Mr. Romney may be a very nice fellow, I can hardly say (except to note that his style of below the belt campaigning leads me to feel otherwise). But the real question with Mr. Romney is what is he all about? My sinking suspicion is that he wants to be elected president so that he can be the president. He has no vision beyond that, no real conservative goals to drive the country towards. He is not the man to lead us out of the hole the Democrats and more than a few Republicans have led us into. He claims he is a conservative because he believes that will sell, but he is no more committed to releasing the people to live freely and returning the government to a limited power presence than was Bill Clinton.
As if to confirm that assessment Mr. Romney followed his Florida primary win with an off the cuff remark that is more than a gaffe. Remarking on anticipated future Democrat criticisms, he said the following:
"We will hear from the Democrat party, “the plight of the poor,” and there’s no question, it’s not good being poor. . . . We have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it, but we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor."This won't do. It is not a question of whether there are safety nets a plenty. The question is whether or not there is opportunity. This government is choking out the people, and as it grows and grows we become less and less free. Life as a cog in the matrix, with basic needs met by benevolent overseers is not the America I want my children to inherit.
With hat tips to Pundette and Terrance.
Romney has been the presumptive nominee from almost from the start. And while I’m less than thrilled, I suppose he can’t be any worse than the last two guys who have occupied the White House.
ReplyDeleteMarkedly better than Obama, not as good as George W., but the fact that Romney seemingly has had the nomination from the word go makes one wonder what role you and I are playing. Of the people, by the people, for the people is the essence of the idea, and yet unnamed party hacks who have no love for the Tea Party whom we owe the current Republican House majority to have been able to select for me a candidate whom I have no confidence in. We need to fix a lot of things that have gone wrong, among them being the nomination process, but this plow won't scow.
ReplyDeleteMark Steyn weighs in:
ReplyDeleteRomney’s is a benevolent patrician’s view of society: The poor are incorrigible, but let’s add a couple more groats to their food stamps and housing vouchers, and they’ll stay quiet. Aside from the fact that that kind of thinking has led the western world to near terminal insolvency, for a candidate whose platitudinous balderdash of a stump speech purports to believe in the most Americanly American America that any American has ever Americanized over, it’s as dismal a vision of permanent trans-generational poverty as any Marxist community organizer with a cozy sinecure on the Acorn board would come up with.
After half-a-century of evidence, what sort of “conservative” offers the poor the Even Greater Society? I don’t know how “electable” Mitt is, but, even if he is, the greater danger, given the emptiness of his campaign to date, is that he’ll be elected with no real mandate for the course correction the Brokest Nation in History urgently needs.
It's becoming apparent that none of the candidates is ideal. I propose that whoever it is must agree to adhere to a specific plan of action that adheres to our principles. Reagan's operating philosophy would suit me fine. Now I know that Reagan made deals with Democrats that the Democrats never even thought about following through with, but those were deviations from his own policies. Our candidate must agree to shun carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and all similar nonsense. Must agree to stop pushing Leftist nonsense under the guise of sustainability, like Ban-Ki moon trotted out this week. Must agree to stop enforcing agency policies designed to kill business and policies
ReplyDeletebased on phony scientific analysis, like those
inhaler bans and that new push to tax sugar like liquor or cigarettes based on their phony numbers of 35 million death per year. Really? Is that like your phony number of a million species disappearing each year? Fine, then name them.
Of course we need a comprehensive platform which I'm not about to outline now, but it should include a legally enforceable contract that includes stepping down or submitting to impeachment without challenge if they are ignored--or a $Billion penalty clause if those other actions can't be enforced.
Sounds good to me.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I find most troubling about this nomination process is that we apparently do not get a voice in it. Mr. Romney has been picked out for us and we just have to learn to like it. In Virginia, the only choice on the ballot is Romney. Sorry, no. Some cheese balls in a party structure are not speaking for me, nor do they get to take my voice.