Nice to see I am not the only Obama detractor who nevertheless wants Romney to crash and burn. Shikha Dalmia over at Reason writes 5 Reasons why conservatives should root for a Romney defeat:
The GOP is in a state of intellectual flux, illustrated perfectly by the ideological heterodoxy of its presidential field. Various strains representing different interests are fighting for the soul of the GOP: The neocons are duking it out with anti-war Paulistas. Social moderates are trying to wrest some space from pro-life religious conservatives. Deficits and debt worry everyone, but there is no consensus on entitlement reform. The GOP allegedly stands for the free market—but it has yet to figure out whether Bush’s financial bailout was right or wrong.
A visionless, rudderless, gaffe-prone presidency is the last thing that Republicans need right now. Having to defend Romney’s slips—he’s insulted 7-Eleven cookies, said he enjoys firing people, and announced he is not concerned about the very poor, and that’s just this year—will further contort the party’s soul. Four years of Romneyisms, all of which smack of elitism, will cement the image of the GOP as the out-of-touch party of the rich.
Better that the GOP remain in the political wilderness for another four years (and, hopefully, find itself) than have a Romney presidency prolong its intellectual and moral confusion.
That is more or less how I see it as well.
Pardon my French, but are you nuts???
Four more years of quantitative easing will destroy the U. S. dollar and the American middle class, and four more years of ObamaCare will make slaves of us all.
Two more Supreme Court nominations will put that body out of reach for a generation. It’s all over if we lose this one.
I quite agree. The collapse of the so-called Weimar Republc is to be welcomed, and likewise the crushing of the “Social Democrats” who are really social fascists.
The temporary ascendancy of the NSDAP cannot last for more than a few years. it will be a small price to pay for the total exposure of the fundamental contradicitions of capitalism and the final victory of the Revolution.
And you will get exactly that from Romney too… Four years of Bush style QE and bail outs and instead of ObamaCare, it will be called RomneyCare.
So conservatives should hope for a Romney defeat – what about the rest of us?
I personally think the Neolib racialist agenda personified in the Obama administration is far more destructive to the way people have to live with one another than any possible anti-abortion blather from a Republican administration.
Anti-abortion blather is the least of the problems with Romney. It is the fact he supports a massive interventionist regulatory state with bail outs, QE, a huge role for the government in healthcare and all that wonderful stuff, that is the real problem. The GOP is picking someone who is just a variation on the same theme as the other side.
I am not a conservative
Thus, for me the upcoming elections are not about the perfecrtion of some concept of a political ideology, they are about the operation of government – which is now an administrative state.
Consider the possibility of the continuing majority in the House and possible majority (but not veto-proof) shift in the Senate.
Retain Obama to veto, whilst we wait for conservative ideology to “re-group” and find its fuhrer?
Another 4 years of “the road we are on” with our administrative state will be a road too far.
These priorities of ideological perfection are grossly out of whack.
OH !
And the next SCOTUS vacancies which are almost certain to occur 2013-2018?
Heads out of laps everyone.
Interesting (I thought) piece on this subject from Timothy Sandefur:
http://sandefur.typepad.com/freespace/2012/04/why-i-will-be-voting-for-obama-for-president.html
But also:
I can never understand how this canard survives. I appreciate that many people aren’t very politically sophisticated, but if this idea was ever true it hasn’t been true for generations. Is the constant stereotyping by Hollywood all that’s needed to make something accepted wisdom, or is there more to it than that?
So – in that sense the Republicans are not distinguishable from the Democrats. Since I do not care even one tiny iota about improving the GOP, but I can point to very real, immediate and (I contend) party-specific damage that the miserable Obama and crew are causing with their racialist politics, just why should I vote for that nest of vile Neolib scum if all else is equal?
Somehow I am left thinking that Shikha’s article would be much better read in the past tense at some future date, maybe as a counter-factual moaning about the loathsome GOP and their awful internal constiuencies.
More Obama is truly a horrible prospect.
You know, I love this website. It has some of the highest minded and intellectually stimulating debate in the blogosphere. And I like it’s particularly British (English?) flavor.
So, I’ll put this as gently as possible: this is the dumbest thing ever posted on this site and, not to put to fine a point on it, just because you Brits have had to live with this nonsense for a few decades, don’t wish your misery on us Yankees. How’s that whole ‘finding itself’ idea working out for the Tories? Do you see the NHS going away anytime soon? How many generations need to live under it before you properly learn your lesson? How has soul crushing dependency of the Russian people helped the classical liberal message there?
We have one shot, ONE!, at overturning Obamacare and putting a never-fucking-again line in the sand on such nonsense and that is right now. Regardless of what the Supreme Court does (which most likely will be only a partial repeal), the thing needs to be repealed in whole. Romneycare or no (and Romney’s plan wasn’t nearly as similar to Obamacare as purposed), Romney will be beholden to a GOP congress that wants the thing off the books. A repeal of half of the last 4 year’s nonsense (Dodd Frank et al) can only happen in 2013 before it becomes standard and the market adjusts (by market, I mean the market leaders who learn to profit under it and like the laws to insulate them from competition. Look at SOX, everyone hates it, even Democrats, but it ain’t going away is it?).
Romney isn’t great to be sure, but this purity test is utterly stupid when we have a fucking marxist in the White House. This meme can only be described as Libertarian debate club asshattery (you know, the stuff that works great at the pub but goes nowhere in the voting booth). With an Obama victory, while the Republicans are ‘finding themselves’, the nation will be losing its soul.
Really, given the tea part movement and the Paul Ryan reform proposals (spare me his complaints over Ayn Rand please), are we not a long way removed from Bush’s compassionate conservatism already?
What a genuinely awful insane idea it is to root for a Romney loss.
Now, back to your otherwise great programming Perry.
And please note the capital “L” above in the phrase “Libertarian debate club asshattery.” It was intentional.
How did that GOP congress work out when Dubya was in the White House? Oh yeah, they rubber stamped every big government shitfest that he sent their way, increasing the size of government more than any other in history.
Sorry Russ but if most right thinking people in the USA think a vote for Romney is *not* a vote for more-of-the-same repackaged, then the US is just as fucked as the UK.
Romney is a massive interventionist statist, so it is hardly a straw-splitting ‘purity test’ going on here. Romney will be the US version of Cameron and Cameron is basically Tony Blair with half the IQ… a money printing jackanapes who will prevent any realistic opposition ever forming.
When the Tea Party *is* the GOP, it will be worth voting for. Until then, the best way to make sure the Tea Party never actually succeeds will be for its supporters to vote for an apparatchik of the Old Guard like Romney.
The trouble with this kayfabe oppositional politics is that people even have debates like these. Four years of apparently rudderless “right wing ” government while the progressive agenda is nevertheless advanced( while the media trumpets the opposite) leading to a victory for the left wing party at the next election, or four more years with the foot to the floor? Either way you lose. The only hope is to break entirely the two-party system, which is possible but unlikely in both phases of the storyline.
I’m very fond of Perry and almost always agree with him. However, on this one I’m with Russ.
“Better that the GOP remain in the political wilderness for another four years (and, hopefully, find itself) than have a Romney presidency prolong its intellectual and moral confusion.” Really? Really? Did the GOP “find itself” after the disastrous (or, less charitably, idiotic) nominations of Dole (which begat Clinton) or McCain (which begat Obama)? Or after 8 years of the “kinder and gentler” Bush II? It’s not going to happen, and we have to deal with the party as it really is, since the Democrats are irredeemable. Which means nudging the GOP away from statism whenever possible, and when it’s not at least holding the line against further encroachment. And also preventing the appointment of more socialist Supreme Court justices with life tenure.
I believe that Perry has previously (not in this post) said something to the effect that a Romney presidency would be little different than an Obama one; that either will result in the collapse of the US as we know it; and that since it’s going to happen anyway better to accellerate the process so we can begin building something better in the rubble. If that’s true, and collapse is inevitable, electing Romney won’t matter. But if it’s not, and there is even the slightest hope that with better Congressional leadership (Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, etc.) we can turn from the current path and save ourselves (and maybe even you while we’re at it), then electing even a rudderless, malleable Romney is an absolutely necessity. There’s no guarantee of success, but also no downside. None at all.
Reminds me of the 60’s when the radical left wing types argued for increasing misery that would eventually lead to revolution and bring them to power. I thought it was silly then, and think it silly now. But your suggestion does reinforce my sense that there is a deep connection between libertarians and lefties. The coloring is different, but they seem to belong to the same sub-species.
You seem to be forgetting that Tories are currently in power, and that Cameron *is* a Romney.
And, what Jordan said.
Still, Perry, I really do see you logic, but: you were calling for the same approach 4 years ago, and we got ourselves Obama in the WH just as you “hoped”. My question is, how many more years of Obama (or similar, or worse – yes, it can be worse) should we take for the GOP to “find itself”?
It’s a very weak argument because all the divisions within the GOP today will still be there in four years. In the meantime, you can ameliorate some of the damage done by Obama, or you can accelerate the damage, as will surely happen once the current president no longer bothers with his reelection prospects.
As a Canadian, I can guarantee you that once the Left nationalizes health care and god knows what else in the next term, the public will never be weaned off ‘free stuff’ again.
And do I have to mention selections for the Supreme Court?
Presidents always show their true colours in their second term. Obama’s voting record makes it clear he is the most anti-constitution president in history.
If he gets back in expect a new assault weapons ban, a restoration of the DC and Chicago gun bans, maybe even a nationwide handgun ban. Bye-bye second amendment.
Also expect the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act to be overturned as well as the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. Now maybe not everyone here is as anti-abortion as me, but Obama’s opposition to those bills had me wondering if the man had a soul……
I don’t know if America could survive 4 years of Obama when he no longer has anything to lose and can just “be himself”.
And now that I’m at a real computer and can type with all my fingers: that was a real question. I really do see Perry’s logic, but I am divided on this. BTW, before anyone brings up the ‘perfect is the enemy of the good’ argument’ (as they always do), I really don’t think that anyone is expecting a perfect candidate from the GOP (or from any political party anywhere, for that matter), all one asking for is someone who is at least somewhat sympathetic to smaller government, lower spending and taxes, etc, and is willing to take at least some steps in a direction reverse to the one taken by both Bush and Obama. Unfortunately for all of us, Romney shows no sign whatsoever that he is that kind of guy.
Prediction is difficult. Especially of the future. So said some wiseacre. Truth: each strategy has a certain unknowable likelihood of e.g. partial success. What are the conditions for “waking up” America, or portions of Great Britain for that matter? What kind of shock to the system would cause the ignorant and self-deluded to stop and reassess themselves? We’re not talking about the threshold for revolution, which activists on all sides have traditionally fared poorly in guessing. We’re talking about a lower threshold, where the logic of the opposing camp, or any camp, suddenly must come under scrutiny activated by an enraged psyche. What defines that outrage? Toads on hot plates, here. We need a kick. Time’s a’wastin’. But if you guess wrong, and it ends up worsening your subsequent chances, you’ll have plenty of time to lick your wounds. And the new ones. So choose wisely.
No, I am not arguing that ‘collapse is inevitable’ (highly likely but not inevitable).
What I am and have always argued is that voting the lesser evil inevitably leads to incrementally more and more evil choices until mega statist A and mega statist B differ only in increasingly trivial degrees… and the only chance of a genuine and more importantly, viable alternative is for people to… er… insist on precisely that.
The fact that the GOP has chosen to back someone whom is the very epitome a Big State candidate rather than a Tea Party candidate speaks volumes of the rot at the very core of the party. A vote for Romney is just digging the same hole deeper, only (maybe) a tiny bit slower… but it is *not* a vote to get out of the hole.
So you wring your hands about the ObamaCare and then get ready to vote for Mister RomneyCare? So did Romney oppose the vast bail outs under Bush and Obama? I mean seriously, if you think a vote for Romney will save you, when he is to the left economically of even the profligate George Bush… well as commenter Jordan put it:
Yeah, the whole ‘vote the lesser evil’ strategy really hasn’t been a shining success now, has it? The very existence of the Tea Party is a recognition of that.
Michael Kent said:
Thinking cynically, if you were a Republican presidential candidate would you rather have more shit hit the fan on your watch or while the other fella is in the firing line? With the latter choice you can bide your time and then present yourself as the solution to whatever problems ail the US.
I’m not been following US politics much. Is it the same grey politics Britain is suffering with leaders all saying pretty much the same tripe and elections being ‘won’ through support for the incumbent evaporating rather than a swell of support for an opponent?
BTW, this entire discussion rests on the premise that there will be elections after another Obama term – but I don’t think that we can count on that. OTOH, 4 years of Romney can bring into the WH someone even worse than Obama.
“We have one shot, ONE!, at overturning Obamacare and putting a never-fucking-again line in the sand on such nonsense and that is right now. Regardless of what the Supreme Court does (which most likely will be only a partial repeal), the thing needs to be repealed in whole. Romneycare or no (and Romney’s plan wasn’t nearly as similar to Obamacare as purposed), Romney will be beholden to a GOP congress that wants the thing off the books. A repeal of half of the last 4 year’s nonsense (Dodd Frank et al) can only happen in 2013 before it becomes standard and the market adjusts (by market, I mean the market leaders who learn to profit under it and like the laws to insulate them from competition. Look at SOX, everyone hates it, even Democrats, but it ain’t going away is it?).”
Agreed. I think Perry and the likes of Tim Sandefur (normally I agree with them on pretty much everything) are wrong here. The priority must be to get this hard-left POTUS out of the White House and kill off some destructive legislation.
We had a debate here in Britain over Cameron. Do we burn down the village in the hope of building a new one, or do we try for incremental change and kill off some of the bad things done by the other side (in that case, Gordon Brown). It is an argument that is never going to be fully resolved because it depends on “what if” counterfactuals.
Incremental change is exactly what *is* happening. In the wrong direction. And voting for someone who will do more or less the same, just a wee bit less, is a vote for more of the same.
And far from a counter-factual, Cameron is doing almost none of the things to undo what Brown did and indeed the state continues to grow, as I have always predicted would be the case. So I must say to those who urged a vote for Tories to ‘save us from what Brown has done’… well we have the Tories and yet amazingly little has changed.
I agree with Perry de Havilland.
This is for all the marbles.
I am not sure that the USS Titanic can be turned around to avoid the iceberg of fiscal and political collapse. However, to wish that we would “go ahead and hit the damn thing already!” just so we can find out how cold the water is, in my eyes, childish.
I have no confidence that the USA can recover from the collapse of constitutional government that four more years of Obama must bring will result in a rebirth of America. More likely, it will be followed by a totalitarian government of some sort.
I really don’t want to swim in freezing waters just to satisfy the desire to “get it over with already.” I am sure many people in 1917 Russia were anxious for “change” and hated the idea of a constitutional monarchy because it seemed like compromise. They got their change, good and hard, and I imagine most didn’t like it, if they survived.
I would prefer a rebirth of America but I would rather keep it on life support a few more years than see what “rough beast” comes after.
Look, I get the logic and I get the philosophical argument. It just doesn’t mesh with current reality. A) Cameron did not run as an anti-statist. Neither did Bush. B) Compassionate Conservatism was big government conservatism to anyone willing to notice. We got what we voted for. That the GOP congress was run by corruptocrats has a lot to do with how philosophically nice, but managerial challenged the previous leaders were (aka those old college professors Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey). That we wasted 2000-2006 is totally true but misses the point that now is different. We don’t have a good economy to hide the waste in DC.
Romney is running to repeal ObamaCare. A lot of the similarities with RomneyCare were similar to things in RomneyCare that were vetoed by Romney but put in after he left or in overriden vetoes. Romney is running as the closest thing to an anti-statist that we have. He’s far from perfect. Noted. I get that. Also get the lesser evil argument in general, and when Libertarians leave the debate clubs and approach things with the knowledge of, you know, governing in a complicated democracy, we might have a viable 3rd party. But we don’t, so arguing against the 3rd party system is arguing like against the weather right now.
And Congress HAS changed. We are regularly seeing primary challenges to GOP Senators from Incumbantstan. This is changing their behavior. The Tea Party is not in charge, but it is moving the dial. Paul Ryan is also far from perfect but he proposes real reform in the right direction. Sure, if enacted it might save a state that is still too big but the alternative is an outright collapse and I quite frankly don’t want to, nor do I want my kids to, live through that. Because collapses, as history tells us, are more likely to lead to an ascendant left than ascendent right or classical liberalism or whatever you want to call it.
Again, 4 more years of Obama won’t make the Libertarians any more appealing or the GOP any less internally inconsistent. The economy WILL grow. It won’t be big growth, but it may be enough for people to get used to the new reality. I fucking don’t want to live in Western Europe. 4 more years of Obama, without repeal of ObamaCare or any of the dumbass regulations he’s passed will cement that.
We need more tea party-esque Congressmen and Senators. The only way that happens is with a Romney victory. It’s possible the GOP could increase it’s share in Congress but it would be historically odd. With Romeny + coat tails, its more likely to happen. We are on the edge of an abyss. Our fiscal crisis will almost certainly continue under Romney, but the relationship between state and citizen CAN change in the right direction. He’s campaigned on the right things. And he did TRY to make Mass. less liberal. Some things, though, are intractible (speaking of places where classical liberalism have gone to die).
There were no tea party candidates in the primary (and please, no Ron Paul wasn’t that guy, his son could be, but Ron is not). Romney is not Cameron. He is not campaigning like Cameron (or Dubya). He is campaigning like a Paul Ryan. Could he be lieing? Of course. But, it’s a bet we HAVE TO make that he’s not.
Look politicians come and go but bureacracy is the most difficult thing to remove. The more bureacracy you have, the harder it is to rip out any of it. Look at how the Democrats don’t want ANY spending cuts. Not even the unspent portion of the stimulus. They are hopeless.
What you call the lessor evil utterly misses the point that we are teetering on the edge of implanting the greater evil permanently. This is not hard people.
The US has ‘The System’ of governance now, as we have had in Europe for some time. The System does not allow voters the chance to vote for real change, for the reduction in State power and influence. It only allows candidates that propose either more State power, or lots more State power. So it matters not who you vote for, as the result is a ratchet in the same direction.
The State will only ever be diminished by force. Not necessarily violence, but monetary force ie lack of funds to enforce its wishes. The only thing that will destroy the State Leviathan is the removal of its life force – money. And ironically it will destroy money in its efforts to continually expand, and thus seal its own fate.
Until that happens you can vote for who you like, it won’t make an iota of difference.
If Romney is a not-very-good ‘best we can get’, I think we’ll have to take him. At his worst he’ll do less harm than Obama and – if at his worst – may very well reinvigorate the Tea Party, to the extent that it needs reinvigorating.
Besides – the one Mormon I ever worked for was the sanest and most moral man I ever met, and a superb leader. Romney may surprise us there once he has some running room. Or not, in which case a routine politician is still better than Obama.
Amusing and (to a lesser extent) enlightening as all the commentary may be, there seems to be total disregard for how the U S Government operates. The Presidency (an administration) is not the same as The President. The power of the Executive office is an inverse function of a dysfunctionate Legislative branch (House & Senate).
That power of the Presidency, when available, is effective to the extent of the competency in selecting, installing and coordinating an even more competent Administration. The President does not run the operations, he “ runs” people (to the extent of his competency). He makes decisions, but not their execution.
True, a large part of the electorate will see the choice of an individual in the same light as Perry. However, they will likely take a different view in much of the legislative contests. And, of course, it will all turn on perceptions, the creation and maintenance of perceptions. Take a few moments to consider the nature of the perceptions reflected on this blog, how they may have formed and where they may not be the full reality.
The most critical issue is to mitigate, if not end, the dysfunction of the legislative branches, especially the Senate that has resorted to in camera processes and avoided its legal mandates.
@jordan – re-examine that concept of the “rubber stamp.” It was more of the Executive rubber-stamping the legislative. The legislative majority of that period formed some gawd-awful combines with parts of the minority. Believe me, I was there.
But that is not my argument. My contention is that the only way to get the USS Titanic to not keep heading for the iceberg is to elect someone who will turn the ship around rather than someone who will just aim for a different part of the iceberg.
My contention is that Romney will do nothing meaningful to avoid disaster (indeed he will largely continue with the whole panoply of “Big State as the solution to everything”) but electing him will have the added long term effect of acquiescing to the failure (so far) of people like the Tea Party’s attempts to make the GOP worth voting for, and I think *that* is the only way to actually avoid, or at least recover from, disaster.
In short, if the Tea Party represents the ‘good enough’ face of the Republican Party, you cannot help its attempts to take over the GOP by voting for a Republican who is the very antithesis of the limited government sound money principles the Tea Party (sort of) stands for. This is not a ‘purity test’, it is about not supporting someone whose entire political career has been about making Big Government get even Bigger.
Most Republicans are Socialist Right.
They increase the state economic power at every Presidency…
Let Obama win a close Pyrrhic victory, Republicans should make all efforts to dominate the House and the Senate.
The only thing that can save people from creeping socialism is an increase of conflict between both sides.
With conflict they can’t pass legislation so easy.
“The economy WILL grow. ”
Sorry but you have no clue what growth means.
10% GDP Gov. Deficit and 2% growth is no growth. It is a big recession and/or inflation, just differed. You or your children will pay it.
What conflict? Like the one where the President does whatever he feels like because ‘if Congress will not act, I will’, without so much as an ‘excuse me?’ from Congress?
Re Jordan’s comment about “rubber-stamping” under Bush II: Yes, the Republican-controlled Congresses of 2000-06 were a disaster, but I wouldn’t expect to see anything remotely like that under a Romney presidency. We’re not still in shock from 9/11 and, even more importantly, we don’t have an economic boom to mask the rot. Many conservatives, even at the time, were dismayed by the statism displayed by the Republican Congress, and the recognition of a wasted opportunity has only grown since then. That, plus disgust at what Obama has wrought, is what gave rise to the Tea Party movement itself. It returned control of the House to the Republicans in 2010, but with many new faces and a discernable change in tone (including the ascendancy of some who had previously labored in obscurity). That will only continue in 2012, and in my opinion a Romney presidency would accellerate the rise of the anti-leviathan movement.
It’s likely that Romney wouldn’t instigate any significant shrinkage of government, but he wouldn’t block it, either. That’s the key difference between him and Obama. And once he’s finished campaigning and settles in to actual governing, he just might surprise you.
As far as I could tell there was NO tea party candidate to vote for. Every nominee the Repubs ran this year flat out sucked in one way or another. I’m a financial and foreign policy conservative who feels the federal government has no business having anything to do with social issues. And I couldn’t vote for any of them in the primaries.
Currently around 50% of our country lives off of the government dole: government jobs at all levels, welfare, food stamps, military. Those 50% are always going to vote overwhelmingly to continue their leechful ways. That’s why someone like Romney (a RINO worse than McCain) can get the nomination.
Besides being more alike than different, the Repubs and Dems don’t actually run the government anyway. The bureaucracy has become so large and powerful (SWAT team for the Dept. of Education for crying out loud) that no matter who wins this year that monster will continue to grow sucking the life out of the United States…and I fear it may be too late for anyone to do anything about it.
Uhhh…note, I do NOT believe the military personnel are part of the “leechful ways” I mentioned above. I should have made that clear. The military IS a part of the fed government I support, and I whole heartedly believe the military should get paid as well as we can afford.
It’s the government workers at the EPA, HUD, Education, etc that I believe are leeches sucking the life out of the country….
Whilst Romney thrills me not one little bit, it must be said that he managed to get elected as the Republican governor of Massachussetts. You have to see his record in that light. No doubt if he had been governor of Texas his legislative track record would look somewhat different.
As to el Presidente Zero, he has given a huge clue as to his intentions in his off the record chat with Medvedev. If he is re-elected, his gloves will be off, and we will see the real Marxist. If I were an American it’s not a risk I would be willing to take.
I am entirely sanguine — I trust Detlev Schlichter more than I trust Romney, and if he’s right, it’s simply a question of who’s going to be in office to take the blame when it hits.
I would FAR rather see a rabid and pissed-off Republican House scrapping with a Democratic Senate and POTUS than Republicans being on the stick for all of it when TSHTF, as inevitably it must.
‘… the only way to get the USS Titanic to not keep heading for the iceberg is to elect someone who will turn the ship around rather than someone who will just aim for a different part of the iceberg.’
Fine. Understood.
WHO do you suggest ? ( that, quite frankly, WILL NOT win ) ?
That’s the dilemma.
Like it or not, I know it stinks, BUT ….
you are either going to get Romney or Obama for at least the next 4 years ( barring anything completely unforeseen )
Staying home and playing
‘I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue and not vote for anybody – THAT’ll teach them’
is childish.
Normally, I agree with Perry most of the time but not this time ( ‘until the GOP ‘finds itself’ – what the hell does that mean – sounds like 70’s psychobabble ).
I have to go with Russ 100%.
4 more years of Obama will lash the wheel on the Titanic.
Remember, NO ONE in his pathetic, destructive, hateful, miserable circle nor he will give a tinker’s damn about reelection if he wins in November.
Childish? Then think this through: if the GOP establishment can run a ‘bail outs, state healthcare and regulation’ statist like Romney and STILL get the vote of people who actually want sound money and less government, then clearly the apparatchiks can tell the Tea Party to go boils its head because all they have to do is run some guy who is infinitesimally less awful whatever jackanapes the Democrats run and… voila… they have your vote.
Indeed that is exactly what they are counting on. And that is why the Tea Party has not yet managed to breach the GOPs inner sanctum.
Childish, in my opinion, is voting for someone whose entire political career is expanding the remit of the state and expecting something other than an expanding state. You want to make a difference? Make it clear to your local Republican Party that until they run an actual conservative, they will NOT get your vote. That might actually do something useful.
But hey, if you will settle for the Captain ramming USS Titanic into the iceberg just as long as it not rammed into the left side of it, well, Romney is your man 🙂
RRS comment at May 2, 2012 01:39 PM fits exactly with my perception of the problem and how it compares to the Roman Republic becoming the Roman Empire. [Bold in the original]
Unless the Senate fulfills its Constitutional mandates, nothing at all matters. The Democratic controlled Senate has unequivocally demonstrated its total abdication of responsibility. The Establishment Republican Senate bartered away their souls under Bush and nothing indicates they have changed. The battle that matters is Tea Party conquest of the Senate and Tea Party retention and advance in the House.
The strongest possible message to the legacy Republican Establishment will be a substantial vote spread between ‘Republican’ presidential votes and Tea party legislative votes wherever they share a ballot. By all means, vote your legislative ballots. The Senate race is where liberty will live or die.
I agree with Midwesterner. If enough Tea Party candidates win House and Senate (especially Senate) seats Romney won’t be a problem. But Obama will, even if Tea Party Republicans take both houses of Congress. Which is the short answer to Perry’s argument.
“I refute it thus!”
You may disagree but you refute nothing. Indeed as I have written before the mere fact an appalling candidate like Romney will get the nod is a measure of the failure of the Tea Party to make serious inroads into the GOP’s power structure.
Laird,
I think we differ on a key point. Rolling back the ongoing nullification of the Constitution by the National government is going to require energy from both houses of Congress plus the states. With a Romney White House, nothing fundamental will change.
We need a fundamental, structural reversal in the way the state governments and the federal government relate. That will require a show down. Only states have executive branches capable of countering the National Executive. Yes, I agree with people who fear we will lose that battle. But electing Romney guarantees we will never have it.
Electing Romney will only serve to paralyze and divide Republicans of varying degrees of Tea Partyness. Romney will get his nominations without any consequential challenge and the entire battle will be about what more to do, not whether to do it (to say nothing of what to undo).
Perry, my quotation was supposed to give you a smile, not evoke a serious response. Lighten up, man!
We don’t disagree that the Tea Party has (so far) failed to make sufficient inroads into the GOP’s power structure. But it’s only 3 years old; these things take time. Rome didn’t fall in a day. Progress is being made, just not as quickly as you or I would like. But there does seem to be progress.
Anyway, I’ve said my piece and this is your site, so I’m happy to cede you the last word.
Ah, Mid, I see that I misunderstood you, and that you’re in Perry’s camp on this (although your argument is subtly different). Sorry. No disagreement from me that the states will need to be engaged in this fight to reverse decades of federal usurpations. I just disagree that Romney would be an impediment to it. Given sufficient public sentiment to engage in the fight I think Romney would go along with it (although not lead it). But who knows? You (both) might be right.
With no claim to expertise on current “grass roots” activities, the matter of “tea Party inroads into the GOP power structure,” is not at issue to the concerns of their members – as I think Middy can confirm.
Their concern is with providing representative authority, which occurs at the legislative, not the executive level.
They will be a dominant force in many of the most crucial legislative contests (as they have proven at primaries).
Rather than 3d party tactics they have taken on a decrepit set of “power structures,” which have so far fallen or retreated or joined.
Politics is still local. That is why the one office that is a national election lies outside the direct effect of something like the Tea Party Movement.
The function of political parties has changed extensively in my lifetime. The grass roots effect may not be direct, but it will be seen.
Not grumpy, Laird, sorry if I came across that way 🙂
I’ve always disdained “drive it off a cliff” arguments, on the grounds that there’s a whiff of the Marxist dialectic about them.
But I must confess, I’m coming around to Perry’s point of view. We’ve been repeating the same sad compromises for so long that expecting this compromise to effect change feels a lot like Einstein’s definition of insanity.
Four more years of Obama appointees writing regulations? Uh-uh. No.
Four more years of Obama appointments at ever level of the Federal judiciary? Pass.
Welp, if we want the fifth estate to live up to it’s self-proclaimed billing than we must elect a pachyderm as chief exec. It’s been made manifestly obvious that the lamestream media is not up to the task when a fellow traveler holds the reins (whip?).
Krikey, that disgraced, cashiered jackwagon Rather still insists his fabricated hit job on Bush the Younger was ‘fake, but accurate’.
I strongly suspect that the Tea Party, having seen the results of ‘compassionate conservatism’, isn’t likely to sit back and watch it happen again. I know I won’t.
Yes, many felt the same about McCain, didn’t vote, and look where we are now. If the Republicans ever come up with an “ideal” candidate, the thirty some percent of the vote that she’ll garner will make us all feel really special. And we’d still be stupid.
Pretty much where McCain, a Big Stater if ever there was, would have taken the USA… well, no ObamaCare as such but all the other mega statist lunacy such as wild printing and bailouts.
Because voting for candidates (like Bush, for example) who greatly expand the size of the state would be a sign of non-stupidity? Really?
Hey I was smited about 3 or 4 hours ago can you find it in all this heap?
I tried ti give an idea of where grass roots fit into the national scheme
Goodness, do you guys watch American politics? Political movements don’t grow overnight. Romney is proof the Tea Party hasn’t made serious inroads? How so?
Please name a person who could qualify as a ‘Tea Party’ candidate who would have remotely the resume to get the swing votes in key states? Like it or not, voters on the right are more likely to want someone with experience, real experience. Palin didn’t want to run. Paul Ryan? Chris Christie? Rand Paul who had been on the national stage for just a few months? It just doesn’t work that way. Well, unless the Democrats run a half-black man that started running for the presidency a few months after moving to DC and the Republicans sit home because they don’t like the warmed over Senator that got nominated.
Let’s see. The Tea Party nearly shut down the government (and got killed for it) with the latest debt ceiling increase. And the comprimise was utter shit and so we’ve learned that lesson…maybe. Not a single Republican voted on ObamaCare or the Stimulus in the House. Barely any did in the Senate (those vaunted moderates!). You have a rediculously high standard if you don’t recognize what they have accomplished.
Romney’s tune is all economic and fiscal conservatism all the time. Again, he could be full of it, but he’s got a lot of film if he has. The Tea Party have taken out multiple long time establish candidates in the Senate. They are making a serious run at two more right now. You think they wouldn’t vote for a more seasoned Rand Paul in a primary challenge against Romney if he f’d this up?
Again, I get the argument, but I happen to believe that Obama’s policies are the most nation-changing policies in my lifetime and certainly since the New Deal. He’s the first president reared by the post-60’s academia. He got a lot of votes from other products of the intellectual rot that is our school systems. A larger Tea Party contigency in Congress + a Romney victory with promises of repealing most Obama’s policies (and possibly even cutting a deparment or two) is the best that we can hope for. But, here’s what I know. An Obama victory will insure that none of that happens. And we may get more Commerce-Claus-Gives-Me-All-The-Power-I-Want justices.
Where is the proof, in any country, where both statist parties fucked things up enough to the point a true classical liberal “revolution” occured? And if you mention any of the eastern European nations, let me just say, I don’t want to go as far down that road to serfdom just to the repeatability of that example.
Yes, the GOP is not great. Yes, they have silly inconsistencies. Yes, they like God a little TOO much. And none of that matters in this election. Removing a real marxist from the White House is what matters. Let your own house burn if that’s what makes you pat yourself on the back, but it doesn’t fly here.
As someone else said above, the politicians don’t matter. The Bureacracy does. Well, this election holds real promise that SOME bureacracy (any!) will get eleminated. The Titanic doesn’t turn on a dime.
LOL! So he voted against the bail outs under Bush, right? And the whole RomneyCare is an indication of his economic and fiscal conservatism, huh? Ok, good to know the Romster is really One Of Us.
Sheesh.
Russ,
My point is that Romney will be a leash on the Tea Party faction of the Republican legislature. There are too many, even here, calls for Republican Party unity. If Romney wins, the Tea Party element will be fettered within the Republican Party. If Obama wins, I suspect most of the remaining Establishment Republicans will be quite content to let the Tea Party faction fight the front lines.
The real problem is not what this President wants to do. The problem is that the Presidency has usurped the powers that it has. Bush II doubled down on that with his signing statements and unitary executive and all that other imperial bullshit. It is the Office of the Presidency that needs to be taken down, not the policies of any particular President.
Romney will prevent any chance of the Presidency being stuffed back into Article II.
“Again, he could be full of it”
He is full of it.
He is the Socialist Right. What you do call to increasing taxes and resulting expansion of the State/Gov?
VAT for USA you can bet on it too next legislature.
See how inflation* will be even more massaged:
“Chained CPI Switch Is a Slam Dunk, Even in Election Year”
Note this is an editorial not just an opinion piece by the Socialist Right Media:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-25/chained-cpi-switch-is-a-slam-dunk-even-in-election-year.html
Many in the Right are like that: Socialists.
* you can expect also increasingly massaging of all other statistics. That is what happens when information is in politicians hands.
Kim K’s Butt Fluff, precisely what “vote” did Romney have on the Bush bail-outs? Was he in Congress then and I just missed it? And as to Romneycare, I’m no apologist for it, but to be fair the version passed and implemented in that Democrat-dominated state was far different than what he actually proposed (as well as being orders of magnitude different than Obamacare). You might consider getting your facts straight before inserting your foot into your mouth. (But then again, perhaps your nom de web is really a factual description of your commentary, in which case Never Mind.)
Russ: Gary Johnson. Who was explicitly locked out by the establishment on the (quite correct) understanding that his record would be kryptonite to their faction.
Sadly, as a factional warrior, Johnson didn’t have the heft/exposure to pull it off. But a wildly-successful former governor beats a wild and incoherent pizza-chain magnate any day.
“Stay Puft in 2012: Because we can’t afford four more years of Moving Torb!”
Get King Zero out, then cross the streams on Romney.