Every electoral cycle, we the people are treated to a variety of cliches regarding running for high office. One of these bedrock cliches is playing to the base in the primary, playing to independents in the general. To win either of these respective constituencies, a candidate must at a minimum be defined, so the electorate can judge for themselves a candidate’s viability. Many a deft candidate have successfully navigated the ground between securing the base for the nomination and appealing to the general electorate when the time came. Then there’s Mitt Romney.
It has been an almost ingrained narrative from the press that Romney has a base problem. Even as he has won major contests on Super Tuesday and more recently Illinois, it might be expected for a guy who has had all sorts of identity problems in the past as a flip-flopper to at a minimum, claim that he has, in fact started to close the deal with his own party. One might also expect a semi-competent campaign to highlight this as a strength and demonstrate further that Romney also understands the general electorate without alienating his own base.
Answering a question on CNN, Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom stated the field in a general election was solid for his man. Of course, it didn’t come out that way. “It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch – you can shake it all up and start over again.” While in context, Fehrnstrom wasn’t wrong about having to run toward a new goal, he without a doubt stated it in the worst, most self-immolating way. The campaign was almost immediately forced to do damage control on their own statement. It’s bad when your opponents say your principles are malleable, or even shapeless. It’s worse when your own staff inadvertently proves it.
If Mitt Romney truly wants this nomination, he can inform his staff that his alleged principles (and for the record I believe he does have some) are not subject to a childhood blackboard. He has come this far and the conventional wisdom has been that Romney is the only one with a real campaign with advisers worth their respective salt. Perhaps they could start being an asset rather than a liability.
Romney is not ‘representing’ anyone within the constiuency. He is a figgurhead of the ‘Bankers” and the thuggish ‘financiers’ who triggered the wall st collapse in 2009…
HE wil represent the best interests of their money. Not the best interests of the People, or freedom.
HE will promote the NWO. the North American Union, and developing new streams of revenue on the existing economy to pay the bankers back the debt. He has no plans to expand the GDP which would represent real growth in the economy. He has no fundamental understanding of the concept- He will do what he is so good at manage the budget and control the Banktruptcy so his constituents – the Banks and Financiers dont get hurt…
that may help the economy in the short run, but does nothing to resolve the underlying issue which is tax and spend.
The banks do not consider any limits on agressive collection of real debt to be unreasonable. The constitution of the U.S. is just a hindrence to them.
No patriotic American should cast ANY votes for Romney- At this point options are limited, but WE the People can still force an OPEN CONVENTION and force the REAL ISSUES be debated there!
OMG! A REAL LIFE MOBY! I never thought I’d see one for real!
Anyone who says that we need an “open convention” is either a) a liberal feigning interest in Conservative politics, aka, a moby; or b) a Paulnut. Either of which need to have the light of the sun blasted down upon them! Like cockroaches, they’ll scatter when their bullshit is shown the light of day.
I don’t like Romney either. But there was NO conservative candidate after Bachmann left the race (she did leave after Cain, right? I can’t remember….). However, we need to finish this campaign now, start the general and support WHOEVER THE HELL OUR CANDIDATE IS. It was people in 08 saying, “I’ll never vote for McCain” that cost McCain the election, and we simply cannot have that again.
Four years of the Fucknut-in-Chief will destroy this nation.
Sorry, typo…
“Four MORE years of the Fucknut-in-chief will destroy this nation”
Yeah…”real issues”…..like internet porn and birth control.
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not. I really hope you are. Seriously NWO???
Am I concerned the RINO will raise its ugly head? Yes. Is any RINO better than our current President? Yes. After we stop the Socialist agenda, we can get back to the TEA!
Until then……anyone but O!
Well I see I’ve started a “conversation” of sorts, but none of what I have written was necessarily a criticism of Romney himself, but rather his campaign, which as we have seen, needs work on message. That said, are we all to become RINO, “establishment”, hangers-on if we exert but an ounce of pragmatism and own up to the fact that Romney may very well be inevitable after all? Needless to say, declaring he’s in the pocket of thuggish “bankers” is something of a non-sequitir here.
You know I don’t a lot of neocons in high esteem any more, but when it comes to denial, Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard has been taking the cake. He has staked out a “anyone but anyone we have now” kind of pie in the sky position, as to our nominee. Everyone else across the blogosphere as near as I can tell has sobered up. While I applaud Kristol’s pining like a teenage girl over her hope chest for…well…anyone, the rest of us still have to deal with the reality.
that should say “hold a lot of neocons in high esteem”
My guess is that after a bit of reflection Santorum is going to be wishing he could use an etch-a-sketch to “reset” his comments regarding Zimmerman this morning on Face the Nation. Just when I was about to send a warm fuzzy thank you note to the NBPP for helping to hand the Hispanic vote to the GOP, Santorum goes and blows it. On the other hand I find it comical that on the day after the whole “etch-a-sketch” gaffe hit the news stock in the actual maker of Etch-a-sketch tripled in value, their biggest single day gain EVER. I keep waiting for the Romney camp to spin it as an example of Romney job creation or some such.
Santorum, Mitt… just say something nice, then deflect back to how President Obama’s failed in some way… seriously, not that hard, k?
Meanwhile, as GOP candidates busy themselves sniping at one another, our Dear Leader is claiming credit for a pipeline he never actually approved and touting job creation at a quarter billion dollar solar power plant that employs… brace yourselves… 12 people. Oh, and since solar power only supplies power when the sun is shining, that means its only good for aiding with daytime peak load, not actual base load. Roughly 60 MW (for only half the day) and 12 jobs for a quarter billion dollars… oh yeah, makes total sense.
Sing it with me… its a mad world after all… its a mad world after all… its a mad mad world…
This mini rant brought to you by a sleepy crazy Irishman
(who’s been way to busy to keep up with the articles this past week)
sliante