Superconservatize Me

Mitt Romney will announce today that he is dropping out of the race for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. My first reaction? YES!!!! But you kind readers need more of an explanation for my dislike for Romney the candidate than "YES!!!!" so here goes. Be forewarned - my relationship with Mitt Romney has been love and hate and more hate. But let me put that aside and try to be objective

It seems strange now but I was intrigued by Mitt Romney when I first heard he may be running for president. All I knew about him then was that he was super-duper rich and that he had saved the Olympics. (Shades of me saving the Jewish Law Students Association at my law school. That I packed it with gentiles is another story.) I knew that Romney was instrumental in passing a health care plan that tried to reach every citizen of Massachusetts, the state where he was governor.

Huh, I thought. Is Romney a different kind of Republican? The old paradigm of what made a Republican needed to be updated for the 21st century. The old tropes just weren't exciting enough people anymore. (How many times can you cry wolf about the horrors of gay marriage anyway?) There were legitimate problems facing our country and there wasn't that much time to waste when Romney first let it be known he was running for president a few years ago. For example, health care. And Romney seemed to have a plan for that.

But something happened on the way to the convention. Romney made a huge mistake when he decided to become the latest guy to try to assume Ronald Reagan's mantle. (Guys, it can't be done.) Instead of being the problem-solving moderate he had always been, Romney decided to hold the most conservative position on every issue. He wanted to be the most conservative candidate ever. I am not a Rudy Giuliani fan by any means but he did get off a good line about Romney when he said Romney would probably have put Ronald Reagan in one of his commercials that criticized Giuliani and McCain and Huckabee for being soft on immigration if Reagan was still alive because Reagan had signed an amnesty bill in 1986.

Also, it seems that neither Romney nor his advisors had ever heard of YouTube. Because there was a wealth of clips of Romney pontificating his views of just a few years ago. Views that were moderate and, in my opinion, where most people were. He showed some tolerance towards gays and lesbians. He wasn't happy about abortions but said it was something that was needed. He wanted some kind of gun control. He showed some humanity toward illegal immigrants. He recognized that there were some excesses during the Reagan/Bush I years.

Romney didn't think who he actually was was enough to to get him elected. He didn't have enough faith in the voters. He didn't think we would see him as a slightly dorky but highly competent individual. It is as if one day he decided to model himself after Rush Limbaugh. As of today, Rush Limbaugh has never won a race for public office. I know Rush's ego is big enough that if he thought he could run for president and win, he would have done that already. So far, no Limbaugh presidency. Romney chose a poor model to copy. The irony is the real Romney would have demolished the phony Romney.

Back in 2006, Romney probably thought his main competition would come from Senator George Allen of Virginia. Back then, Allen was supposed to be the new Reagan. Romney thought he would have to out-right wing Allen. Again, irony shows it lovely head when Allen macacized his chances for his Senate reelection and a subsequent run for the White House. By this point, Romney has committed himself to a rightward tilt. There was to be no turning back. Romney was stuck.

Other problems emerged in Romney's attempt to Reaganize himself. He wasn't the charismatic presence that Reagan was. He wasn't as believable when talking about conservative values. (One of the knocks on Reagan when he was running for president was that he was too tied to his beliefs. Romney had the opposite problem.) Reagan was believable as the common man due to his humble and troubled upbringing. Romney is not a common man; he doesn't look like one. (I wish I was "common" enough to have vacation homes in four states.) When Reagan was running for president, people weren't going around quoting his net worth like a pejorative.

Reagan had a long history in the conservative movement when he won the presidency, going all the way back to "The Speech" of 1964. Romney has been a member of the conservative movement for about two years. There will be rumblings that Romney will run in 2012. I don't see it. Nobody seemed to really like Romney except people making more than $100,000. There aren't enough of those people to ever create a Romney movement.

The Patriot That is Rush Limbaugh

This is a post that will summarize what I think of the state of the Republican race before tomorrow's Super Tuesday primaries. (To be followed by a post describing the Democratic race.) I am still waiting to be convinced that there is a good candidate out there for me. Though I have already ruled out a certain someone. (You know who you are, Mitt Romney.)

John McCain has emerged as the clear favorite to gain the nomination of the Republican Party. People are very surprised by this because at least two different issues arose last year that were supposed to have sunk McCain's campaign. The McCain candidacy almost ended when money was wasted on frivolities that didn't matter and when McCain supported George W. Bush's comprehensive immigration reform plan. I am not President Bush's biggest fan by any means but I think one of the things he has done right is to treat immigrants with a great sense of fairness. I was born and raised in Texas and President Bush has lived most of his life in Texas. Mexican immigrants are so part of the fabric of our lives in Texas that it would make it near impossible for a native Texan to join the hateful campaign against immigrants that is consuming a part of the Republican Party.

McCain was able to overcome his early disasters for one simple reason - the other candidates he was running against turned out to be a true conservative but a mediocre campaigner (Fred D. Thompson), a niche social conservative but economic populist (Mike Huckabee), a liberal mayor of New York with lots of skeletons in his closet who also happened to be truly unlikeable (Rudy Giuliani), and a phony conservative who alienated all the other candidates because he accused the others of positions he held just a year or two earlier (Mitt Romney.)

A mediocre conservative candidate would have had this nomination wrapped up by now but there was no such candidate this year. Of course, Mitt Romney is trying to be the candidate that speaks to the traditional three prongs of Republican conservatism - the social conservatives, the national security conservatives and the tax-cutting conservatives. Romney has been harmed by a lack of a magnetic personality and his flip-flopping on issues important to Republicans. Still he continues to try to push on us the idea that he is Ronald Reagan Jr. (Sorry, Mitt, but such a person already exists.)

What is emerging from the Republican race is the fact that only one prong of the so-called "three prongs of the conservative stool" built by Reagan actually matters. John McCain has spent much of his career in the United States Senate focused on national security matters and is a genuine war hero. ("We will stay in Iraq for 100 years if that is what's needed.") Mike Huckabee has advertised himself as a "Christian leader" in his political ads. He is on the right side of all the issues important to social conservatives. Huckabee is a former Baptist minister who speaks in terms that show he is an ordinary person, not a person pretending to be an ordinary person. This attribute helps Huckabee conform with Republican voters' anti-elitism beliefs. These two men should be embraced by Republicans because of their respective life stories.

The thing is...they have not been. The reason for this is simple. McCain and Huckabee see there are things more important than tax cuts. McCain thinks that we need a strong military and that veterans need to be cared for after their service to our country is over. Huckabee says that children need to be cared for even after they have been born as opposed to those people who thinks life begins at conception and ends at birth. ("No health insurance for you!") These two men probably feel taxes can be cut but only after their agendas have been addressed.

This is the wrong answer according the Republican establishment led by Rush Limbaugh. Of course, Rush will pay lip service to the social issues and a strong military. But what exactly has Rush ever done to prove he cares about social issues and a strong military? Did he serve in the military? No. When it comes to discussing people with drug abuse problems, Rush says, "Don't ask, don't tell." Which leaves us with the one thing Rush Limbaugh truly cares about - tax cuts.

I can understand tax cuts. I really do. Heck, I am about to become a small-business owner. I am going to love tax cuts. It is common knowledge that Rush is struggling by on an average salary of about $20,000,000 a year. According to Rush, charity begins in the homes of people making $20,ooo,ooo a year or more.

John McCain and Mike Huckabee don't believe in this principle. Therefore, they officially suck!

The "Cool Kids" Election

Imagine you are at a party. You are a single guy. You look around and see a lot of single ladies. Making a good impression on a few of them is in your own self-interest. You go up to a group of them and start chatting. Eventually the topic of politics come up. People start talking about who they like for president. And you chime in to say you like Mitt Romney because he represents "real change in Washington." You know what happens next? You are not only standing there by yourself but you may also find yourself being asked to leave this party.

Let's talk about all this talk about "change" going on. Coming from a Republican, this is just plain silly talk. Mitt Romney supports George W. Bush and his policies. Where does Romney disagree with Bush? I am not sure. If anything, Romney wants to out-Bush Bush. You may remember him saying he wants to "double Guantanamo." Heck, even Bush said he wants to close Guantanamo down. Romney just picked up on the "change" message when cool kid Barack Obama used it in spectacular fashion in Iowa and in South Carolina.

I just have trouble believing that this particular rich white guy named Mitt Romney can represent change. What in his past shows that he has been fighting for change? I mean, beyond three weeks ago, what? What in Mitt Romney's past shows he has been interested in anything besides making money?

This is going to be a "cool kids" election. Barack Obama is an historic candidate. Hillary Clinton is an historic candidate. Either of them becoming president would move us past the little narrow paradigm we have chosen to live in for far too long. (I myself am aiming to be the first half-Asian, half-Jewish president. I am turning 35 this year. We shall see.) Now I am not saying that being a white guy should disqualify you from being president. But white guys running for president are going to have to bring their "A" game from now on.

What is Mitt Romney's "A" game? Well, he doesn't have one. Ronald Reagan had one. Bill Clinton had one. Even George W. Bush had one. All of these candidates could create a kind of unity with wide swaths of people. Their communication skills allowed this. Mitt Romney, not so much.