Mitt Romney for President
We have seen, over the course of a truly remarkable Republican primary season, a number of experienced, well-qualified candidates, each of whom would be a marked improvement over either Democratic nominee. In fact the depth of the field this year made any type of consensus quite improbable, such that the talk of pundits a few weeks ago was that we'd have a brokered convention.
Now, improbably, on the eve of Super Tuesday, we have sudden clarity, and even a presumptive nominee. John McCain has all but sewn up the nomination, if you read the papers. I'm not so sure, but even if I were, I feel it's my duty to make an appeal, for whatever it's worth, for a different path.
Mitt Romney is a man of many accomplishments, and has a record to be proud of. The case for Romney flip-flopping is really one for the left to make, not the right. Not because we shouldn't criticize our own, but because I believe he's showing his true colors, and if anyone might have been duped, it's the lefties. Romney had a strong record of governing from the right in a very liberal state, and is the most conservative candidate in the three main areas of concern for Republicans: foreign policy, the economy, and social issues.
On foreign policy, Romney has little experience, but he has backed the war and the surge since the beginning (McCain's claims to the contrary are simply false), and is a man who will look before he leaps, a man who will look at all the data and painstakingly plan before taking action. We need a man with such skills in the White House. John McCain was right on the surge, and right before anybody else. But while his gut was right in this case, it's been wrong on so many others. I would rather my president proceed cautiously, especially with world affairs.
Mitt's record can easily stand on its own as reason for my endorsement. He's been my early pick, though I was certainly curious as to how Fred would do. With Fred and now Giuliani out, and McCain as the presumptive nominee, it becomes important to also point out exactly why John McCain should not get the nomination.
John McCain is a man of integrity. However, he is a conservative only insofar as he feels conservatism can benefit his career. He is quite happy to trot out his overall conservative rating (though his rating over the past several years has been dismal) to win points with one audience, and quite happy to put his thumb in the eye of those same conservatives the next night. Is he more conservative than Hillary? Of course. But lest we forget exactly why conservatives fell out with him in the first place, let us walk through the history:
Now, improbably, on the eve of Super Tuesday, we have sudden clarity, and even a presumptive nominee. John McCain has all but sewn up the nomination, if you read the papers. I'm not so sure, but even if I were, I feel it's my duty to make an appeal, for whatever it's worth, for a different path.
Mitt Romney is a man of many accomplishments, and has a record to be proud of. The case for Romney flip-flopping is really one for the left to make, not the right. Not because we shouldn't criticize our own, but because I believe he's showing his true colors, and if anyone might have been duped, it's the lefties. Romney had a strong record of governing from the right in a very liberal state, and is the most conservative candidate in the three main areas of concern for Republicans: foreign policy, the economy, and social issues.
On foreign policy, Romney has little experience, but he has backed the war and the surge since the beginning (McCain's claims to the contrary are simply false), and is a man who will look before he leaps, a man who will look at all the data and painstakingly plan before taking action. We need a man with such skills in the White House. John McCain was right on the surge, and right before anybody else. But while his gut was right in this case, it's been wrong on so many others. I would rather my president proceed cautiously, especially with world affairs.
Mitt's record can easily stand on its own as reason for my endorsement. He's been my early pick, though I was certainly curious as to how Fred would do. With Fred and now Giuliani out, and McCain as the presumptive nominee, it becomes important to also point out exactly why John McCain should not get the nomination.
John McCain is a man of integrity. However, he is a conservative only insofar as he feels conservatism can benefit his career. He is quite happy to trot out his overall conservative rating (though his rating over the past several years has been dismal) to win points with one audience, and quite happy to put his thumb in the eye of those same conservatives the next night. Is he more conservative than Hillary? Of course. But lest we forget exactly why conservatives fell out with him in the first place, let us walk through the history:
- BCRA (Bi-partisan Campaign Reform Act), a.k.a McCain-Feingold. This is simply awful legislation. Yes, Bush didn't help by signing it and hoping the court would overturn it. In addition to regulating "soft" money, it in effect tells people who thought they had first amendment rights that they must monitor what they say about politicians during a campaign season. If you are not a media organization (and the FEC will decide if you are or not) your speech, in broadcast form, is no longer free. This is a travesty, and we have John McCain to thank. He now, of course, has the gall to criticize Mitt Romney for self-funding his campaign, calling the millions Mitt poured into his own bid "a waste." Well then where's John getting his money? From others, right? What about this whole idea of money buying power and needing to be curtailed? Just doesn't apply to John, I guess.
- Immigraton Reform (McCain-Kennedy). Shouldn't the co-sponsor's name say everything you need to know? And shouldn't McCain's scorn toward conservatives, essentially calling them racists for not wanting to grant amnesty while leaving the borders wide open be a legitimate concern?
- Global warming. What happened in China last week? Certainly wasn't warming. But it's a ratchet (and racket). When it's unseasonably warm, the media writes about it. Must be warming. Gets unseasonably cold, it gets ignored. Now that's not proof of anything, but Al Gore has no proof of his own either. If An Inconvenient Truth were a car it would have been recalled long ago. But Al is not GM and doesn't have to answer questions he doesn't want to answer. That's to be expected, but to be aided and abetted by John McCain (and Newt Gingrich, while we're at it) is quite disheartening. Read up on it. Read about Gore's CO2-temperature correlation chart. Read about the growing number of scientists who are balking at what the IPCC panel of government bureaucrats are trying to sell you. Look at what the UN has to gain with this fear-mongering. And look at what McCain and his friend Joe Lieberman are proposing we do to stifle our economy before any real evidence is in.
- Reimportation of drugs from Canada. This is McCain in a nutshell. Grandstanding against the "greedy drug companies," flaunting his "maverick" label, to thunderous applause from the press. I think John McCain has a problem with businesses making money. He's said numerous times on the trail this year that he's served his country "not for profit", taking shots at Governor Romney's career in business. The business of America is business. The reimportation of drugs is a complicated issue that McCain took no pains to understand or solve. Instead, he chose a politically expedient shortcut that did nothing for high domestic prices and jeopardized future pharmaceutical R&D.
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