Ever since the Reagan Administration ended, conservatives have been looking for the next great president who can boldly reform the federal government. During this campaign alone, we’ve looked at reform-minded governors, successful businessmen and career politicians alike and yet, for one reason or another, all fell short. What if Mitt Romney is the one we have been waiting for?
I know there is much in Gov. Romney’s record to give conservatives pause (it was not for no reason that George Will called him a “recidivist reviser” but what if he makes up in instinct what he lacks in conviction? Consider the attacks launched by Govs. Huntsman and Perry and Speaker Gingrich, a trio Michelle Malkin writes have “gone Occupier,” based on Romney’s record while at Bain Capital. As the editors of the National Review point out, when taking over companies on the verge of bankruptcy, it is to be expected that some employees will almost certainly lose their jobs. It’s an unfortunate reality of business, but that’s the way the free enterprise system works.
Conservatives pine for a president who can slash the excess spending and regulatory burden in Washington; if Huntsman, Gingrich and Perry get the vapors at the mere thought of firing employees in under-performing corporations, what, praytell, do they propose to do with the federal workers whose jobs will be lost when they eliminate the Departments of Education, Energy and the one Gov. Perry forgot–transfer them to the Department of Defense? If this were 1981, would any of these gentlemen be willing to make the same gutsy call to fire the striking PATCO workers that President Reagan did, or would they stand down?
Getting America’s fiscal house in order will require our next president to make some very tough calls on a host of issues. Would President Huntsman, Gingrich or Perry have the courage to make those same judgment calls as Citizen Romney made at Bain? If they can’t take the pressure of the New Hampshire Republican primary without going Occupier, how will they handle the pressure not to compromise on the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy when their presidency is on the line and the media depicts them as heartless philistines?
I’m not saying that Mitt Romney is the one we’ve been waiting for, or even that he should be the Republican nominee (there are two solid conservative candidates still in this race who are not attacking free enterprise by way of Mitt Romney), but based upon the hysterics of the “true conservatives,” grassroots Republicans could be forgiven for asking if Romney is, surprisingly enough, the only candidate in this race who’s “not for turning.”
