While I Agree With Gerard Here, Sometimes I Wonder If There Is A Point

Posted on | January 15, 2012 | 37 Comments

by Smitty

Gerard has a great point about circling the wagons here. Read and heed.

If true conservatives want to have a truly conservative candidate in a truly conservative party they will have to commit to the long march. You know, “the long march” like the one the left took through out political, academic, religious, and media institutions. The one they spent decades on. The long hard road to political supremacy. The one that takes work and money.
That’s the one thing I don’t see erstwhile conservatives actually doing from election to election. Instead they run their lives and their businesses off on the side and they show up every three years or so to watch the little red hens of politics take the nomination away from their conservative flavor of the week.
The way the Republican party is set up in the primary system means that to even have a shot at winning it you have to be running for it years and years and years before the actual elections. That’s what Romney’s been doing. That’s the game and he’s got the pieces in place to win it. You may not like it, but, hey, change it or play it.

I agree. Romney has done the homework, and will have my full support, after the convention in August.

But, as Daily Pundit links, the Federal Reserve is getting ready to hoist a middle finger at Einstein again, easing us quantitatively, with insane hopes that, somehow, this time the economy will recover.

I haven’t heard a flipping thing from Romney that gives me shred #1 of confidence that, if elected, he’ll do much in the way of reforming. Long march, indeed. The good news about low expectations for Mitt is that he pretty much has to avoid being #OccupyResoluteDesk to succeed.

Update: linked at The Rio Norte Line.

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Comments

37 Responses to “While I Agree With Gerard Here, Sometimes I Wonder If There Is A Point”

Mike G.
January 15th, 2012 @ 9:47 am

Conservatives have a long row to how if they want to accomplish what the Progressive Left has done. Theirs is a multi-generational journey and it won’t be undone by one election or even three or four elections.
Deb H
January 15th, 2012 @ 9:56 am

Absolutely right on analysis.
GAHCindy
January 15th, 2012 @ 10:00 am

Yes, indeed. If we don’t line up and follow the squishy, not-exactly-conservative, but at least not-Obama, Republican leader, how can we ever hope for real conservatism to gain a foothold in government? That has worked so well in the past!
Anonymous
January 15th, 2012 @ 10:07 am

My two cents: liberals always fight for their own, we leave ours on the battlefield and are the first to turn on them.

We also let the media narratives drive who we chose to lead us. So, unless, someone is “not polarizing,” “doesn’t have baggage,” etc., then there’s no way we would pick them for our candidate. So, what happens eventually? They are all polarized with baggage and are labeled as “outside the mainstream:, i.e. “extremist.” Its like clockwork watching the entire cycle take place, and our side falling for it time immemorial.

Not a winning recipe for electoral success. Saul Alinsky would be proud.
ThomasD
January 15th, 2012 @ 10:46 am

QE III has nothing to do with any hopes that it will improve the overall economy.

It is simply a sop to the large corporations and institutional investors – letting them stay slightly ahead of the game.

If it were convention time and Romney was sewing it all up Gerard might have a point.

As it is it is not convention time and Romney has not come close to sewing it up. No matter how much certain Republicans and especially those great patriots on Wall Street wish it were so.

He’s not so much premature as begging the question, why the hurry?

Is it too much to much to ask that we continue to play this thing out at least until super Tuesday?
Jayden
January 15th, 2012 @ 12:04 pm

I think the wrong lesson is being drawn here, Romney will win the GOP nomination DESPITE his moderate leanings. GOP voters were DESPERATE to give the nod to someone more conservative, but no one viable showed up.

I know that describes me, I desperately wanted a NotRomney candidate (even though I’m no hater) but I’m simply not going to throw away the White House at such a crucial junction.

As the proverbial saying goes “Romney was the only one that showed up in a suit.” Conservatives shouldn’t take this as some sort of ideological slap.
What He Said « The Rio Norte Line
January 15th, 2012 @ 12:16 pm

[…] I’ve been saying this for a while…here, here, here and here. I do get a little (and greatly appreciated) linkage from Smitty at The Other McCain. Smitty has a similar post here, one that echoes what I’ve been saying – that this is a long game. […]
smitty
January 15th, 2012 @ 1:33 pm

As it is it is not convention time and Romney has not come close to sewing it up.

We’ll see.
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 1:41 pm

I wouldn’t admit to being willing to abet Romney in his thievery, and in fact I will not.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all sit around like tenured professors, federal employees and professional think tankers organizing for the next election? Well, we can’t. Not unless you want society to simply stop while we all rampage through the streets nonstop like the Byzantine Blues and Greens.

That was the whole point of having a “conservative” party with elected representatives who would attend to that for us. But if our elected representatives have become like shoddy carpenters or plumbers who overbuy their lumber on our dollar who or who have to be watched every second by us to make sure they can be arsed to tape every thread and actually connect the house to the mains, then THEY have failed, not us, and need to be replaced as quickly as or more so than the progressives. Either that, or we admit republican forms of government are inherently failures.

As for Romney being” the only one who showed up in a suit,” it would seem he’s been caught as flatfooted by the Bain attacks as Cain was by the manufactured Skankgate. It will be impossible now for him to establish any sort of narrative as a job creator or friend of business. Combine that with Romneycare, his failure to create jobs in MA, and his huge hikes on business there, and exactly what suit did he show up in?

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…”
Anonymous
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:08 pm

Indeed we will and what we will see is Romney as the candidate. (Thanks for the shout out Smitty.)
Tennwriter
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:09 pm

Very well said on all three points.

He showed up in the loser suit.

“Friends, I’d like to thank you. We fought a very hard race, but President Obama won. Now we need to unify as a nation behind him. I’d like to thank especially…”
Anonymous
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:11 pm

“That was the whole point of having a “conservative” party with elected representatives who would attend to that for us.”

My entire point is that you DON’T HAVE a conservative party. You have a Republican party with conservatives in it. That’s is what you have in the real world and you have to deal with it AS IT EXISTS not as you would have it exist on Unicorn Planet.
Tennwriter
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:11 pm

Bzzzt. It is exactly an ideological slap. You’re trying to tell me that liquid going down my back is rain.

And plenty of viable choices showed up.
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:52 pm

Voting for Romney is throwing the WH away. The RNC has proven they don’t know or refuse to acknowledge what even their own base wants, much less the independent.

Romney has no record to run against Obama on. He was one of the worst job creators in the country himself as governor.

Romney can’t run against Obama’s record; it’s Romney’s record. He gave us Romneycare and lied about its viability. Obama destroyed jobs as President, Romney destroyed jobs at Bain. Obama made it too expensive to do business in America, Romney raised taxes on business in MA and lied about it.

There is not one reason to pick Romney over Obama for an alienated Democrat or independent voter.
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:58 pm

Gerard, we’ve been dealing with it as it exists. We’ve been increasing the number of conservative Republicans and the GOP has been increasing its efforts to neutralize them.

And one thing you don’t mention: if we vote for the Romney/McConnell wing of the GOP, and by some ungodly fluke they win, the problems are now ours and we have no moral basis to stand in in trying to fix them.

“Uh, yeah, we want to make America more business friendly, so we voted for the guy who raised business taxes in MA.”

“Uh, yeah, we want to repeal Obamacare, so we voted for the guy who pioneered it…”

“Uh, yeah, we want to get government out of the private sector, so we voted for the guy who got rich off government subsidies and dumping pension plans off on the taxpayer.”

We can go with one vote from opposing what is wrong with this country to being actively complicit in it and I will not cast that vote. I will vote down ticket for candidates I approve of, but Mitt Romney is one self-appointed fait in which I am not accompli.
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

Gerard, we’ve been dealing with it as it exists. We’ve been increasing the number of conservative Republicans and the GOP has been increasing its efforts to neutralize them.

And one thing you don’t mention: if we vote for the Romney/McConnell wing of the GOP, and by some ungodly fluke they win, the problems are now ours and we have no moral basis to stand in in trying to fix them.

“Uh, yeah, we want to make America more business friendly, so we voted for the guy who raised business taxes in MA.”

“Uh, yeah, we want to repeal Obamacare, so we voted for the guy who pioneered it…”

“Uh, yeah, we want to get government out of the private sector, so we voted for the guy who got rich off government subsidies and dumping pension plans off on the taxpayer.”

We can go with one vote from opposing what is wrong with this country to being actively complicit in it and I will not cast that vote. I will vote down ticket for candidates I approve of, but Mitt Romney is one self-appointed fait in which I am not accompli.
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 3:01 pm

Deleted Effin’ Disqus repeat post
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 3:01 pm

Oh, BTW, Smitty, Disqus snorts WYB’s used pampers. Just sayin’.
Adjoran
January 15th, 2012 @ 3:16 pm

Maybe you folks have some secret sources of information that I don’t. All the head-to-head polling I’ve seen shows Romney and Obama in a statistical dead heat, but with Obama in the low to mid-40 percent range. That’s not good for an incumbent before an opponent is even named.

It sounds more to me like sour grapes, though. As usual, conservatives tend to have unrealistic expectations, as if Reagan will walk through the door and say, “I’m back, Baby!” He’s dead and term-limited anyway.

The fact is we haven’t had a “true conservative” candidate since Reagan, and if he showed up in another body he would be called a RINO these days. There weren’t any viable “true conservative” candidates in the field this year. The most conservative ones fizzled or crashed early on.

Gerard is quite correct that conservatives don’t own the GOP, and can only exercise effective control of the Party when we are united. Even before the spring of 2011, the knives were being drawn. Palin backers considered anything less than abject fealty to be an attack. That set the stage for the supporters of other candidates, and it has been one long circular firing squad pointing inward ever since.

The truth is the GOP and the country are more conservative than they’ve been since before the Crash of ’29, but neither is so conservative as to be easily won when we are divided.

The Left numbers fewer, but they are far better disciplined.
ThePaganTemple
January 15th, 2012 @ 3:35 pm

It’s like the RNC doesn’t want to upset the status quo, isn’t it? Maybe there’s too many people that stand to make a killing from Obamacare, and while we’re at it, Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley. These big government bureaucracies have one thing in common with both party elites. They represent power in one form or another over the American people.

Isn’t it strange that of all the candidates we’ve fielded, the Republican establishment seems to back the one who offers the least degree of difference to the Democrat incumbent, and in the meantime pressured Sarah Palin out of the race, when she was the one candidate who might have both offered the most stark contrast to Obama while at the same time probably being the most electable?
richard mcenroe
January 15th, 2012 @ 3:38 pm

Palin backers had nothing to do with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner acting to minimize the influence of the members the tea party and conservatives elected to give them their majority. Or remind me how many tea party candidates were on the Supercommittee?
Anonymous
January 15th, 2012 @ 3:56 pm

Well, the theory goes something like this: Republican/RINO wing of the party really has no intention of “opposing” anything the Left does, they merely want to “power share” b/c they like big government too, they just want some of the goodies for themselves (i.e. committee chairmanships and lobbyist cash).

Think back to when Pelosi said, “I miss the good the old times when the Republicans would just agree with us and not fight.”
Anonymous
January 15th, 2012 @ 4:03 pm

I don’t get how Palin backers are to blame for this. Did you miss the part of how Palin has been treated in her own party by the likes of Erickson, Krauthammer, Coulter, Rove, and all the other entrenched power brokers of the ossified R party?

No one made “room” for her, and that’s why her “backers” were pissed. Is it any wonder then, that every other conservative was handled the same way by these people? It stated with her and has continued right down the line …
Quartermaster
January 15th, 2012 @ 6:17 pm

Frankly, we don’t have time for to pull a reverse Gramsciian march through the institutions. Frankly, no matter which one wins the election in November assuming Mittens is the GOP candidate, nothing is going to change for the better. We need to take a meat ax to FedGov, and Mittens isn’t going to do it any more than the Obamunists are. The Rockefeller wing is as much about big Gov as the far left is. Both are far left of center and the only thing both groups care about is power for themselves. The direction of the country is the same under both of them.

Buchanan nailed them when he said “they are just two wings on the same bird of prey.”
Anonymous
January 15th, 2012 @ 7:11 pm

Plenty of viable choices showed up

Therein lies the problem, 1) they are viable, but are alinskyed
2) they are conservative, so they are automatically considered “unelectable,” “polarizing”, and “extremist” by FOX pundits, and our side still listens to them
3) conservatives are not a united bunch– use “purity” tests ad nauseum, they eat their own, and cannot agree on one candidate ….

So, this is where we are.
Bob Belvedere
January 15th, 2012 @ 7:13 pm

Time is running out.

The best scenario if Willard wins is that he slows the speed with which we are heading toward collapse. He will do nothing to reverse course.
Bob Belvedere
January 15th, 2012 @ 7:18 pm

The old saying will be proven right again if Willard gets the Nomination: If the choice is between a Democrat and a ‘Democrat’, the people will chose the real thing every time.
Bob Belvedere
January 15th, 2012 @ 7:20 pm

I believe Stacy said many months ago: ‘Mitt will make a nice concession speech’.
Bob Belvedere
January 15th, 2012 @ 7:22 pm

Dead solid perfect.
Edward
January 15th, 2012 @ 8:48 pm

And as long as you’re willing to give in and vote the way the establishment GOP wants you to, then there will never be any change at all.

That’s why I’m an independent that votes conservative. If the GOP wants my vote then they can nominate a conservative. If the GOP doesn’t, then they can do whatever the hell they want but don’t count on me voting for that nominee.

And no I don’t believe that Mitt will be much better than Obama. You think Mitt is going to roll back ObamaCare? Based on what precisely? His disavowal of RomneyCare? Something that has yet to happen even though RomneyCare is gutting the Mass. budget?

You think Mitt has any answers on how to deal with Iran? Syria? Pakistan? China? Anything? I haven’t heard anything that reassures me.

Mitt has been running for President almost continuously for 7+ years now. And he still sucks ass as a candidate. How that is possible *and* he is somehow considered the most electable is frankly amazing to me.
Jayden
January 15th, 2012 @ 8:52 pm

Right, plenty of viable alternatives.

Like Santorum, who lost his last election by 20 points (despite outspending his opponent over 2 to 1) that’s against right to work laws, voted for the largest federal entitlement in nearly 30 years (MediCare Part D), voted to raise the debt ceiling every time it came up, and was one of the worst offenders of pork barrel stupidity. But hey, he’s REALLY good on issues regarding a woman’s uterus.
Tennwriter
January 15th, 2012 @ 9:25 pm

Phillycon is quite right.

1. Been dealt with over and over here.
2. Y’know, when Santorum started his surge, we got to hear a buncha folk say he was this or that. Turned out to be way less. Turned out to be A-ok unless you were a far left gay righter or a real purist.

So…here….from Caffeinated Thoughts…

On Right to Work – He doesn’t support a national right to work law. He thinks states can handle that. He said he would take on the unions, but he is focusing on federal marriage amendment. He noted was the only conservative senator elected in a heavy union state. That he was focused on the life issue, No one in the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has taken on the life issue.” He said not only was his votes in the Senate prolife and pro-marriage, he said he led on those issues. He felt that in order to represent his constiutents well he needed to be neutral on labor. If he were President if Congress sent him a National Right to Work bill to sign he would sign it. It isn’t the private trade unions are the problem, it is the public employee unions as they are funded by taxpayers – He said those unions are “an anathema.” He said he was willing to take on that issue.

So, your great takedown of a Real Conservative turns out to be Not All That.

And the fact that you sneer about abortion makes me question your conservatism.
ThomasD
January 15th, 2012 @ 10:57 pm

Your logic is entirely circular.

If he’s that strong then he really doesn’t need all those votes from the hard-core types now does he?
ThomasD
January 15th, 2012 @ 11:02 pm

So therefore, at this rather early juncture we should surrender all attempts to make it a more conservative party?

You’d sound more credible if you were actually making a particular case for Mitt .
Jayden
January 16th, 2012 @ 12:31 am

Santorum was obviously pandering to Unions with his Senate vote against right-to-work legislation. However, NOW says he would back a federal right to work law. Boy, that’s rich. That vote alone will cost him South Carolina

I’ve seen how committed Santorum was to the conservative movement and right to life issues when he endorsed pro-choice Arlen Specter over pro-life Pat Toomey.

Santorum really is the ultimate Establishment candidate.
Vanderleun
January 18th, 2012 @ 2:46 pm

You are right. He does not. But Obama does DESERVE your votes AGAINST Obama. Get it? Or is that still too obscure for the purists?
Vanderleun
January 18th, 2012 @ 2:48 pm

This is not about “morality” or a “moral basis.” This is about politics. It has nothing to do with morality. Never has. Never will. You’re kidding yourself if yøu think it does.