Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ronald Reagan and What I Got Wrong [Note to Mitt Romney: really, it’s you, not them. Seriously.]
RedState ^ | 11/20/12 | Erick Erickson

Posted on 11/20/2012 12:10:08 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-78 next last
To: apillar
“Or will they triple down on failure, after all...McCain and Romney might just not have been quite liberal enough.”

That's what I hear coming out of the GOPe - that they have to cater to Hispanics, give them what they want, give the blacks what they want, give, give, give, instead of clearing the way for these people to help themselves.

Rubio says one of his best friends is Jeb Bush. If they run together, expect it to be to the left of Romney.

21 posted on 11/20/2012 1:30:24 PM PST by Marcella (When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie
The problem with noblesse oblige is that it always entails droit de du seigneur.

Sheesh. Mille. Zette would smack my knuckles for that one.

22 posted on 11/20/2012 1:32:27 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Well written article - thank you for posting this sanity.

I caught a lot, and I mean A LOT, of flack on here for predicting that Romney wouldn’t win for several reasons, not the least of which was his attitude of entitlement.


23 posted on 11/20/2012 1:54:56 PM PST by reaganaut (Kyrie eleison...Christe eleison...Kyrie eleison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Who's to the left of McCain and Romney anyway?

Unfortunately, Jon Huntsman.

24 posted on 11/20/2012 1:59:17 PM PST by Colonel_Flagg ("Don't be afraid to see what you see." -- Ronald Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: reaganaut
The paranoids and conspiracy theorists and huffy, red-faced hysterics will all wander off eventually, most likely, as their claims (of necessity) steadily grow wilder and more over-heated, and less tethered to observable reality.

So... there's that to look forward to, at any rate. ;)

25 posted on 11/20/2012 1:59:46 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("If you're not fiscally AND socially conservative, you're not conservative!" - Jim Robinson, 9-1-10)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Behind the Blue Wall

If you don’t really believe in the conservatism and the Republican platform, can you please step aside and make room for a leader who does?

- - - - - -
But...but...but...it was Romney’s TURN!!

That is the biggest problem in the GOP and Romney ran with the attitude of ‘I’m not the other guy’ and expected the GOP base to just roll over and many did. He was partly right in that.


26 posted on 11/20/2012 2:02:52 PM PST by reaganaut (Kyrie eleison...Christe eleison...Kyrie eleison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

You are right of course, they will, and they will play the fear card.

May I asked if you voted and for whom? Just curious, I won’t flame you.


27 posted on 11/20/2012 2:10:31 PM PST by reaganaut (Kyrie eleison...Christe eleison...Kyrie eleison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

yep.


28 posted on 11/20/2012 2:13:35 PM PST by reaganaut (Kyrie eleison...Christe eleison...Kyrie eleison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: reaganaut
No worries; I'm not even remotely ashamed of my decision. ;) Conservatives all the way down, statewide; with the top slot left blank.

The sole advantage, really, of living in a state which hasn't gone red since Ronald Wilson Reagan -- the comparative luxury of being able to vote a conservative's conscience.

29 posted on 11/20/2012 2:14:59 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("If you're not fiscally AND socially conservative, you're not conservative!" - Jim Robinson, 9-1-10)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

The sole advantage, really, of living in a state which hasn’t gone red since Ronald Wilson Reagan — the comparative luxury of being able to vote a conservative’s conscience.

- - - - - -
I live in a state that hasn’t gone blue since FDR, so I had the same luxury. I voted for conservatives, left one state race blank (because the incumbent endorsed Romney) and voted for Virgil Goode for POTUS.

After over 20 years (since I could vote) of fighting for and supporting the GOP, I left it this year and changed to Constitution party. I left over Romney or more precisely, the GOP left me.


30 posted on 11/20/2012 2:17:17 PM PST by reaganaut (Kyrie eleison...Christe eleison...Kyrie eleison)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: JediJones

I think you’re right that Obama has purposely put as many people on the dole as possible in order to make them into reliable Democratic voters. I’ve actually seen it up close and personal through my job, where I’ve witnessed people being literally bribed with little freebies like food and gift cards to spend an hour with a social worker going through every single possible federal welfare program to see if they qualify.


31 posted on 11/20/2012 2:18:01 PM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: SMARTY
BUMP to your post:

I blame the MSM almost entirely.

Nothing will ever work again in American politics as long as we have a ONE PARTY MEDIA-with a criminally free hand in determinging our leadership for us.

We can be as pure as we want, as Reaganesque as we want and it won't matter a hill of beans if we don't alter the balance of power with the democrat/media complex.

32 posted on 11/20/2012 2:25:12 PM PST by Lakeshark (!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

“...will have formed their world view during Ronald Reagan’s America.”

Whenever I go off on a rant my kids tell me “Dad - YOU should run for President!” I tell them that there already was a president with those ideas - RR.


33 posted on 11/20/2012 2:27:36 PM PST by 21twelve (So I [God] gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. Psalm 81:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
I didn’t think Mitt Romney would be as hurt by the statement as he was because I assumed Romney had misspoken in an off the cuff way. I assumed Romney would clarify that he knew many of those who have government assistance did not actually want the assistance, but needed it. I assumed he’d make the case that he’d help those people get off the government dole and back into work.

In other words, I assumed Romney believed what I believe — many of those people are good people who fell on hard times and are not of the same class of people who will vote for Barack Obama for free stuff. I was absolutely wrong. Romney not only believes completely what he said as he said it, he reinforced it with his post election analysis of his defeat blaming gifts to various classes of people. If that was true, as Newt Gingrich pointed out, Romney had plenty to gift to plenty strapped to the back of marching elephants.

Excellent point, though the last sentence looks garbled.

What does this have to do with Ronald Reagan? As Dan McLaughlin pointed out, every Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan opposed Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election except John McCain. Think about that for a minute. Every nominee of the party cast by the media as an insane fringe of conservatives actually opposed, from the left, Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Each of those candidates ran successfully as heirs to Reagan or, when they failed, as rich Republicans who believe in some sort of noblesse oblige. George H. W. Bush, embracing his own identity outside the shadow of Reagan in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012 all ran as patrician aristocrats who intended to make government more efficient to help the poor. There really was no theme of elevating the poor from poverty or the middle class to the rich. The theme was the care and comfort of men through the technocratic efficiencies of government and a conservative disposition. Romney did that this time too, going so far as to put his more conservative running mate in a witness protection program for candidates.

Not so much. It sounds like he's twisting things to fit his interpretation, fitting all the winning candidates in one pattern and all the losers in another.

It doesn't work. Dole was no "patrician aristocrat." George W. Bush did his share of promising social programs.

Romney may have been a "patrician" in some ways, but the attitude expressed in his 47% quotes is very different from the standard "patrician aristocrat" approach.

One possible counterargument to all this: not every candidate can do the Reagan thing, just as not every candidate can do the FDR or JFK thing. Imitations don't always produce the same results as the original.

Erick has some good ideas, but he ought to have somebody read his stuff over before publishing it.

34 posted on 11/20/2012 2:29:06 PM PST by x
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: x

Romney thought he knew what conservatives wanted to hear from him....that’s what happens when you have no core beliefs, you try to say things you think people want to hear, and as usual, with disastrous results.


35 posted on 11/20/2012 2:31:59 PM PST by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

The lapdog Obama media would have manufactured “something” out of anything Romney said, labeled it a “gaffe”, and beat him senseless with it. The lamestream media fancies itself relevant; and aims to use what’s left of its influence to assure that no Republican, and certainly no Conservative will EVER be elected again if they can help it.


36 posted on 11/20/2012 2:33:32 PM PST by Twinkie (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SMARTY; KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Nothing will ever work again in American politics as long as we have a ONE PARTY MEDIA-with a criminally free hand in determinging our leadership for us.

I hate to burst your bubble for ya pal, but Reagan got his message out through a media that was a true monopoly wrt liberalism. Limbaugh was brand-spankin' new and with that one shining exception, almost every single media outlet was liberal as the day is long.

Now, with the internet, and many, many conservative outlets, Romney had it way better than Reagan could have dreamed of.

*ROMNEY LOST because he is not a Conservative*... Never was... In fact, as this article clearly states, Romney spent his whole career opposing Conservatism.

Next time, try a Conservative instead of a mere Republican, and watch the Conservative juggernaut rise up.

The sweet sound of liberty is the clarion call. It cannot be sung by one who mouths the words and can't hold the tune.

37 posted on 11/20/2012 2:36:54 PM PST by roamer_1 (Globalism is just socialism in a business suit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

RINO File.


38 posted on 11/20/2012 2:38:53 PM PST by Graewoulf ((Traitor John Roberts' Obama"care" violates Sherman Anti-Trust Law, AND the U.S. Constitution.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Okay so in 2016 we get a candidate who is photogenic and espouses Reaganism. His or her opponent is another Obamaton who espouses socialism. We lose. What then?

I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but we had a president with one of the worst records ever. Maybe the worst. He's been awful. And we couldn't beat him. I'd like to see a Reaganist candidate next time, but there's no guarantee that candidate will win. Sure, Romney should have raised the banner of conservatism, but he's not far wrong saying there's just too many parasites now.

39 posted on 11/20/2012 2:39:56 PM PST by driftless2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

We may not like what Romney said. It may have cost him, and us, the election. It may have cost us the Senate. But was he lying? I’ve seen people mad, but I haven’t seen anyone dispute his claim. The election would seem to prove his point. The first step in defeating the Democrats in the next election is to be true to ourselves. Romney may be entirely wrong, but let’s see the proof.

“If you understand yourself and you understand your opponents, then in one hundred battles, you will never be defeated.”


40 posted on 11/20/2012 2:40:45 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-78 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson