The Man With No Core
By Adam Graham (03/14/08)
If the race comes down to Mitt Romney and John McCain, the choice is between the unknown and the intolerable. It's as clear as the choice between playing Russian Roulette with three bullets in the chamber and drinking a gallon of hemlock. - Adam Graham in the "Evil of Five Lessers"
It was my most favorable statement on Mitt Romney prior to Super Tuesday. My opinion of him has not improved since that day. In fact, it has gotten less favorable.
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard has written that Mitt Romney would be a fine Vice-Presidential choice for John McCain. I would agree, but for different reasons. While Romney would satisfy economic conservatives (who’ll vote for McCain anyway) and guarantee at least one vote (Ann Coulter) in a race against Hillary, he will not win the support of social conservatives. Even the relatively moderate National Right to Life declined to endorse Romney over Fred Thompson. Romney would be marginal help on the ticket with conservatives, who embraced him as a candidate of last resort to Stop McCain.
What makes him a great Vice-Presidential choice is his lack of conviction. A Vice-President must surrender many of his own positions to match those of the nominee. A lack of a philosophical core makes that easy.
In Mitt Romney’s case, he has begun to lobby for the Vice-Presidency. This represents a flip flop from January 28 when he stated, “ I’m not going to be any Vice-President to John McCain. That’s not going to happen.” Of course, flip flops are nothing new for Mitt Romney.
Flip Flopper Extraordinaire
To change your mind on an issue is not itself a problem. Political leaders will change a position every now and again. However, contrary to what Romney supporters tell us: Mitt Romney didn’t just flip flop on abortion. He flip flopped on: Embryonic Stem Cell Research, the need for a Marriage Amendment, Gun Control, Minimum Wage, Campaign Finance, Ronald Reagan, and why he voted for Paul Tsongas in 1992.
That’s just a start. Mitt Romney made most of these astonishing conversions just before he geared up for a Presidential run.
Of course, the abortion issue provides the most astonishing flip-flops. Romney ran as a pro-choicer in Massachusetts. In an August 5th Debate, Romney stated he ran in Massachusetts as effectively pro-choice when he was really opposed to abortion.
Of course, he was far more than “effectively pro-choice.” On a NARAL questionnaire in 2002, Romney declared that he favored Roe v. Wade. So, thus according to Romney, he flat out lied to the people of Massachusetts when running for Governor. Worse than that, he told another conversion story about a meeting in 2005, which wasn’t true if he was already opposed to abortion in 2002.
His supporters insist that Romney was just saying what he had to in Massachusetts in order to get elected. However that begs the question. How do we know when someone who will say anything to get elected is actually telling the truth?
Backstabbing and Sanctimony
Talk of the conservative media was about a McCain-Huckabee cabal against that true conservative Mitt Romney. Funny thing, when Conservative Fred Thompson jumped out of the race, he didn’t back Romney against McCain and Huckabee. Was there a reason?
Ana Marie Cox wrote an interesting piece on how every other candidate in the race loathed Romney for his pretension. She quotes one Fred Thompson aide who called Romney on his “wholesale reinvention.”
While John McCain was speaking on the floor of the Senate against the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 1994, Mitt Romney was proclaiming his dedication to the pro-choice cause. In 1993, while mean-spirited Democrats nailed the door to then-Lt. Governor Mike Huckabee’s office shut (effectively stopping him from taking office), Romney was attacking the era of Reagan-Bush. To be attacked as a liberal by this guy had to be galling.
On top of that, while Mitt Romney had the most positive sounding attack ads, (They all began with “Mitt Romney, Candidate X, both good men.”) back-channel, the Romney campaign leaked false and misleading information to the media, including the false tale of Fred Thompson’s post-Iowa withdrawal.
Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill is known for saying, “All politics is local.” But he also said, “Politics is about people.” And Mitt Romney ticked off all the wrong people. If you want to choose someone as the conservative standard bearer, don’t make it someone whose politics towards Republican Rivals is best described as “slash and burn.” They won’t be able to bring the party together.
Using Religion
Rather than admitting this, Romney’s supporters, including his son Josh, have used Romney’s LDS faith as an excuse for Romney’s collapse. Josh cited Huckabee’s December 11th question to a New York Times Reporter asking whether Mormon taught that Jesus and Satan were brothers. The problem with this story. The first polls showing Huckabee leading Iowa came out in late November, three weeks before this issue came up and before the controversy over a book shelf with a glare that looked like a cross (i.e. the Floating Cross). In addition, what about the collapse in New Hampshire where Evangelicals were less prominent?
The crowing about Romney’s religion costing him the nomination is the most bizarre outlandish tale I’ve heard. If his supporters truly believe Romney lost because of his LDS faith, why do many push the idea of a 2012 candidacy or a Vice-Presidency with McCain? If Romney lost because of religion, in four years, America will still not be ready. We don’t change our religious prejudices that fast. Most of those pushing for Romney 2012 either don’t sincerely believe that Romney’s religion is what cost him, or they’re not taking that stance to it’s logical conclusion.. If religion did tank him, he might as well not put down another $40 million and write off the Presidency for life.
All The Advantages
The Rudy McRomney trilemma presented Mitt Romney with every possible advantage. Running against the pro-abortion Rudy Giuliani and the maverick McCain, Romney had the endorsement of conservatives like Paul Weyrich and James Bopp. However, the grassroots of the party wasn’t pleased. Romney lost Iowa despite outspending his opponent 10:1 and putting together a much stronger ground organization than Huckabee. He won the Wyoming, as only Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson competed and their effort was half-hearted. He lost New Hampshire, despite being from nearby Massachusetts.
While Romney may have been unknown last year in much of the country, this was not the case in New Hampshire, where Boston TV is widely watched and New Hampshire got to see Romney in action. They knew him well and they handed a humiliating defeat.
He then went to Michigan where his family was only slightly less influential than the Kennedys in Massachusetts. He promised the state $20 billion in federal money and he won.
Despite having picked up big Evangelical Endorsements including from Bob Jones, he finished 4th in South Carolina, while winning Nevada on the basis of strong LDS turnout in a state that no one other than Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul seriously worked.
This led conservatives to anoint Romney the anti-McCain, and he promptly lost Florida. Then, with the full force of talk radio and most of the conservative blogosphere, Romney won another state’s caucus in Maine that proved once again if this election were between Romney and Ron Paul, there would be no contest.
Two days later on Super Tuesday, Romney lost and badly. He won two primaries, in his home state of Massachusetts and Utah (by a ridiculous 90% of the vote.) He won caucuses in Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, Minnesota, and Colorado. Romney won the type of states you expected to win, coupled with the type of states that can put in exclamation mark Without winning bigger states, the total looks pathetic.
Thus, having spent a total of $100 million, all Mitt Romney had to show for it was 1 competitive primary win.
Wrapping Up
Of course, no candidate wants to give a, “Okay, I blew a bunch of money and I really don’t want to waste more of it” speech, so instead Romney went before the Conservative Political Action Conference and gave a strong speech about his conservative principles and how he’d take this all the way to the Republican Convention like Ronald Reagan did in 1976. Romney, however made a point, “But there is an important difference from 1976: today, we are a nation at war.” And then proceeded to drop out of the campaign.
However, few people have even scrutinized the absurdity of Romney’s statement. Reagan, himself said in his terse 1976 Convention speech, “We live in a world in which the great powers have poised and aimed at each other horrible missiles of destruction, nuclear weapons that can in a matter of minutes arrive at each other's country and destroy, virtually, the civilized world we live in.” Ronald Reagan saw America in a great struggle in which world itself as we know it could end, and somehow he thought it was noble to fight for Conservative principles and did so all the way to the Republican Convention. Perhaps, it’s sincerity that allows you to do that.
Of course the Stop McCain Candidate became the Endorse McCain ex-Candidate who encouraged his supporters to back McCain over Mike Huckabee. And it now that master of the Flip Flop that is being urged as the Veep choice on this same McCain ticket he was supposed to stop by many conservatives who don’t seem to get it.
No wonder they call us the stupid party.
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