comMITTed to Romney!

My criticism of the New START treaty generated both praise and disparagement. Sen. Richard Lugar’s thoughtful critique of my position deserves further discussion.

1. New START does limit U.S. missile-defense options. First, New START’s preamble not only references missile defense, it accedes to Russia’s insistence that there is an interrelationship between strategic offensive weapons and missile defense. While the Bush administration steadfastly refused to accept this Russian position, the Obama administration bows to it. The statement of interrelationship in the preamble, in addition to the specific missile-defense measures in the body of the treaty, amount to a major concession to Russia… (read more)

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Obama’s worst foreign-policy mistake
By Mitt Romney
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Given President Obama’s glaring domestic policy missteps, it is understandable that the public has largely been blinded to his foreign policy failings. In fact, these may have been even more damaging to America’s future. He fought to reinstate Honduras’s pro-Chávez president while stalling Colombia’s favored-trade status. He castigated Israel at the United Nations but was silent about Hamas having launched 7,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip. His policy of “engagement” with rogue nations has been met with North Korean nuclear tests, missile launches and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, while Iran has accelerated its nuclear program, funded terrorists and armed Hezbollah with long-range missiles. He acceded to Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.

Despite all of this, the president’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia could be his worst foreign policy mistake yet. The treaty as submitted to the Senate should not be ratified.

New-START impedes missile defense, our protection from nuclear-proliferating rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. Its preamble links strategic defense with strategic arsenal. It explicitly forbids the United States from converting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos into missile defense sites. And Russia has expressly reserved the right to walk away from the treaty if it believes that the United States has significantly increased its missile defense capability.

Hence, to preserve the treaty’s restrictions on Russia, America must effectively get Russia’s permission for any missile defense expansion. Moscow’s vehemence over our modest plans in Eastern Europe demonstrate that such permission would be extremely unlikely.

The treaty empowers a Bilateral Consultative Commission with broad latitude to amend the treaty with specific reference to missile defense. New START does something the American public would never countenance and the Senate should never permit: It jeopardizes our missile defense system.

The treaty also gives far more to the Russians than to the United States. As drafted, it lets Russia escape the limit on its number of strategic nuclear warheads. Loopholes and lapses — presumably carefully crafted by Moscow — provide a path to entirely avoid the advertised warhead-reduction targets. For example, rail-based ICBMs and launchers are not mentioned. Similarly, multiple nuclear warheads that are mounted on bombers are effectively not counted. Unlike past treaty restrictions, ICBMs are not prohibited from bombers. This means that Russia is free to mount a nearly unlimited number of ICBMs on bombers — including MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) or multiple warheads — without tripping the treaty’s limits. These omissions would be consistent with Russia’s plans for a new heavy bomber and reports of growing interest in rail-mobile ICBMs.

Under New START, the United States must drastically reduce our number of launchers but Russia will not — it already has fewer launchers than the treaty limits. Put another way: We give, Russia gets. And more troubling, the treaty fails to apply the MIRV limits that were part of the prior START treaty. Again, it may not be coincidental that Russia is developing a new heavy-load — meaning MIRV-capable — ICBM.

New-START gives Russia a massive nuclear weapon advantage over the United States. The treaty ignores tactical nuclear weapons, where Russia outnumbers us by as much as 10 to 1. Obama heralds a reduction in strategic weapons from approximately 2,200 to 1,550 but fails to mention that Russia will retain more than 10,000 nuclear warheads that are categorized as tactical because they are mounted on missiles that cannot reach the United States. But surely they can reach our allies, nations that depend on us for a nuclear umbrella. And who can know how those tactical nuclear warheads might be reconfigured? Astonishingly, while excusing tactical nukes from the treaty, the Obama administration bows to Russia’s insistence that conventional weapons mounted on ICBMs are counted under the treaty’s warhead and launcher limits.

By all indications, the Obama administration has been badly out-negotiated. Perhaps the president’s eagerness for global disarmament led his team to accede to Russia’s demands, or perhaps it led to a document that was less than carefully drafted.

Whatever the reason for the treaty’s failings, it must not be ratified: The security of the United States is at stake. The only responsible course is for the Senate to demand and scrutinize the full diplomatic record underlying the treaty. Then it must insist that any linkage between the treaty and our missile defense system be eliminated. In a world where nuclear weapons are proliferating, America’s missile defense shield must not be compromised. As currently drafted, New START is a non-starter.

The writer was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

Here is the link.

By the way, think of the contrast with Huckabee’s recent contributions to the political debate.

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Shawn Macomber of the weekly standard described Romney’s handling of the big dig collapse this way: “after years of inaction, people see Romney on television nearly every day, articulating step-by-step solutions, taking responsibility for their implementation in press conference after press conference, describing in detail the issues at hand, showcasing an almost bizarrely detailed understanding of engineering minutiae, and even drawing diagrams on the fly”. What if Romney had been president? Do you think things would have been handled differently?

I am looking to outline all the reasons to agree and disagree with this belief on my website, and would love your help! Here is the link.

This from the Boston Globe:

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | July 21, 2006

Who knew that undercut anchor bolts could make such gripping television? Ten cameras were trained on Governor Mitt Romney at the State House yesterday as he dropped the latest Big Dig bombshell: He had ordered an immediate shutdown of the eastbound side of Ted Williams Tunnel.

Brandishing photographs of faulty bolts for the cameras, he explained: “This section here should be flush against the ceiling, and it’s not.”

Showing a striking command of engineering lingo, he described a temporary fix as “an ARVA truck.”

“It happens to be about 11 1/2 feet wide when the stabilizing elements are extended,” Romney said.

Reminded by reporters that critics are questioning the independence of the Big Dig inspectors, he shot back: “I’m not quite sure who they have in mind as independent agencies, other than someone from Mars.”

Since falling concrete killed a woman in the I-90 connector 11 days ago, Romney has become the undisputed king of the news cycle. Yesterday was his seventh press conference on the crisis, not counting numerous press availabilities after striding into the tunnel for a look, clad in a hard hat and safety vest.

Click here for me.

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By Mitt Romney

Has it come to this again? The president is meeting with his oil spill experts, he crudely tells us, so that he knows “whose ass to kick.” We have become accustomed to his management style — target a scapegoat, assign blame and go on the attack. To win health care legislation, he vilified insurance executives; to escape bankruptcy law for General Motors, he demonized senior lenders; to take the focus from the excesses of government, he castigated business meetings in Las Vegas; and to deflect responsibility for the deepening and lengthening downturn, he blames Wall Street and George W. Bush. But what may make good politics does not make good leadership. And when a crisis is upon us, America wants a leader, not a politician.
We saw leadership on Sept. 11, 2001. Then as now, black billows seemed to come from the center of the earth. Lives had been lost. The environmental impact was immeasurable. The looming economic impact from lost tourism was incalculable. Into the crisis walked Rudy Giuliani. While that was an incomparable human tragedy, how the mayor led New York City to recover is a useful model for the president.

Rudy camped out at Ground Zero — he didn’t hole up in his office or retreat to his residence. His presence not only reassured the people of New York that someone was in charge, it also enabled the mayor to assess the situation firsthand, to take the measure of the people he had on the ground, and to understand the scope of the crisis.

The president has many critical matters that demand his attention, but brief and tardy tours and being photographed with a smudge of oil on a sandy beach don’t work on any level. There is no substitute for being there.

In a crisis, the leader must gather the experts — federal, state, local, public and private — not to discover who is to blame but to secure their active and continuous involvement until the crisis is resolved. There is extraordinary power inherent in an assembly of brilliant people guided by an able leader. In virtually every historic national crisis, our most effective leaders gathered the best minds they could find — consider the Founders in Philadelphia, Lincoln with his “Team of Rivals,” Roosevelt with scientists and generals seeking to end World War II, Kennedy with the “Best and Brightest” confronting the Cuban missile crisis.

What happens when men and women of various backgrounds, fields of expertise, and unfettered intellectual freedom come together to tackle a problem often exceeds any reasonable expectation. Ideas from one may cross-fertilize the thinking of another, yielding breakthroughs. The president of MIT told me that the university spent millions of dollars to build a bridge connecting two engineering departments that had been separated by a road — the potential for shared thinking made it more than worth the cost.

But even a gathering of experts won’t accomplish much unless a skilled leader uses their perspective to guide the recovery. So far, it has been the CEO of BP who has been managing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The president surely can’t rely on BP — its track record is suspect at best: Its management of this crisis has been characterized by obfuscation and lack of preparation. And BP’s responsibilities to its shareholders conflict with the greater responsibility to the nation and to the planet.

The president must personally lead the effort to solve the crisis. He cannot delegate this quintessential responsibility of his presidency in the way he delegated the stimulus bill, the cap-and-trade bill and the health care bill. It may be an instance of learning on the job, but it is a job only he can do.

The first rule of turnarounds is to focus time, energy and resources on what matters most. The president simply cannot treat this crisis like another of his many problems. The oil disaster could hurt millions of families, slam the regional economy, kill untold numbers of non-human lives and irreparably damage the planet. Among other things, he must not hold more rock concerts at the White House — I understand James Carville’s venting: His hero fiddled as oil churned.

Finding fault is easier than finding answers. And worse, it paralyzes many of the very people who may be needed to solve a crisis. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast states, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco went on the attack; Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour went to work. His state’s recovery is textbook; hers is not.

President Obama’s instigation of criminal investigations of BP at this juncture is classic diversion politics — and worse, it will engender bunker mentality at a time when collaboration and openness are most critical. BP’s actions and inactions are reprehensible; it must be made to pay the billions upon billions of dollars that this spill will ultimately cost. But call out the phalanx of lawyers later — solve the crisis today.

The president can learn a good deal from the crisis leadership of men and women in government and in business. Giuliani is a notable example, but so too are Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and Kennedy. In a time of national crisis, we look to our president to acknowledge, as Harry Truman did, that it is at his desk where the buck stops.

And even at Day 52, it’s better late than never.

http://www.freestrongamerica.com/oped/item/we_need_a_leader_not_a_politician

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NEW ORLEANS - Republican presidential candidate John McCain was sharply critical yesterday of what he called the Bush administration’s disgraceful handling of Hurricane Katrina and vowed, “Never again.”

McCain, putting some distance between himself and President Bush, said if he had been president during the 2005 catastrophe he would have immediately visited New Orleans after the killer storm.

While he said he was not being critical of Bush for not visiting New Orleans, “I’m just saying I would’ve landed my airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally.”

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/04/25/mccain_criticizes_bush_for_slow_response_after_katrina/

It was OK to criticize Bush. Heck, it was OK for republican candidates for president to criticize him, but when is  All Gore, or John Cary going to grow a backbone, put the country first, and say the truth, come hell or oil-laced water? We are all on the beach, and all we can see is slick salesmen who put party first. All the republicans criticize Obama, and all the Democrats say what a great job he is doing, that this is not his fault, and that he is doing such a great job. But even McCain through Bush under the buss. What is the difference. It is all rewards and punishments. The media rewarded those who criticized Bush so much so that even republicans did it. At least that’s my theory. What do you think?

Need evidence? How many times did we hear, in the media, phrases like this one from CNN: ”One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term. (CNN May 28, 2008)” I heard that so many times: botched federal response, that defined Bush’s 2nd term. And if you repeat something often enough, it becomes truth. But how often are we going to hear that Obama’s response to the Horizon oil spill defined his presidency? The media is who decides how to define someone’s presidency, but do you expect them to point out that Bush didn’t have jurisdiction within a City, but that Obama had direct jurisdiction over the well that was on Federal land?

You already have people blaming Bush for this Oil Spill. Of course Bush wasn’t “responsible” for Katrina any more than Obama is responsible for, what do you call it, the oil spill. But that’s not the point is it. The point is the double standard. The point is the response.

It took Mr. Obama 12 days to show up in the region. Democrats criticized President George W. Bush for waiting four days after Katrina to go to New Orleans.

Yes, the Gulf Spill Is Obama’s Katrina.

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Reasons to agree: %

1. Republicans are often portrayed as uneducated rednecks.
2. Liberals sort of took over academia, and so some republicans are anti-education, but we need to out-think them, not out-anger them.
3. It will do republicans no good to be anti-achievement, anti-scholarship, or anti-formal education.
4. Romney doesn’t just have academic success, like Obama, but real-world business success.

Reasons to disagree: %

1. Obama has done well academically, but it hasn’t helped him.

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An Interview with Mitt Romney - 5/25/2010

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Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) held a fundraiser in Manhattan last week and outperformed Pres. Obama’s own cash grab a day later on behalf of the DCCC, another sign of trouble brewing for Dems this cycle in all corners of the country.

Romney headlined an event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on May 12 that raised $1.5M for his Free and Strong America PAC.

By contrast, Obama’s appearance at the St. Regis Hotel on May 13 raked in a lesser $1.3 million for the DCCC.

For Romney, the event was the biggest of the year, according to his aides. And in many ways it was another implicit indication that his is the nascent GOP WH campaign to beat: Some of the event’s sponsors were previously major boosters to Sen. John McCain’s WH’08 bid, including Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, and Lew Eisenberg, an investment banker who formerly chaired the New York-New Jersey Port Authority and the RNC finance committee.

A DCCC spokesman pointed out that whenever the committee raises money with Obama, PAC donations are not permitted. In addition, the spokesman noted that House Democrats have been working on tough financial regulatory reform.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/05/romney_outraise.php

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Quotes from Governor Mitt Romney on the Budget

“When I was running for office I had a debate as you may recall, actually five of them. Don’t know whether you saw the one where Tim Russert was the moderator. He wondered how we were going to be able to close a $1 billion budget gap. And I had to lay out what my plans were for doing so. When I got in office, my Secretary of Finance came to me and said, I’ve got great news and bad news. The great news is we don’t have a one billion budget gap. The bad news is we have a $3 billion budget gap. And there were some people that said all we have to do is raise taxes. And I said, look, if you raise taxes you kill jobs and you hurt working families. There were some other people that said why don’t we just raise debt. We can just borrow our way out of this. But if you raise debt you just put our problems on the backs of our kids. I said no, we’re going to go back to government, we’re going to cut out the waste and inefficiency and duplication. We’re going to do the job we were elected to do. And Republicans and Democrats came together and made a lot of that happen”. Source: Governor Mitt Romney at the NH Federation of Republican Women’s Lilac Dinner

2006

• “Rainy day funds should not be spent during periods of robust revenue growth to support a level of spending that is not sustainable. We are repeating the mistakes of the past, and it would be irresponsible to allow this budget to become law without making significant reductions.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 07-08-2006 Press Release

2005

• “Two years ago, the state budget was out of balance and the economy was in a deep recession. Working together, the Executive Branch and Legislature took decisive action to control costs and manage the budget without raising taxes Today, our economy is strong and producing jobs and the budget outlook is positive.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 03-15-2005- Press Release

2004

• He added that his budget will not raise taxes on the working families of Massachusetts and that he will propose a modest increase in local aid. “I will present a balanced budget. And in case anybody has any other ideas, let me be clear about one more thing: I will not raise taxes.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 01-15-2004 Press Release

• “Being fiscally responsible isn’t easy – and it’s not always popular – but it has its rewards. If we continue the hard work of reform, we can do even more for the people of Massachusetts,” said Romney.
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 06-03-2004 Press Release

2003

• “A true partnership means sharing in good times and bad. In good times, the Commonwealth shared its prosperity with cities and towns,” said Romney in an address to the Massachusetts Municipal Association. “Now that the state has hit hard times, we need cities and towns to join us in tightening their belts,” Romney said. “Our problem is simple: spending is high and cash is low. When we began our transition two months ago, every indication was that the current budget was balanced. That is not the case, and immediate, hard action is required to achieve fiscal balance,” said Romney. According to Romney, his current “9C authority” would force disproportionate cuts on the elderly, poor and disabled. “If we are forced to balance this budget on the backs of our seniors and the poor, we will expose the core services of government to disproportionate cuts,” said Romney. “That is not fair. The best solution is to spread the burden.” ** Governor Mitt Romney, 01-10-2003 Press Release

• While he is sacrificing $2 million in savings by blocking some of the proposed changes, Romney said programs that provide shelter to the homeless “should not be gutted,” calling them “essential services.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 01-17-2003 Press Release

• “The current communications structure in government makes no sense. It grew over time without any planning or thought. It’s an extremely wasteful system,” said Romney. “By streamlining our communications function, we can do a better job with less people for the taxpayers of Massachusetts.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 01-28-2003 Press Release

• “Throughout this process, we have been guided by a desire to simplify our health and human services agencies to better serve recipients. Rather than requiring families to navigate the current red tape jungle, we are consolidating functions to better help those who cannot help themselves,” Romney said. Families requiring HHS services now face a confusing alphabet soup of state agencies to access the help they need.
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-24-2003 Press Release

• Romney said the HHS agencies would be divided into four different groups – Children, Youth and Families; Disabilities and Community Services; Health; and Elder Affairs – based on their common functions. Romney said, “We want to make sure that any person or family in need of an HHS service will be able to get that service easily. Under my plan, the bureaucracy will be simpler to navigate while saving significant time for state employees and significant money for taxpayers.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-24-2003 Press Release

• “It would be impossible to reach unanimity on every aspect of our budget, but it’s clear there is widespread support for the concept of change. We face a choice between either cutting waste out of government, or facing a new job killing tax increase every year from here on out,” said Romney.
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-27-2003 Press Release

• “We will continue to be a generous state when it comes to caring for the poor, the disabled and the elderly. We will be far less generous when it comes to patronage, waste and inefficiencies,” said Romney.
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-27-2003 Press Release

• “The members of the Legislature and the Administration have successfully closed the $650 million budget gap and set a precedent of cooperation that will help us produce a fair and balanced budget for the next fiscal year,” said Romney.
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 03- 05-2003 Press Release

Press Releases on the budget:

2003 press releases

01-10-2003, Mitt Romney seeks expanded authority to balance budget

01-17-2003, Mitt Romney signs bill giving him broader budgetary powers

01-28-2003, With budget crisis looming, Mitt Romney moves to cut press operation

02-04-2003, Mitt Romney nixes state printing contract for budget

02- 04-2003, Dispelling the myths, commonly asked questions on the budget

02-24-2003, Mitt Romney announces HHS reorganization as part of budget

02-27-2003, Advocates show broad based support for Mitt Romney budget

03- 05-2003, Fiscal year 2003 deficit closed, focus shifts to 04

2004 press releases

06-03-2004, Mitt Romney delivers first dividend on reform

2005 press releases

03-15-2005-, Governor Mitt Romney announces bond rating upgrade for commonwealth’s debt

2006 press releases

07-08-2006, Governor Mitt Romney signs $25.2 billion fy 2007 state budget

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Newt Gingrich calls the Obama Administration a “secular-socialist machine”. Someone complained, and now Newt has “proof“. These are his proofs that that he was OK to use the word “machine”.

“Machine”: Getting $787 billion from Congress in February when no elected member had fully read and understood the economic stimulus package. This is behavior worthy of the Chicago political machine. If no elected officials know what is in the bill, how can someone assert that this was an act of self-government?

“Machine”: Rejecting the will of the American people expressed through town hall meetings, tea parties, polls and elections by ramming through an unpopular 2,600-page health-care bill. The moment of real clarity came after Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special Senate election, when by every traditional American measure the Democrats should have stepped back and said to voters, “I hear you.” Instead, their actions said: “Your voice and vote do not matter.”

Newt is saying that passing a bill that no one had read, and doing something that is unpopular makes the Obama administration a “machine”.

I think we can make a better argument. First of all, republicans say that it good for a president to not be ruled by political surveys. How can we make an argument that Bush should have ignored protest over the war in Iraq, but Obama is operating a political machine when he ignores protest? This has nothing to do with if health care or Iraq were good, just if presidents who do them are operating “political machines”.

Lets help Newt out, and show that we deserve to be spokesmen for our party, more than he does. Machines dole out jobs as political rewards. Obama does seem to be operating a machine the way he doles out rewards to the UAW, trial lawyers, his backers on wall street, and with the reward for unions in the healthcare bill.

Am I wrong that Newt makes a weak argument? If so, help me make a better one and leave a comment.

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http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mitt_romney_committed_to_victo/

Perhaps, or better yet, I Should Have elaborated. I’ve watched this video interview before, I am just puzzled as to why it does not appear. It is a few years old, but I don’t imagine that Should have anything to do with it. It says exclusive PJM video interview, I’m hoping its not the case that you have to be a paying member though.

But as I can only imagine it Is the case, would any of happen to have an account with PJM and would be willing to record the video? We won’t be authorized to put it on Youtube or any such thing, but we can view it for our personal use.

I am going to see if its around somewhere on the Internets. I just remember it as being a really good interview with Mitt looking very good and having all the answers.

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Every day on hot air “ALLAHPUNDIT”  post a new link about Romney care, and how damaging it is going to be Romney. The challenge is for Allahpundit to make an intelligent point. What is his point? Is it that Romney is a closet socialist? Does Allahpundit believe that Romney, once in office would not balance the budget as well as Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin? What is his point? Does Allahpundit believe that Romney is going to create other government programs?

You would think that if someone made their living by what they right, that they would want to articulate a clear point, with everything the write. Apparently the point is that Obamacare is unpopular, it is similar to Romneycare, and so Romney is going to have a hard time. This is horse race mentality where all you care about is who is doing well, and who is doing bad. It doesn’t make an argument for why something is good or bad. People like allhpundit are the cheerleaders who sit on the side of political debates, and say, “Oh-oh looks like someone is in trouble”.

Romney balanced the budget every year he was in office, and left a 3 billion dollar surplus. He worked in the most liberal of states on an issue that democrats have been bitching about for the past 30 years. He, for the first time, actually got something done, and he did it with the approval of the Heritage foundation. Allahpundit is a cheerleader for one side, and his side is the stupid side. He is not going to tell you that the Heritage foundation approved of Romneycare. He is only going to quote the CATO institute, which is not a republican-ish think tank but a libertarian-ish think tank. Allahpundit is not going to make a clear argument, that because Romney (who balanced the budget every year in the most liberal of states, and Vetoed many of the aspects of Romney care) is going to be an economic liberal because there is no case to be made. He is going to make nonsensical arguments that lead no where. He is going to bring up information that only appeals to other people who only care about image, and who can be made to look bad, in a one way conversation that does not involve smart people.

If Romneycare was having problems in Massachusetts, don’t you think the guy who everyone believes has the most cred as an economic conservative would have fixed his experiment if he was still Governor? Does Allahpundit not want the states to try anything new? Did Allahpundit know that Romneycare wouldn’t work? Why didn’t he warn us then, if it is so apparent now that Romney shouldn’t have done Romneycare?

I’m glad that Liberal states are able to experiment. I’m glad that Romney kept Romneycare from being more liberal. I do not think, as Allahpundit must, that Romney has new secret programs up his sleave that he wants to unleash on America with new individual mandates. Perhaps Allahpundit’s point is that he thinks Romney is going to ask us to all purchase flood insurance. If this is his freaking argument, lets hear it clearly explained, if you make your living writing, lets have your argument.

I’m running late for work, but this is the big question…

Now that we are warming up for a big debate about immigration, is Allahpundant going to bring up Huckabee’s liberal record on immigration every day? That would be an intellectually consistent thing to do. But again, I just have to say, what is the point on Romneycare? He brings it up every day on Hotair, and I never get any new information. Just the same old story, but I never get an argument. Is the argument that Romney who balanced the budget every hear, and left a surplus, would have done Romneycare on the nation, when he says that should be left to the states, but that he would have done it on the nation at a time when we have trillion dollar deficits? Is that the argument? Is that the point? If Allahpundant brings this issue up every day, he must think it serves an important point, or argument. I would like to know what his point is.

This has been a challenge to Allahpundit to make the case that Romney will be an economic liberal as president.

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On page 158 Romney talks about how some people want to raise the retirement age. What do you think? I’m sort of for it (by just a few years). Here are some of my reasons. What do you think?

We should gradually increase the retirement age:

Reasons to agree: %

1. If the baby boomer’s take the same social security that has been given out for year, it will leave a terrible burden on the children of the future.
2. The average American’s life expectancy has risen by more than 10 years since Social Security was created.
3. Increasing the retirement age by 1 or 2 years would help get the system closer to sustainability.
4. If the system allowed for exceptions, it wouldn’t be cruel.
5. Most people in there 60s want to keep working.
6. Many older Americans are healthy, vital, and want to stay engaged in meaningful work.
7. No one wants to work forever, and you don’t have have to. So save for your own retirement! Don’t expect the government to keep paying you to retire at the same age, when people keep living longer and longer. You shouldn’t ask what your country can do for you, you should ask what you can do for your country. Social security will go bankrupt.
8. Midnight oil wrote a song that says: “The time has come to say fairs fair, to pay the rent, to pay our share. The time has come, a facts a fact, it belongs to them, lets give it back”. He was talking about some aborigine issue in Australia, but the issue is the same. You shouldn’t expect the government to give you more in retirement, than you payed in while you were working. You can’t be blamed for trying to “get your share” but when we are being honest with each other, we need to do what is right.

R2A(+): 8 R2AA(+): 0 R2DA(-): 0

Reasons to disagree: %

1. (Reasoning score: )

R2D(-): 0 R2AD(-): 0 R2DD(+): 0 Total Score: 8

---

Most Probable interest of those who agree:  %

1. They believe logic supports their position outside of any ulterior motive
2. Strengthening America

Most Probable interest of those who disagree: %

1. They believe logic supports their position outside of any ulterior motive

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NEW ORLEANS — Mitt Romney won the straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership conference here Saturday in a victory that will be taken as a sign of the former Massachusetts governor’s strength as a 2012 presidential candidate.

That’s because the 2008 GOP presidential hopeful elected to skip the conference to continue his book tour, unlike many of his rivals.

Romney triumphed by a single vote over Ron Paul, who took second place, 439 votes to 438. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich tied for third with 18 percent of the vote each.

1,806 ballots were cast by the conservative activists who attended the conference. No other candidate got more than four percent of the vote.

On the straw poll ballot, conference attendees were asked who they would vote for if the Republican presidential primary were today. They were asked for a first and second choice from among nine candidates: Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Gary Johnson, Palin, Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence, Romney and Rick Santorum. (See the ballot here.)

Huckabee, Pawlenty and Romney did not appear at the conference, though Pawlenty sent in a video address. Some rumored 2012 candidates, including Rick Perry, Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal asked to be taken off the ballot, Hotline’s Reid Wilson reported.

Supporters of both Romney and Paul spent money in an effort to win the straw poll, with a group called “Evangelicals for Mitt” paying for 200 tickets for supporters and Paul’s Campaign for Liberty offering more than 600 discounted tickets for Paul backers, according to Washington Post’s David Weigel.

Paul’s mostly-college age supporters stood out form the rest of the conference-goers and cheered their preferred candidate loudly when he spoke. Many other attendees remained silent or offered only polite applause during Paul’s speech. Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference in February on the strength of his passionate if limited following.

“Evangelicals for MItt” gave away books, buttons and piggy banks to conference attendees and urged them to cast ballots. Organizers claimed they did not coordinate with Romney’s Political Action Committee or staff, though one attendee speculated that they found her via Romney’s e-mail list and offered a free ticket.

Straw polls offer a signal about the level of support for various candidates, though detractors are quick to note they are easily manipulated and that the pool of respondents do not necessarily represent the party overall. The winner in 2006 was former Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, who won when the conference was held in his home state of Memphis.

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“We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”

Well of course a General is going to say that. A general’s self interest is tied up in his citizens willingness to sacrifice for the good of the country. But Eisenhower wasn’t talking to the world at large. If I lived in North Korea I might decide (if I had access to the facts) that North Korea is not worth sacrificing “all” for. Also, after WWII the people of Germany felt like they were “used” to fulfill a mad man’s nightmarish vision of the world. If everyone was willing to be cannon fodder for every general, our planet would be a mess.

John Lennon also seemed to doubt if we should sacrifice all for our country. He said: “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for… Imagine all the people. Living life in peace.”

If debates rewarded those who used sound logic we would live in a much better world. But if sound logic is not rewarded in presidential debates, no one cares at all about sound logic in pop songs. The goal of pop songs is to express your feelings. And if you are a self absorbed, self righteous person that gets their kicks from sounding counterintuitive, you will write songs that make you feel good, and those songs will carry those types of messages.

But if you don’t mind being a kill-joys, lets look at the words. If we didn’t have countries, would we loose things to “kill or die for”? True, John, you wouldn’t kill for your country any more, but you would drastically improve the chances of being killed because there is NO country. Countries provide order. A country can be pretty bad and still be better than anarchy. But it is like arguing with the wind. He didn’t say it as a serious argument, wanting to have a serious debate. It is like trying to have an intelligent debate with John Stewart when he has decided to get on his high horse and pat himself on his back for how superior he is. John Lennon, and Stewart some times don’t want to have debates, they just want to say counterintuitive things deciding to project a style, instead of projecting a substantive argument…

But when idiots are not willing to argue, we need to still prove them wrong.

Our country, which Eisenhower was talking about, has a unique history. Lincoln said that we are constantly “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived (in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal) and so dedicated, can long endure.” If our country is under threat, and we fail to solve its problems, we will be letting down those tens of thousands of people who died thinking they were dying for something bigger than themselves.

But I digress.

Intellectuals from the west… self hating intellectuals all across America and Europe are asking if our values are worth fighting for. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness says that Western values are worth “giving your all”, and deep sacrifice.

Perhaps I bring up John Stewart and John Lennon in an incoherent way. I like John Stewart a lot of the time. He if funny. But that is just the thing: I am tired of stupid funny people, and people that can sing, who think they can think. Romney’s book is not as Funny as America: A Citizens Guide to Democracy Inaction. But I think our country needs another smug sarcastic commentator (again I don’t know why I am contrasting Romney to Stewart) like Stewart about as much as we need another sub-prime loan disaster.

I like Stewart. I think he is perhaps a good way to introduce idiots to serious topics. But at some point our country is going to have to grow up, and seriously fix the problems we have. Our country is worth every sacrifice that we have to make to fix it. Because, as Ike said, “history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”

Lets not be weak. We need to be serious about our future, and be willing to make the corrections that are needed to fix our country.

If a serious person was to read the books written by Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin there is only one potential president in the bunch. But does our country read serious books any more? Do people care about the issues, or are we going to sit back and make stupid decisions by getting all our information from people who think everything is a joke.

Romney’s father lost to Richard Nixon, because the media freaked out over the use of the word “brainwash” and our country suffered for it. I don’t mean to say that history repeats itself, but you saw the joy in people’s faces when Obama won the nomination, but they should have seen the future: they should have seen that he was not prepared. They were warned. America, consider this warning. You need to think about your future. You need to read the books written by the possible presidential candidates. Make your decision based on good information, not what the journalist tell you. Don’t let the media focus on stupid things.

I have not joined a tea party. I don’t want to carry a sign. Nothing worth being said can be put on a sign. I don’t just hope that Republicans win, but I hope that we use this time to really figure out what the best course of action will be when we get back in power. Lets focus less on the power, less on the people, and more on what is right. Lets be the most educated, best read, and most articulate side in 2012. I continue to think, after these years, that Romney is the right person for this job.

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