GDP levels and given the legal environment in the U.S., it’s non-consumer industries will shrink even more and unemployment will rise to excrutiating levels.

Even if the sovereign debt collapse were, by some miracle, to not happen during a hypothetical Mittens administration, that would mean jobs would be in the tank, the underlying economy would turn very bad after 2 years of being propped up by his crony gifts to big finance, and he would almost certainly not be re-elected. He would continue government giveaways, both in welfare to people and government slush money to businesses. Business profits will look fine as always, the stock market will be up nicely, but unions, teachers, local taxes, real estate, non-consumer jobs; all those ugly situations will remain and continue to get worse.

And all this will cause Dem strategists to say “See, you had Mittens doing things the conservative way and it’s failed”. Just about the time the 2016 election rolls around, if America is not completely miserable, the economic sugar-high Mittens would try to create will have worn off.

That’s why either way, the most important thing, IMHO, is getting the message of economic reality understood by more people. Including State and local government and Congress. And business leaders need to take the initiative and do two things: hire in American “anyway” and at the same time - most importantly - pressure legislators to start abolishing out of control State and Federal agencies and start fixing our whole frame of mind. Of course, conservatives also, at the local level, need to stir up opposition to left-wing control of schools. We can only get people’s minds corrected one step at a time, and without the people on the right page, they will resist and reject a leader who would do right thing.

IMHO.


14 posted on 05/01/2012 12:09:39 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves.)
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