Anyone…
…watching the debate?
Yeah, another one.
[ADDENDUM: Ace has some interesting observations on who wins debates.]
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
…watching the debate?
Yeah, another one.
[ADDENDUM: Ace has some interesting observations on who wins debates.]
No..Nein…Nyet…Nada…Negatory…NO Way.
Why not? It’s one of the best so far.
Mitt’s standing up.
Santorum’s looking good.
Newt’s chastized.
Paul is Paul.
Ed Bonderenka: you’re tempting me…
I have to admit it, I’ve not missed a single one thus far. So yup I am. It’s quite feisty up there this go round! 🙂
Christ. Enough with the debates already!
If you missed it Neo. I can now absolutely say:
Obama will make mince meat of Newt during the debates
Romney will slice and dice Obama during the debates.
That is CLEAR after watching Romney kill Newt for extended periods tonight.
I was THRILLED.
Remember people I had my order like this:
Cain
Bachmann
Santorum
Romney
I am actually HAPPY to see Romeny do so well.
Hell ! Newt couldn’t even best the CNN moderator whoever the hell he was.
btw, Rick Santorum did extremely well in the debates also.
Newt looked absolutely unprepared and WITHOUT PERSPECTIVE. Perspective is key.
Romney looked prepared and set things in terms and perspective back on Newt repeatedly.
I watched it. Mitt had a good night, although it was far from a flawless performance.
One thing I’d point out: Newt CLEARLY didn’t win this debate. At most, one could argue it was more or less a tie, although the immediate post-debate commentary suggests that would be a generous assessment in terms of Newt’s performance. The reason I point this out is that so many Newt supporters have cited his ability to destroy Obama in a debate as a major reason to support him.
If Newt can’t decisively beat Mitt Romney in a GOP debate, what reason is there to think he would necessarily beat BHO in a general election debate?
That’s really interesting.
That’s also the gist of what I’m reading on comments sections around the blogosphere, even from people who were partial to Gingrich.
I don’t like debates (I know; I repeat myself). But I do think that they’re good for one thing: seeing how the candidates perform under different pressures. I ponder why Newt seemed to do so well right before South Carolina, and what’s rattling him now. Was it that Newt had the element of surprise in SC, and Romney’s now had time to prepare? Or something else I can’t figure out? If Romney really did well tonight vs. Newt, it has a bigger potential effect than just making Gingrich look weaker as a candidate: it goes against the previous perceptions of the strengths of both candidates. Mano a mano, Gingrich was the supposed scrapper and fighter, Romney the supposed wuss. Now—we see something quite different operating.
On Bill Bennett this morning a number of callers chastised Romney (who was on air) for not coming on stronger.
I think he listened.
Maybe Romney won tonight simply because he is intelligent, competent, deeper than many have thought him to be….and right.
texexec, if there were a little button to the side of your comment which said “Recommend,” I would have clicked it.
I didn’t watch it, but will take the consensus, Romney was the perceived winner.
It doesn’t really matter if Newt was soundly out debated, or decided to imploy a less non-aggressive strategy which failed for him, because the end result will be the same. He will have lost ground.
Another thing (if the Republican elites are favoring Romney) Romney’s getting every bit of experienced help in these debates from the old guard and Newt is likely not.
Let me tell you why Newt was in over his head.
What I saw is what I was remarking on yeaterday.
Newt seems to have a fire in the belly about everything….
add the lack of perspective.
Mix with a slice of that’s old now.
You saw Newt with the fire in the belly for putting a permanent station on the moon, attacking Romney because he has investments, oh the horror.
Take your FIRE IN THE BELLY and beat it Newt. You are the reason for the freight trains heading towards each other right now.
Newt has ZERO perspective
None.
I’ve so had it with him. Before tonight I believe I was charitable.
Now he needs to apologize to everybody and go home.
The debate?
Do you mean the weekly (sometimes twice a week) episode of this year’s reality thriller “Dancing with the Candidates”? Or was it “Debating with the [MSM’s] Stars”?
Oh yes! I remember now — it’s “Survival: Twisted Soundbites”.
When I saw the CNN moderator basically goad Newt into re-slashing and burning into Romney – I knew Newt was done.
Here’s the backdrop.
Santorum made a great comment going into the commercial break about we all know Romney has investments and there is nothing wrong with that and Newt was the speaker and has skills and used them to the best of his ability afterwards and there is nothing with that. Santorum then said let’s get to the issues.
Back from Commercial:
Newt says he agrees with Santorum.
Then:
CNN moderator “x” (won’t name him) goads Newt back into slash and burn. My jaw DROPPPED people.
He is absolutely without perspective. He is a joke.
Another hit for Romney Michelle Malkin wrote about:
Let me tell you people. Malkin did not give Gingrich’s stupidity and lack of perspective justice here. Gingrich sat on the grandmother issue PAST the point of absurdity and Romney hit a HOME RUN!
Here’s that one
http://www.breitbart.tv/romney-scolds-newt-for-calling-him-anti-immigrant-fldebate/
here is where my jaw dropped
http://www.breitbart.tv/newt-scolds-blitzer-thats-a-nonsense-question-fldebate/
oops. sorry that video stops before the jaw dropping part.
This was refreshing honesty from Romney on the topic of Israel.
http://www.breitbart.tv/romney-hammers-obama-on-israel-fldebate/
OK, it’s Politico and an unnamed advisor, but this sort of thing is going to be pure poison for a rather large demographic:
“They like preachers,” the adviser said of the tea party demographic. “If you take them to a tent meeting they’ll get whipped into a frenzy. That’s how people like Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich get women to fall into bed with them.”
I’ll bet the word is going out even as I type. The sad thing is, it sounds exactly like what someone in the Romney campaign would say: cocky, ignorant, and foolish. Does Romney feel that way? He’s religious, but I have the impression he has much the same opinion of the Tea Party. But at least he has kept his mouth shut.
donb: Amen.
baklava: Thank you for the good, steady comments. Aids folks like me who don’t watch them for several reasons…like my head will pop.. and I’ll gnaw off an arm at the shoulder…and, for the most part, I see them as, “who’s the best, most nimble little high-school debate team member tonight?” That said, I’m glad and relieved that Mitt added some gasoline to his slow-cooker. He really needed to do that. Also glad that Newtie Boy’s TEMPERAMENT problem got some quality airtime.
Santorum was the one who deflected Wolfs’ school yard taunt about Romnys’ finances and Gingrich agreed to have a truce so that they could all address the real issues. It was Romney who acted like a 2 year old throwing a tantrum anxiously jumping in to save Wolfs bacon and reignite the question. It appeared to me that this was a loaded question given to Wolf by Romney so he could give his prepared answer. I don’t trust the guy.
For me the most striking thing–demonstrating just how cut-throat this campaign is–was when Wolf Blitzer–MC of this demolition derby–questioned Mitt on a ad which he was running in FL, which quoted Newt as saying that “Spanish is the language of the ghetto.”
When questioned Mitt said “he was not aware of running this ad.”
A few minutes later Blitzer came back and said that his staff had checked and, indeed, the ad was running right now in FL and at the end of the ad Mitt came on and said, “I approve this message.”
At which point, Mitt mumbled something, and they moved on to letting Newt say, again, that he was misquoted, and what he had said was that everyone should lean English so as to be able to get a good job and to advance.
We can thank Newt for leading the pack a while back and training everyone to be more pointed, and now we can thank him to return home to his cave on K Street.
Romney is clearly the winner here as well as the executive type: steady, smart, tough when it is called for, balanced.
But again we thank Newt – look how he made Santorum into a more articulate contender. He made Romney stronger. He increased his own coffers – now he and wife can return and make more videos, please.
Bill Clinton said something interestin in 2007: he said we pick our people in the primaries with emotion and we pick our people in the general election with our minds.
For myself, I am happy to see my mind pick Romney already and my emotions even kind of going along for the ride. It’s fun to like Romney.
Romney attacks like a leftist, i.e., grounds attacks in deliberate misrepresentations of context, grounds attacks in PC quibbles, grounds attacks in shrill accusations of flaws which are inevitably shared by every human being (hypocrisy, greed, envy, pride, et al). Romney’s campaigning is centered on making (having other make) leftist style attacks on his major opponent … while maintaining as much deniability as possible.
I cannot support this style of campaigning (which infuriated McCain, Huckabee, Thompson, Guilianni, Perry, Gingrich). I supported McCain (even though I disagreed w/much of McCain’s beliefs). McCain had a type of honor with which I could identify. It wasn’t a perfect honor, yet I could identify with it. Conversely, Romney’s campaign is centered around behavior which I overtly oppose and detest. If we judge Romney’s principles and philosophies by his actions, we conclude that this is his raison d’etre: “Vote for me, because I have less flaws than my opponents. Let me show you how many flaws my opponents have!” Not good enough. Not a good enough justification to win my support.
There is something reptilian about Romney’s campaign principles and philosophies. He is like a Komodo Dragon: all teeth, poison saliva, claws, capability, and relentless small minded focus on killing and eating. A Komodo Dragon lacks all else: lacks warmth, lacks humility, lacks a wise and well marinated understanding of human existence, and of all which that implies.
Killing and eating are not everything. Winning is not everything. There are things which are more important.
I cannot support Romney. I thought I could, in the same way in which I supported McCain in 2008. But, Romney is not McCain. Romney does not have honor with which I can identify.
Santorum 2012.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am left, for the first time, wondering: is our nation truly better off with Mitt instead of Barack? I am talking long term: over 20 years? over 50 years?
Big picture:
1. ethical and moral collapse is ongoing (still might be reversed)
2. small government conservative revolution is coming, is inevitable.
Would Romney’s election improve 1 and 2 above? or make them worse?
Romney’s reptilian campaign success would promote immoral campaign fundamentals.
Will a President Romney’s lack of understanding, of first principles of conservatism, delay the much needed small government revolution? Would electoral support for Romney delay the overthrow of the moderate appeaser part of the Republican Party? And if so: is a vote for Romney actually a good thing for America? or a bad thing?
I am, for the first time, wondering. Up to now, I have always considered a general election refusal to vote for a McCain, or a Romney, to be silly and illogical immaturity.
Up to now, I have tried to find reasons to like Romney, b/c I knew I might be supporting him in the general election, and I knew I might be rooting for him during a Presidential term.
However, I am done trying to find reasons to like him and to support him. I know what I see, and I do not like it.
I have made a point of not watching any of these debates. I really have little patience with them, and I’m not planning to vote in a caucus or primary, so it seems like watching them wouldn’t be the wisest use of time since I can easily find out some of what happened afterward anyway.
I must say, though, that while Newt Gingrich’s reactions after Iowa made me very wary of him, the things I’ve heard from him in the past two days (including clips from the debate) have started to make me dislike him. What I’m hearing from his comments about colonizing the moon and refusing to deport grandmothers is the sound of someone who is an enormous panderer, the Republican Clinton that many of his sharpest critics have been warning us about.
BTW, also re the debate:
if you like Romney b/c you like the person who makes the least gaffes, the key gaffe occurred when Romney said that Obamacare is “not worth getting angry about.”
Romney has been somewhat protected re Romneycare. There are reasons for that:
– Romneycare was a state thing
– conservative candidates conducted a long fight to see who would be “NotRomney”, and they somewhat ignored Romney during that process
– media are uninterested in attacks on Obamacare.
Re the above point re media, and last night:
Wolf Blitzer protected Romney and Obama via cutting off Santorum’s ass kicking of Romney and Romneycare. Blitzer: “Lets move on.” Me, on my couch: “No! Lets not move on! Santorum is kicking Romney’s @#$!” Blitzer would not allow the back and forth to run to its natural conclusion: Blitzer cut Santorum off, refused to allow Santorum to knock a wobbly Romney to the mat, protected Obama and Romney.
The problem w/Romney and Romneycare: Romney’s defenses of it can be used, by Obama, to defend Obamacare. Santorum made that point:
Romney: “I believe the people of each state should be able to craft programs that they feel are best for their people. I think ours is working pretty well.”
Santorum: “What Governor Romney just said is that government-run top-down medicine is working pretty well in Massachusetts, and he supports it. Now, think about what that means – going up against Barack Obama…you are going to claim, well, top-down government-run medicine on the federal level doesn’t work, and we should repeal it. And he’s going to say, wait a minute, Governor. You just said that top-down government-run medicine in Massachusetts works well.”
Lastly: I do not trust Romney to successfully fight Obamacare. Romney’s statement re “on the first day” re Obamacare … is Clintonian parsing which leaves Romney too much wiggle room. I cannot immediately find Romney’s quote, but it was actually a nonstatement which did not commit Romney to anything significant. When making his “on the first day” promise, Romney conducts a Clintonian style salesman’s trick: with great apparent sincerity and conviction, Romney carefully says exactly nothing.
another thing, re government healthcare:
Romney does not understand the true reason, and the rallying call, for opposing deeper government intervention into healthcare:
Government messes up everything. Whatever government touches … becomes less efficient and less creative and less effective.
U.S. Senators have proven they will kowtow to public opinion polls. Whomever would lead the nasty fight to overturn Obamacare … must understand why Obamacare must be overturned — must rally the American people behind fully understandable reasoning for why Obamacare must be overturned. Mitt Romney does not understand, and/or is unwilling to make, the most important argument and rallying call for why Obamacare must be overturned.
Regarding “Romneycare” in Mass… what if it *is* working well there? Seems to me that doesn’t mean that it would work well federally, and really, with the theory of federalism, it shouldn’t even be tried. Similarly, just because something works in Texas or Iowa, it doesn’t mean that it would work well somewhere else.
So… it strikes me as somewhat intellectually dishonest to rag on Romney for it if it’s what the Mass people wanted, and it’s working well for them. I don’t want that solution in my state, or on a federal level, but I don’t think it’s honest to say that Romney is suggesting that if he’s just noting that it works in Mass.
…which won’t stop Obama from arguing that way, but there’s no reason we have to show the same lazy thinking.
Tesh, Romneycare is not working well in Mass. Like all government interventions: Romneycare is an unfolding fiscal disaster. Mitt Romney is trying to obscure that until he is the nominee. But everyone who pays attention knows it.
Maybe Romney, once he is the nominee, will suddenly discover new facts about Romneycare’s failures in Mass, and will turn on Romneycare as an example of how government will inevitably make medical care worse. Such might be our only hope for destroying Obamacare.
gcotharn and Tesh (and everyone else who’d like to know more about how Romneycare is doing in Massachusetts):
an evaluation of how Romneycare is working in Massachusetts, and why. Please read.
Excerpt:
Oh, and gcotharn: when Romneycare was passed in Massachusetts, it was hailed not only by Romney, but by Newt Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation as more of a private sector solution to the health insurance problem than anything else proposed there, and as a conservative solution as well.
gcotharn: Romney did not say Obamacare was not worth getting angry about.
He said to Santorum—when Santorum was getting angry (talking about Romneycare and how much money it had cost Massachusetts, and exactly how it worked there, and he was making heated statements with which Romney disagreed)—that in the debate it wasn’t worth Santorum getting angry about. Romney spoke out quite forcefully right after this against Obamacare.
See the clip for yourself. You are misrepresenting what was said—but it’s not just you; the truncated quote is being misrepresented all around the blogosphere. No surprise there.
neo, Newt Gingrich was wrong to hail Romneycare. As were other conservatives. And as Newt Gingrich has been wrong about many, many things.
This nation does not deserve an election which is about gotcha. It deserves an election about vision and leadership. Santorum, 2012.
Second, I am shocked that you consider Romneycare a success.
Michael Graham, Boston Herald:
“Which wait time will be longer: The wait to finally see a doctor under Romneycare or waiting for Mitt Romney to admit his plan is a failure?”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/05/10/romneycare_proves_failure_255222.html
Rick Santorum, writing in National Review:
” As a direct consequence of Romneycare’s intrusive meddling in the private health-insurance market, health-care costs have skyrocketed in the state. Massachusetts has the highest average health-care premiums in the nation, with per capita spending 27 percent higher than the national average. Overall health-care costs in the state continue to rise at an average rate of 8 percent annually. And of the approximate 383,000 newly insured Massachusetts residents, the vast majority are enrolled in a state-run entitlement program. A shortage of providers, combined with increased demand, is increasing waiting times to see a physician. As recently as 2009, 56 percent of internal-medicine doctors no longer accepted new patients in Massachusetts.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287615/romneycare-and-obamacare-rick-santorum
WSJ: Romneycare a failure
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703625304575115691871093652.html
gcotharn: I don’t know why you are saying that I consider Romneycare a success.
I do reading about it. I’ve read the pieces that say it’s a failure, and I read the Globe piece that says it’s a success, and I think the latter goes into more detail (it’s a local piece, which often goes into more detail, by the way; I like to use local pieces whenever possible, if they seem to make sense). You asserted that Romneycare was a failure without offering any links to support your statement. I had already read that WSJ piece before this, and I assumed (despite your lack of links in your original comment) that you had read something like that as well. I happen to think the Globe piece offers an interesting rebuttal, and that’s why I offered it. My own opinion is that it was neither a disaster nor a fabulous solution, but that it must be compared to the alternatives Massachusetts faced at the time. In that comparison I’d say the results have been “fair.”
anyone watching other things?
Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA
White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight
and with the new signing on interpol, you may find a interpol officer or 10 grabbing you to take you to china to put you in jail…
neo,
I am fully willing to grant that Romney’s context was: During this debate, it is not worth getting upset about Romneycare.
My point is: it is FULLY worth getting upset about Romneycare, and, by extension, about Obamacare. It is fully worth getting upset about further government interference into healthcare. Romney’s quote, placed into exact proper context, shines a spotlight on Romney’s lack of understanding that government damages healthcare; is inefficient in everything it touches.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman, philosopher and orator (42 B.C)
gcotharn: then why did you write, “Romney said that Obamacare is ‘not worth getting angry about'”?
One thing I would think that you, as an intelligent person (which you are), should know, is to beware the truncated quote. It is used as a potent and misleading weapon on both sides. And especially when it’s just a short phrase like that (“It’s not worth getting angry about”), a red flag should go up.
gcotharn: one more thing—why not quote what Romney said right after that “not worth getting angry remark? I’ll do it for you:
And to provide even more of that “exact proper context” you’re so intent on, here’s what preceded the “not worth getting angry” remark:
You don’t have to agree with Romney. But, as he said to Santorum, he “make[s] enough mistakes in what [he] say[s], not for you to add more mistakes to what [he] say[s].”
neo,
What part of my statement “I am fully willing to grant that Romney’s context…” was unclear? I am willing to grant that Romney was specifying Romneycare.
I am willing to grant Romney’s context, but not his premise that Romneycare = good government interference, yet Obamacare = bad government interference.
For any voters who believe that government interference equals inefficiency: Romney unintentionally said there is no reason to get angry about Obamacare.
Romney can superciliously (I felt an urge to punch him) claim Santorum and I are making mistakes about what he says. In reality, Santorum and I are failing to grant Romney’s premise that some government interference into healthcare (Romneycare) is good. Santorum and I are refusing to grant Romney a firewall between Romneycare and Obamacare. It is all government interference, and it is all unnecessarily inefficient, and therefore damaging.
I did not quote the rest of Romney’s reply … b/c Obamacare will not be destroyed via such quibbles. Obamacare will only be destroyed by rallying the American people around the truth that government is inefficient and damaging.
You ask what is unclear? Just this: it is unclear to me why you originally wrote that Romney was saying in the debate that Obamacare isn’t worth getting angry about, if you knew that was not what he was saying. And it’s particularly puzzling that you made that assertion in a comment in which you said that context was all-important.
Very specifically, I’m not asking you to concede my point about what he was really saying, although such a concession is a good thing. I am asking why you made it in the first place. Did you know that Romney wasn’t saying that and yet you said he had? Or did you not know that Romney was not really saying that? If the answer is that you knew he wasn’t talking about Obamacare and yet you said he was anyway, my question is why you felt it was okay to do that. If your answer is that you didn’t know it, that’s a lot better. But in that case I would further suggest that you check the context of truncated quotes before you use them. Truncated quotes are a minefield. It’s easy to make errors if you use them without checking the context carefully.
One other thing: you are still incorrect about the quote. Romney wasn’t saying that Romneycare was nothing to get angry about in the general sense (although I assume he probably believes that). He was saying that in the debate, Santorum shouldn’t get angry while discussing it.
I happen to think it was a silly remark—if Santorum wants to get angry, it’s fine with me, whether it be about Romneycare or anything else.
gcotharn,
I think the point Romney faced was that there was already government interference in healthcare, that said interference was unaffordable, and that something had to be done to prevent even greater, unstoppable interference. He didn’t start with a bunch of country doctors accepting eggs and chickens from their patients. The Globe article says that some aspects of Romneycare work and others don’t. It does seem like Romney tried to come up with a plan that allows revision, unlike, say, the British system. He keeps hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and patients involved as actors and not as supplicants. This is very different from a Beltway bureaucrat trying to apply the same standards to Wyoming and Massachusetts by way of ever increasing mountains of regulation.
I couldn’t help notice the difference between Romney’s hands-on approach and Obama’s leave-it-to-Nancy one.
Incidentally, if the people of Mass. wanted “Romneycare”, and he had to fight the legislature to make it more conservative, how again is it honest to call him the author of the thing? There’s a curious dichotomy here, wanting to assign the bad parts of “leadership” to Romney but still demanding he listen to the people. Seems to me that the bulk of Romneycare’s apparent underlying philosophy of “the Government will help” isn’t Romney’s doing in the first place. If the people of Mass. wanted that sort of health care, and Romney fought them on it, seems to me he’d get pilloried for being a petty tyrant, out of touch with the people.
It’s part of the underlying problem here with Obama, too. He’s a symptom of the vast swaths of voters who actually *do* want his sort of insane governance. He’s not the source of the philosophy, he’s merely embodying it, and there are still a scary number of people who like him, and would even drag him further into statism and tyranny if they had their way.
neo,
I was quoting from my memory of watching the debate. Here is what I said:
I wrote it that way, in part, for sake of brevity. I suck at brevity. When I was writing it, I wondered exactly what he was talking about when he said it, and how should I phrase it. My next thought was:
So, since that was the briefest, most to-the-point statement, and since I have a giant problem being brief, and am always trying (and failing) to be brief: that is how I wrote it.
In that moment, I thought it would be unfair and reckless to place quotes this way “[Obamacare is] not worth getting angry about”, but I thought it fair to write it the way I did: Obamacare is “not worth getting angry about.”
After you protested, I came to agree that I misrepresented Romney’s context.
I did not misrepresent the view of voters who believe that government messes up healthcare. Those voters, according to their and my view of reality, heard Romney effectively say (in a Freudian slip kind of way): Obamacare is not worth getting angry about.
It is a gaffe. Romney will likely be the Repub nominee, and Obama will beat him up with this quote during the general election.
Also, separately, and maddeningly, notice why the gaffe occurred: Romney was doing his raison d’etre thing of justifying voting for Romney via pointing an alleged personal flaw of an opponent, i.e. was attempting to say: Rick Santorum has an angry temperament! If Romney had simply stayed on the topic: philosophy of governing, and if Romney had not defaulted to: look at my opponents’ flaws!, then the gaffe would not have occurred.
gcotharn,
I can understand the frustration and anger when you are trying to explain what you did and why and your opponent continues to argue as if you were starting from a clean slate with no opposition. One of the big problems with some conservatives is that they think just saying no is going to solve the problem. They usually don’t present detailed alternatives about the way forward nor do they look at the consequences of losing the battle for the sake of ideological purity.
We have two problems: one is showing the majority of people why the big government approach is wrong; the other is making real decisions about the way forward when ideological purity is not an option. The conservative principles set needs to tone down the noise against those who have to make real-world decisions and compromises, and the compromisers out of necessity need to explain how their actions will move things in a different direction and give us room to fight another day. Right now, these intraparty battles and the way they are being conducted make the Republicans look bad. We are playing in to the MSM’s hands. We have to get smarter, not louder.
expat,
As best I can understand your comment, you are speaking of Romney and supporters making “real world decisions”, while us nonRomneys live in fantasy world.
In fact, the true conflict is about the best way to win independent voters. The Romneys want to pander to them, and to be careful to not scare them. Us nonRomneys believe those are ineffective ways of winning independent voters. We believe the most effective way to win independent voters is to speak truth about the superiority of small government, and to win those voters to the truth.
There is no issue of real world vs fantasy world – that is insulting to us. Rather, there is genuine intellectual disagreement about the most effective real world method of winning independent voters.
The reason Romney has not won us over … is that Romney has not internalized the first principles of conservatism. Romney is running on 1) his outstanding skills, and 2) on a platform of: My opponents have more flaws than I do! Let me show you all my opponents flaws!
Neither of those will win us over. We are looking for someone who understands first principles of conservatism, and who can and will communicate them, and who will run on them. Romney will never do that. He judges such as an inferior way to win an election. He is wrong about that. And that is why we keep turning, turning, turning, away from Romney, and towards ANYONE else who might plausibly win.
I suspect Romney will win the nomination, and pretty easily. And I expect Romney will defeat Obama, and do so soundly. And, if all that happens, I will maintain that Romney ought have won the nomination far more easily, and Romney ought have won the general election far more easily. I will maintain that Romney had the wrong strategy, and cost himself significant numbers of votes.