Romney = McCain Redux
By Ken Falkenstein | Sunday, June 5th, 2011 | Politics
As I read about Mitt Romney’s comments yesterday agreeing with leftists who promote the thoroughly discredited myth that the planet is undergoing man-made global warming, I could not help but reflect on how the national Republican Party excels at never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
In 2008, the GOP allowed Barack Obama, the most inexperienced and unqualified major-party candidate for president in American history, to run virtually unopposed. The GOP candidate, John McCain, was so far removed from the mainstream conservative values of the Republican Party that he never enjoyed – or deserved – support from his own party, let alone the general electorate. The result was that we elected the most extreme leftist president in history, a president who has imposed such radical and expensive policies on the country that the resulting debt is taking the country toward an utter and irreparable economic collapse.
Given the disastrous and indefensible record of the current president, one would think that the GOP would nominate a well-qualified principled conservative candidate to challenge him. Alas, at this point, the nominal frontrunner is Mitt Romney, a man whose socialized medicine scheme in Massachusetts was the blueprint for the ObamaCare scheme that Americans across-the-board demand be repealed. He’s a man who, as discussed above, buys into the leftists’ man-made global warming nonsense. (In fact, the Earth has cooled every year for the past 13 years.) He’s a man who has changed his position on numerous issues to adapt from a liberal Massachusetts electorate to a right-of-center national electorate. In other words, he is always who he must be to win any given election and therefore is no one at his core.
The Republicans already tried running an unprincipled self-promoting opportunist in 2008 and got the result that it deserved. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, it would be the definition of insanity to nominate the same kind of candidate in 2012 and expect a different result. The key to Republican victory and to repairing the damage done by Obama is not to nominate McCain redux.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
Ken Falkenstein has been a staffer in the United States Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates. He has managed political campaigns. He was a military intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army in West Germany during the Cold War. He is currently a civil litigation attorney with Poole Mahoney, P.C. in Virginia Beach. But his concern for his kids' future is what most informs his writing.
We're 75% there! Thank you to everyone who has so far contributed! Just $2000 to go!
Comments
11 Responses to "Romney = McCain Redux"
If the Republicans in Congress weren’t Scott and Michel redux it might matter a bit less about Romney’s waffling. If he won, Romney would not likely challenge a strong conservative Congress.
Romney’s eager courting of the McCain Dems all twelve of them probably makes sense if you are competing for Vermont. Romney is apparently pursuing a 50 state strategy. Unlike Reagan, Romney has a tailored message for each state. Unfortunately, his messages keep leaking across each state’s borders. What he would do with all these competing panderings if he were elected this way would be highly amusing if you could observe it from another country.
One thing to consider however is that with all kinds of candidates crowding on the right, Romney may win pluralities everywhere until one conservative candidate consolidates that vote – which might be too late to stop Romney. The only other candidate in Romney’s space is Huntsman, a nonstarter.
Cheers.
valentinus- You described exactly how John McCain managed to get the nomination from a Republican Party that never supported him: He won pluralities in enough winner-take-all states to win a majority of the delegates. One would think that the national Republicans would have learned a lesson from that fiasco and changed the system to provide that each candidate gets the number of delegates from each state proportionate to the percentage of votes that he or she won in that state. But again, the national Republicans rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Certainly Mitt Romney is not the standard-bearer of the GOP. But who is? Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, or Mike Huckabee? Any one of these would be the Democratic dream candidate and would go down in flames in a landslide not seen since Eugene McCarthy.
BTW, Ron Paul is not a Republican candidate. He is a perennial fringe candidate on the order of Ralph Nader and Lyndon Larouche.
I’m beginning to think that the Republican Party has conceded the 2012 election to Obama.
Ken,
There is also the issue of “open” primaries. Not sure which way the Dems will try to exploit those either. I happen to think also that Romney is not quite in the category of McCain because of his business and executive experience. One can only hope that those qualities would surface if he won. His campaign though is likely to be unaesthetic to say the least. nevertheless 2012 is far more favorable for Repubs than 2008 was.
HISROC,
Pawlenty is the default candidate but may not get enough traction early enough to compete. As for conceding the 2012 election, Obama and the Dems may not let them be so generous.
Multiple Choice Mitt is a poor choice for the Republican nomination, but his personality makes him a much better candidate than McCain. McCain ran a poor campaign, but lost in part because he was old and uninteresting. Regrettably, the run for President is largely a popularity/beauty contest.
HisRoc- Ron Paul may not be a viable candidate for President, but he is an elected Republican. LaRouche and Nader were never elected to any office. Paul is also obviously not a perennial candidate.
Mike,
Ron Paul has been running for President since 1988, sometime overtly and sometimes more covertly. He is a avowed Libertarian. If you want to pretend that he is a Republican, then you have an agenda that is counter to the interests of the Republican Party.
HisRoc,
Sometimes overtly and sometimes more covertly? You are reaching.
Nothing in my response to you was inaccurate, and nothing I said in any way supports the agenda or candidacy of Ron Paul. You misspoke on some of the facts and I corrected you.
I do find your last statement to be pretty interesting. What is your agenda? Is it the interests of the Republican Party or the interests of your Country?
“In 2008, the GOP allowed Barack Obama, the most inexperienced and unqualified major-party candidate for president in American history, to run virtually unopposed. The GOP candidate, John McCain, was so far removed from the mainstream conservative values of the Republican Party that he never enjoyed or deserved support from his own party, let alone the general electorate. The result was that we elected the most extreme leftist president in history, a president who has imposed such radical and expensive policies on the country that the resulting debt is taking the country toward an utter and irreparable economic collapse.”
Do you honestly believe that was mere happenstance? Obama is the perfect useful idiot; he is a committed anti-American but knows very little so his mind isn’t cluttered with preconceived notions. He is a pretty face and a great speech-reader. Stand him up in front of the ‘prompter and tell him what to say. He’s perfect. Don’t you get it?
Val: I agree with you that Pawlenty seems to be the default candidate. He’s sort of the definition of “generic Republican.” So far, generic Republican is doing better than any of the likely real candidates.
As for Romney and McCain, while I know you guys are mad at McCain for losing in 2008 and some of you never liked him anyway, I’d say the major difference between Romney and McCain is that the latter did have SOME principles he wasn’t prepared to disavow in the interest of a couple of votes.
Mike,
Ron Paul ran in 1988 as a Libertarian. You do recall that he ran in 1992 briefly as an Independent and then dropped out and endorsed Pat Buchanan, don’t you? In 1996 and 2000, he played with running but never declared. Hence, the terminology “overtly and covertly.” He is always there in some fashion, but is only running as a Republican this time to get himself into the debates. As for him being elected to Congress as a Republican, well all I can say is that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… Anyone who thinks that Ron Paul is a Republican is most likely sympathetic to the Libertarians taking over the Republican Party, something that they have wanted to do for some time now.
Leave your response