comMITTed to Romney!

The Republican party is in the Jacuzzi this morning, trying to soak out the pain and stiffness from the bruising defeat it just suffered. The American people have rightly rebuked us for forgetting what the Republican Party used to stand for. We foolishly abandoned fiscal conservatism, oversaw a dramatic escalation in the size and scope of the federal government, chalked up record deficits and insisted on nominating a guy who, for the most part, couldn’t be distinguished from the run of the mill Democrat when it came to most of his policies.

For me, there where no surprises on election night. I said to friends and to commenters on this site that I expected a fairly close popular vote, but a big electoral defeat, and that is what happened. In the waning days off the campaign, when crowds called out to McCain to get tough with Obama, to fight harder for the principles that were important to them, you just knew this ticket was in big trouble. There was more passion, more fire in the belly of the people in the crowds than there was within the nominee.

As we look at the smoking ruins of what’s left of Congressional Republicans, it is apparent to me that we must bulldoze the landscape clean, so that we can start the rebuilding process. That has already started. The work of purging the Party of the people responsible for the loss began on Election night as the voters rejected McCain. I sincerely hope any future leadership role for him in this party has also been rejected by the rank and file as well. Hopefully, we have learned some hard lessons. As Rush Limbaugh said several days ago, when will Republicans ever learn that conservative Republicans never lose and moderate Republicans never win? These past attempts by Republicans to ingratiate themselves to the MSM and to left-center voters never works at the national level.

In spite of all the negative feelings we are working our way through, the rebuilding process that has already started is giving cause for a much more optimistic view of the future.

An article in Friday’s WSJ provides a stunning quote from none other than the ubiguitous Nancy Pelosi. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a two-stage effort to boost the shaky U.S. economy: a $60 billion-to $100 billion stimulus package this month, followed early next year by a companion measure that would include a “permanent tax cut.” You may be rubbing your eyes and squinting at that last sentence to try to make sure you saw it right the first time. Nancy Pelosi actually said those words. She said “permanent tax cut.” That is why I said in the title to this post that we won the debate. Isn’t it amazing how a sea change is political thinking came come about in such an off hand way? One of the most doctrinaire Democrats in the country now agrees with Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney that the best way to boost the economy is with “permanent tax cuts.”

Ms. Pelosi also said, in the long term, a capital gains tax cut, as pushed by Congressional Republicans, should be considered as part of a “tax simplification” bill.

Ronald Reagan in Heaven and Mitt Romney in Massachusetts must be grinning a little this morning!

~~John Cronin~~

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I was just reading an article about the billionaire hedge fund speculator, George Soros, who funds organizations like MOVEON.ORG and also gives big money to the “527″ organizations that act as campaign surrogates.

The article talked about the extremely flattering coverage he gets from the MSM, including mention of an article by the NYT entitled “The Face of a Prophet.” In a recent interview in the FINANCIAL TIMES he blamed the recent financial market chaos on, are you ready for this?……

RONALD REAGAN AND MARGARET THATCHER!!

As Rush Limbaugh likes to say, “Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.”

Um, lets do some quick math. Reagan left office in 1988, that would be 20 years ago, right? According to Mr. Soros, he is in some mysterious way still able to affect the market with his policies from two decades ago. Wow, that’s real power!

~~John Cronin~~

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As always, excellent insights from Hugh Hewitt:

Saturday, February 02, 2008

It Took Two Weeks In The Spring Of 2007 To Defeat McCain-Kennedy. It May Take Less In The Winter 2008 To Defeat Just McCain

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt  at 10:18

…But once the conservative voice begins speaking as one or nearly one, it is very effective, and that began to emerge on Thursday after the Reagan Library debate.

When Rush declared on Thursday that a “vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain,” the focus became very, very clear for conservative voters –who heard it. 

That message has been repeated a few times by others from Laura Ingraham to Mark Levin and most of us in between, as well as by folks like Rick Santorum and Denny Hastert.  Messages take a while to get delivered, but they eventually get there.  McCain is using endorsements from the political elites like Arnold and Rick Perry to blunt the new media, and MSM is pushing back with an “inevitability” narrative that is nonsense even as realistic assessments give McCain a great advantage going forward. 

But the picture is very clear and voters see it:  McCain or Romney.  Huck doesn’t have a shot, an thus a vote for him is a vote for McCain.

Romney doesn’t even have to spend much more money to communicate this or the crucial differences between him and McCain on taxes, the First Amendment, judges, climate change, and especially illegal immigration.  He now has the new media on board and amplifying his message.  If there is movement towards Romney on Tuesday, he has many incentives to stay on through St. Paul, and especially through Ohio and Texas in early March.  He gets more earned media every day from here on than any candidate has enjoyed on the GOP side since the campaign began.  That’s a huge force multiplier and it is just coming to bear on the race.

…But the reality is that “Rally to Romney” is the dominant story in the conservative new media.  The results won’t be clear until Wednesday morning, though polls like this Rasmussen in Missouri and Rasmussen in Tennesssee which show McCain with a narrow and falling lead of only 3 points underscore how volatile the race is.  A Romney win in either of these states certainly propels the campaign forward to Texas and Ohio at least.  (This Tennessee poll has Romney ahead.)  Four days is a very long time in 2008.

A Huckabee voter on Tuesday could have a lot of reasons for sticking with Mike, but one of them cannot be protecting the legacy of Reagan or the platform of the GOP as it has existed since 1980. 

The choice is very clear, and Republicans have a long weekend to think it over.

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What do you think Mitt did the night after his 2nd place finish in Florida?  I know what I did - went to bed, intending the next day to take a short break, and try to re-energize and re-configure, re-focus for Super Tuesday.  It was a blow, I was mad at McCain, mad at Huckabee and mad that there weren’t more conservative voters in Florida.  I started to question if there are even enough conservatives left in the country to put their voices and hands behind Mitt and give and do and say all they could to get him to the White House.  I was worried, disheartened, frustrated.  Then the next morning, Rush Limbaugh started talking about how “the great thing about this country is that there’s always another election - 2012, 2016 - so maybe we’ll win next time around, blah, blah, blah.”  Thanks for another downer, Rush.

What was Mitt doing?  Hmm, let me think - tireless worker, eternal optimist, master strategist, turnaround expert…  - well, he probably wasn’t doing what I was doing! 

Elizabeth Holmes from the Wall Street Journal, who I believe is part of Mitt’s press entourage, confirmed my suspicions:

…Mr. Romney began sharpening his strategy early Wednesday as his campaign-chartered Boeing 737 flew over the Rocky Mountains. With most of the entourage asleep, the candidate sat at the front of the plane in the fold-down seat typically reserved for a flight attendant, surrounded by three of his aides, a notepad in hand.

Is this not the Mitt we know and believe in?  In the early morning hours after Florida, Mitt’s up strategizing (hopefully his aides are early-birds like him!) planning and preparing for the days and weeks ahead.  Sitting on the not-so-comfy flight attendant seat to boot.  I don’t know about you, but it’s those little details about Mitt that I really admire, and find so inspiring.  The types of actions that are characteristic of an honest, humble, hard-working leader, that are often so absent in Washington.  I find it interesting that the lie that is told the most by Mitt’s critics - that he lacks conviction and therefore personal integrity - is in reality the exact opposite - that he is a man, person, leader, husband, father, Governor, CEO and future President of extremely strong morals, standards and values, and who is willing to walk the walk, to do all and more of what he asks of those who follow him - this is what I have come to admire the most in Mitt.

Mitt’s in this for the long haul.   I think this is going to go beyond Super Tuesday, which is excellent for Mitt.  The more time he has, the better his chances are of exposing McCain, refuting the media’s lies (they haven’t really come up with a new one for a while now - that’s why McCain’s attempt over the weekend was so pathetic), and gaining the support of the conservatives of the party.  As Ann Romney said in the Florida speech, “This is just the beginning.”  It’s really exciting to watch and be a part of.  Mitt can and will take this all the way.  Let’s work hard to keep up with him!

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Hat tip to Rush Limbaugh for this one! There are some great lines in here about the nature of McCain’s changes.

CAMPOS: McCain’s the real flip-flopper

By Paul Campos, Rocky Mountain News 

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

One of the curiosities of American politics is the media’s ongoing infatuation with John McCain. A bit of this is based on things such as McCain’s opposition to torture (unfortunately we can no longer treat opposing torture like opposing child molestation, i.e., something one assumes is standard equipment in a presidential candidate rather than a luxury upgrade). Yet most of the journalistic love affair with McCain is based on other factors.

Consider this typical endorsement from The Orlando Sentinel: While McCain “has stuck to his principles at the risk of sinking his campaign,” Mitt Romney “has abandoned positions that would have alienated his party’s conservative base.” (Indeed I checked a computer database and discovered that, in the national media, Romney is at least six times more likely to be described as a flip-flopper than McCain).

This does not merely ignore but actually inverts the truth. The fact is that no presidential candidate in either party has flip-flopped as egregiously as McCain on such a wide range of issues. Here’s just a small sample of Sen. Straight Talk’s recent series of remarkable conversions to politically convenient stances:

* On abortion rights, McCain has done a 180-degree turn, from favoring only the most minor restrictions and opposing the overturning of Roe v. Wade, to supporting an almost total ban, while advocating that the Supreme Court reverse Roe immediately.

* McCain has transformed himself from a deficit hawk who mocked supply-side economics, into someone who sounds like he’s drunk deeply from the wackiest vats of supply-side Kool-Aid, to the point where he now claims raising taxes decreases revenues (a claim so wildly in conflict with the facts - for example federal tax revenues almost doubled in real terms after the Clinton tax increases - that it’s either a shameless lie or a product of astounding ignorance).

* In regard to ethanol subsidies, McCain has gone from treating them as the worst sort of pork, to becoming a strong supporter of a program despised by economists, but beloved of Iowa farmers and the good people at Archer Daniels Midland.

* Six years ago McCain sternly condemned Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance.” Eighteen months ago he gave the commencement address at Falwell’s university, while openly embracing one of the most noxious figures of the religious right.

These are just a few examples from a far longer list. On topics ranging from immigration, to campaign finance reform, to gay marriage, to accepting support from various sleazy characters he previously shunned, McCain has either completely reversed his views, or seriously equivocated regarding what they are this week.

Yet the media continue to lavish him with worshipful paeans to his supposedly uncompromising commitment to principled leadership no matter what the political cost etc., etc.

Part of this is accounted for by lazy autopilot journalism, which stops people from bothering to check whether the story line they’ve repeated for years still has any relationship to reality.

But part of it is something worse. When it comes to McCain, many of the sophisticates at the top of the media pyramid are like a masochistic spouse who treats open infidelity as a twisted sort of faithfulness. They love McCain because when he lies to their face he doesn’t even pretend to be doing otherwise. According to the pretzel logic of a certain kind of journalism, that counts as candor.

All this would be merely amusing if McCain were not a genuinely tragic figure. The young man who showed such exemplary courage in the face of his North Vietnamese tormenters has become an old man whose courage abandoned him when subjected to the more subtle tortures of worldly ambition.

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Here’s another example of why Rush Limbaugh is the undisputed King Of Talk Radio. Rush has the platform to say to 20,000,000 people what we conservatives talk about with friends and family.

~~John Cronin~~

Rush Limbaugh.Com

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1955389/posts

This is Disa in Redmond, Oregon, I’m glad you waited. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. I’m glad to be on. Hey, I am livid over that comment I just heard that guy say. First of all, Romney is a sincere guy, and, you know, the media hates him, and that is clear. It is a miracle he is doing as good as he’s doing right now. I have heard over and over again, “He didn’t win Iowa, he’s out. He didn’t win New Hampshire, he’s out.” It is a miracle. He has gotten first and second in everything. It is a miracle he’s doing what he does with them against him like that. Okay, he can turn things around. He is one of the sharpest guys I’ve ever known. This man can analyze — he goes to a company, what does he do? He analyzes it, he says, “Okay, what’s going wrong, why isn’t this company working?” He sees what’s wrong. He cuts the waste and he increases productivity. Okay, this guy is amazing. If this guy wins the Republican nomination, he’ll take us to the White House, and no one else will, because, you know what, McCain is not a conservative. Huckabee, he should be a vice presidential candidate for the Democrats, okay? He’s a nice guy, but he is a liberal, okay, they can get some of the religious vote if they take him as a vice presidential candidate. I’m sorry. Am I getting too excited?

RUSH: No. I love women who are excited, especially when they’re talking to me.

Below is an example of Rush cutting through the liberal fog to call them out on their attempts to manipulate this election.

CALLER: — the real thing is, I like him.

RUSH: Disa.

CALLER: Yes. Sorry.

RUSH: No, no, no, no, no. Don’t apologize. Your instincts here are exactly right. I want to go further. I want to tell you what this is really all about to help your blood pressure levels. The media, in propping up Huckabee and McCain, I don’t care if they’re Republicans or Democrat Drive-Bys, they’re trying to destroy the conservative movement. This is why they are salivating over the possibility that Huckabee might have gotten the nomination. They think they could take out two of their biggest enemies in one election, conservative Christians and the evangelical vote, and they would love that. I’ve had a number of these Drive-Bys confirm that to me. Same thing with McCain. They just despise conservatives, period. They despise conservative leaders, people that have a chance to lead and govern with conservative policies, because the big target of conservatives is Big Government, and that’s God to these people! We’re going after their savior. Liberalism, if you look at it like a religion, God is their temple, abortion is their sacrament. And conservatives go after both of those things. And they’ve got to be destroyed. So, of course, they’re going to prop up a guy like McCain. Of course, McCain’s gone out and tried to make the Drive-By Media his base, not Republican voters. It’s no surprise to me McCain didn’t win Michigan. Republicans aren’t going to vote for him. The two primaries where he came close and won, independents and Democrats are voting.

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Human Events just named Rush Limbaugh the “Man of the Year.” They proclaim that

“His voice defined the conservative movement in 2007.”

But on his radio program today, Rush offered all conservatives a simple test anyone can use to determine the best conservative candidate in the 2008 Presidential Race. The test is this: Look at who the Mainstream Media attacks repeatedly and then look at who they “prop up.” The conservatives are the ones who will reap the most attacks. The phony conservatives will be “propped up” by the Mainstream Media in an effort to “break up the conservative coalition.”

Huckabee and McCain are conservative cut-outs that have been propped up by the MSM. There is little or no conservative substance to their messages. Any wins for these two are not definitive of the conservative movement.

Instead, look at who the MSM is trying to bring down. Look at whose doom is consistently prophesied. If one were to believe all the predictions of Romney’s imminent downfall, it would be amazing that he is still enough of a threat that they must still tout his coming destruction.

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I was in the process of getting caught up on the site, after spending the week in Iowa, when I came across this excellent comment from one of our readers.

Linda on 02 Jan 2008 at 2:54 am edit this #6

Boy are you optimistic. I still see Romney getting the nomination, but through a more complicated route. Huck will squeeze past Romney in Iowa, and McCain will take New Hampshire, because both are so full of momentum right now, united against Romney, and getting a free pass from the MSM. Then Romney will take Michigan, his home state, because he will still be strong coming in 2nd in the first two states. Then it will come down to Huck vs. Romney in South Carolina. By this time, Huckabee has been stopped by the conservative press (Will, Limbaugh, Ingraham, Hannity, Coulter, Hewitt, etc.), who have all joined forces, for the sake of the party, to kill a Huckabee nomination. (They would have done it earlier, but they were all on Christmas break) Romney will then squeeze past Huck in South Carolina, due to Huck’s bad press. McCain will have since been out of contention, because he was only viable in NewHampshire anyway. That leaves only Giuliani and Romney to fight it out for Florida. I can’t predict that, but I think it will be a Romney/Giuliani race from then on, with Romney the victor, due to momentum, and the republican establishment on his side.

One of the things I have observed over the last year at this site is the reasoned analysis that goes on here, from both contributors and readers. We don’t have screaming contests with each other, there isn’t any of the sophomoric arguments that go on at other sites and, with the exception of the occasional “wing nut eruption”, our readers post comments that have real value in the ongoing process of selecting the next President. Thats why I posted Linda’s excellent analysis above. Kudos to Linda on a fine job!

~~John Cronin~~

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