The Boston Globe and 2 local papers didn't give him a chance. He didn't win a single county in Massachussetts 4 days earlier. Did Cruz really win EVERY county in Maine?
The head of the Ted Cruz campaign has said Heidi is Ted's closest adviser. The FEC violations involve her current employer. No personal attacks, just a necessary professional evaluation of Heidi Cruz's role in the Cruz Crew.
As a self-described "constitutional expert" Canadian born Cruz could do us all a great service to stop illegal immigration by simply answer 4 teeny weeny questions...
Reagan was attacked by the Establishment, but people LIKED him. Cruz on the other hand is despised by mild mannered Huckabee and "sealed lips" George W. There is a reason. Here is an (almost) complete compendium of Cruz lies.
There is a lie being told that "Natural Born Citizen" is not defined anywhere in the Constitution. That's True. What's Not True is that it is NOT settled by the Supreme Court. (It has)
In honor of @pmbasse, a descendant of one of the original 300 Texas settlers, I want to tell you WHY I LOVE TEXAS. As they say, I wasn't born here but I got here as soon as I could. And for me that was 3 times.
When you see who REALLY is running Ted's campaign, you realize how "inside" this pretend outsider is. The top CIA, Goldman Sachs executives are LITERALLY running his campaign.
The most rewarding and frustrating experience on Twitter has to be the concept of Follow Friday. I have a solution. See where PolitiJim gets his news, and twinteraction from.
147 Degrees West (@147DW) has done a wonderful job of putting together the success rate of nominees wrought from a brokered convention. The conclusion: Odds of Beating Obama Are Better By Dumping Mitt. No – really.
Read the entire article by PolitiJim at RantPolitical.com
(For regular PolitiJim readers – I am writing 3 times a week for RantPolitical, but will continue to post new exclusive articles here as well.
I’ve started to hang out at Intellectual Conservative. At times they are neither, but at least they present fairly objective viewpoints. An article speculates on why Santorum is the last man standing. I’m less interested in those arguments than his concluding paragraphs:
So the GOP is left with the last non-Romney – whiny, unaccomplished Rick Santorum. He has no executive experience, a less than endearing personality, no sterling political accomplishments in his résumé and is easily painted as an extreme social conservative. Romney will probably eventually prevail – his Illinois victory this week is more of a harbinger than Santorum's two southern victories last week. But if Rick somehow does manage to secure the nomination, it will be a calamity – for the GOP and for the nation. Not only will he lose to Obama, he could jeopardize GOP control of the House and enable a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. A second administration with the same parameters as in Obama’s first two years could have dire consequences for America: skyrocketing taxes and spending, Greece-like deficits and debt, Obamacare fully implemented, Cap & Trade, and so much more – gigantic steps toward converting America from a freedom-loving republic into a collectivist, Euro welfare state, impotent in foreign affairs and slavishly dependent on an increasingly tyrannical federal government at home.
Romney is no Reagan. But he is conservative America’s best chance to defeat Obama. And even if he doesn't, the ticket he will lead should retain enough handles on the government to forestall the nightmares outlined above and give traditional America some reason to hang on for a while longer until a Reagan-like savior finally appears.
I agree that Santorum will guarantee an Obama victory. After the 4 part vetting of his REAL record and what the MSM will use against him I am now more scared of a Santorum nomination than a Romney one.
And not because Romney will make a decent conservative President. Paul Weyrich forsaw how evil Romney was after initially endorsing him in 2008. But at least he has a shot to beat Obama.
And what will it get us? …A weak version of Bush #3. Clearly there is no desire to completely get rid of all of ObamaCare or initiate great reform. He will get some corporate tax cuts which will revive a sluggish economy but in 4 to 8 years the GOP will not have cut enough and caved to the emotional terrorism of the left & MSM and some bright Democrat star will likely hold it all against him.
How do i know? Because EVERY President ends up being the same person they were before REGARDLESS of rhetoric. Romney's own endorser (Powerline) admits he gave up on MA fiscal discipline at the end of his 2nd year. In a GOOD economy, he was 47th in job creation and implemented the first broad based government healthcare takeover regardless what he wants to say. Bush 41 could "say" NO NEW TAXES all he wanted, but he did what he does. Bush 43 could "say" how conservative he was but he had the EXACT same record of undisciplined government growth he had in Austin TX. They will be WHO they are.
Paul would cut the hell out of government and ignore Israel and nearly every international threat. Santorum would capitulate to every compromise just as he did as the #3 leader of the Senate which spent about $800 Billion and lost control to the Democrats. Gingrich would pass the items that had the most support first - like repealing Obamacare, NO TAXES would ever be raised, he would be HUGE in international and military matters and likely (again) implement historic cuts and conservative causes with a bunch of mumbling wussies who will later backstab him.
All are better than Obama, but one has to get elected first.
Santorum people won’t settle for Romney and I doubt Romney people will settle for Gingrich. Paul’s people will likely miss the convention due to a late night hash fest in Suite P. It really doesn’t matter what deals the candidates make since Tea Party people didn’t come this far to end up with someone either unelectable or unreliable. I like Newt’s chances in a floor debate or speech to become the nominee.
Newt Gingrich is the only candidate still in the field who can clearly take on Barack Obama in one-on-one debate and cut through the Obama rhetoric and mystique with hard facts and plain logic.
Nor is this just a matter of having a gift of gab. Gingrich has a far deeper grasp of both the policies and the politics than the other Republican candidates.
I couldn’t help but make this association today as we head into what some suspect could be the last debate among GOP contenders.
Per WikiPedia: He was known for his neat grooming — hiding his shallow and sneaky character. Typically, Eddie would greet his friends' parents with overdone good manners and often a compliment such as, "That's a lovely dress you're wearing, Mrs. Cleaver" …
However, when no parents were around, Eddie was always up to no good — either conniving with his friends, or picking on Wally's younger brother Beaver. Eddie's two-faced style was also typified by his efforts to curry favor by trying to talk to adults at the level he thought they would respect, such as referring to their children as Theodore (Beaver's much-disliked given name) and Wallace, even though the parents called them Beaver and Wally.
Tell me if this doesn’t work for the Slickster by changing a few details:
Mitt Romney is known for his neat grooming — hiding his shallow and sneaky character. Typically, Romney would greet conservative’s friends with overdone good manners and often a compliment such as, "That's a lovely redress you're declaring, Mrs. Tea Party" … However, when no conservatives were around, Romney was always up to no good — either conniving with his RINO friends, or picking on Reagan’s younger revolutionary Beaver. Romney’s two-faced style was also typified by his efforts to curry favor by trying to talk to conservatives at the level he thought they would respect, such as referring to their philosophy as ‘Severe Conservative” (a never used description).
Again only slight changes in the WikiPedia entry reads:
Ricky is an intelligent, teenage boy, who is trusted by his parents, popular with his social conservative peers, and liked by his religious organizations. He is an advocate for anti-abortion, family values and traditional marriage being his three favorite topics. …Unlike his brother Gingrich (who thinks unions are "creepy"), Ricky has had many pro-union votes during the course of the Senator’s run. The humor of the character rests in Ricky’s teenage perspective. He occasionally makes blunt or inappropriate comments that are bewildering or embarrassing to other Republicans. He slips into religious slang occasionally, which upsets his party. He sometimes humorously regards his competitors as clueless squares.
Unfortunately WikiPedia doesn’t summarize the character traits the same as the other minor players. They do say this which certainly could be applied to Gingrich’s propensity to wander into liberal enclaves and get in trouble with his own party:
Beaver prefers "messin' around" with his pals and reading comic books to attending church or taking dance lessons. Most episodes in the series feature Beaver getting into some sort of trouble at home, in school, or around the neighborhood and then receiving timely and appropriate moral instruction from his father regarding his misbehavior.
My take would be this: Gingrich is the roly poly good natured character with big ideas who is often unafraid to try new adventures, even despite warnings of his much more “square” brother Ricky. He hates Mitt Romney because he can see right through the fake veneer, and is often the target of Romney’s pranks and derision. At heart, Beaver is often misunderstood by his friends and parents although we know that he is genuinely a conservative and will always come around to the right position in the end.
(Lumpy) lives somewhere in the conservative neighborhood, which gives Ronny the opportunity to bully the conservative boys on their way to the nomination. Although a touch of the bully never leaves Ronny, he eventually becomes Romney’s friend. They are in the same class together at school, in spite of a three hundred year age spread between the two.
Perhaps tonight’s debate will be much more enjoyable as we see our cast of characters through these eyes. Below is an analysis of tonight’s debate by TheRightGuy":
Let me preface by saying that I support Newt Gingrich. I will get to that at
the end. I am however not a Republican in the current sense nor a Democrat.
First and foremost I am an American, which means that for the last 12 years
my government has failed me. I work hard, plan, save, invest in myself, my
future, and generally try to not do anything to negatively impact those
around me. I wish my government could do the same. My criterion for
government success is not high. I simply want the government to work for the
American Majority.
Tonight features what may be the very last republican debate. I certainly
hope that is not the case, but the powers that be are trying to get this
over with and avoid taking this all the way to the convention. At this point
in the game it is hard to know what to expect. Well, we know we can expect
Mitt Romney or at least his surrogates to go out of his (their) way to paint
Santorum as a religious nut (What does Romney believe in again?), but other
than that it is a tossup on whether the candidates will spend more time
talking about the problems facing this country or the problem of trying to
sell republican voters that they are the most Reaganesqe, Conservative,
managerial or what have you. They do all of this in the pursuit of the
majority.
But what is the majority and how do you define it? Watching the debates and
the primary results, it appears that the majority are evangelicals brought
from their churches by the bus load to polling places. Watching Obama and
his policy making, it appears that the majority is the 99% of workers who
want to raise taxes on the rich. It is true that the majority of Americans
are Christian and do not make 1 million dollars a year. Does this
demographic really constitute a true majority? Have we become so divided by
the soap opera of Washington politics and the 24 hour news cycle that the
real majority, Americans, have sacrificed their core beliefs in pursuit of
social or economic extremes?
The government across all branches has popularity ratings below 50%. How
then is it possible for any politician to keep a job these days? The simple
solution is that they have taken to a divide and conquer approach. Study the
American people, find the most divisive stances that pit a majority of
people against a minority, and run on those issues. The result is selfish
politics and extreme partisanship. Why is the result selfish? Imagine if
your candidate’s opponent won and their divisive stance was forced upon
you. Would you would be outraged?
I’m reminded of two stories:
Think critically about the above and about present politics. Have the
politics of both the left and the right devolved into the sacrifice of one
individual for the benefit of the other? Republicans and conservatives seek
to enforce social conformity and economic freedom. Democrats and liberals
seek to enforce social freedom and economic conformity. When faced with the
choice of the above, Americans must choose one issue that matters most to
them while at the same time sacrificing the other. Sadly both issues are
important yet there is no box to check that allows a person to choose
responsible social and economic freedom. I emphasize responsible, because
without responsibility, freedom of one can become tyranny on another. Too
much economic laze resulted in the current economy, the ousting of the
republicans, and majorities for the democrats. In turn too much social
liberation and economic redistribution caused Americans again to balk and
groups such as the Tea Party displaced many on both sides of the isle.
I know of several instances in 20th century when the U.S. Government worked
for Americans. The first and greatest example is WWII. Others are the space
race, the cold war, and the fall of communism. These subjects are too far in
the past for most Americans to remember or fully understand. Furthermore,
each of the above periods of unity was brought about because of exterior
threats.
There is however a more recent instance when the government worked for the
majority of America. I am talking about the Contract with America. The
contract was not created under the threat of war or based on pitting one
group or party against the other. The issues of the contract were issues
favored by more than 60% of Americans in both political parties. To be
succinct, the issues targeted the American Majority. In 1999 the members of
both parties forced Newt out of government. The charges against him all
proved erroneous, but he still committed a crime; He made the government
successful. So successful that it didn’t matter which party was in
control, because both parties were forced to concentrate on the issues and
values held by the American Majority instead of the divisive politics used
to win elections. Without means to divide Americans, it became impossible
for an unfavorable politician to maintain office. In order to save the
political class, Newt was displaced, and divisive politics resumed and
thrived.
There are those that will say that Newt is divisive, but what is he really
dividing? My support for Newt is not based on party affiliation. My support
isn’t based on my disapproval of the other candidates or the current
president. I support him because I firmly and emphatically believe that he
wants to see Americans succeed without consideration of party, creed,
status, or beliefs. I support him because he is for the American Majority.
The great blog Mark America had a clip from Mr. L’s Tavern (a must subscribe btw) on the idea of a Sarah Palin brokered convention. There is a lot of very interesting analysis about WHY Palin might not have run and she says she doesn’t have the infrastructure to jump in now even if she wanted. The interesting bit though is Mr. L’s discussion of a brokered convention and the comment by a Ron Paul supporter suggesting Ron Paul is the guy with the infrastructure to battle Romney. You can watch the clip and read the comments here. (Special thanks to Mr. L for feedback prior to running this post. For the record he is in disagreement with some of my analysis, although we both agree that he’s right on most things. :) )
But I needed to comment on this perception that Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and even Sarah Palin fans have that their candidate will automatically create unification of the GOP if their candidate would be offered to the rest. In the case of those running, it is clear that is NOT what is happening. There are demographic realities in the GOP that need to be understood. The reprinting of my comment on Mark America post:
Yes Ron Paul has a great ground game, but he and his policies simply can not attract enough GOP voters to be nominated. His "10%" ceiling is more insurmountable than Romney's "25%" ceiling. Social conservatives love Israel too much to take a chance on leaving them undefended. That group is almost 60% of the GOP now. (Which by the way is very close to the remaining allegiance left after Paul and Romney proponents).
And over estimating the support for Palin is a similar problem for Mr. L and some Palinistas. I am NOT inferring their supporters are at all alike in principle, policy or precise thinking on matters political. I AM suggesting there is a small segment that allows passion to override predictions based on objective data. There is no statistical proof that I've seen that Sarah has a guarantee of any more than 17% to 22% of the GOP. I suspect her entry would immediately drop Rick Santorum back to his 6% to 8% but even among Tea Partiers - Palin didn't get above 40% prior to her October 4th announcement even in including first and second choices.
Granted. less known (and more romanticized) Perry surged from 8% to 35% before he went oops, but Palin fans have got to understand that a significant portion of those who supported Perry and Cain have as negative of an opinion of her as they do Gingrich - or any other candidate.
This was Reagan's brilliance in 1980. That of having a working coalition of traditional GOP, Libertarians, social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. None of these groups have a single leader that is acceptable to the majority of the rest. In that weird way, Gingrich is more likely forge a cooperative entity only because he knows how to, and still has some pretty powerful friends to offer goodies to the rest. If Romney has 45% of the delegates come convention time, Paul can put him over the top and might, if Romney throws him a bone (like Fed Chairman? We could only wish.)
Anything more than 35% to 40% of the delegates - and Mitt wouldn't need to (nor would he) give up the Presidency he would have felt he earned with the most delegate count. Once you get under 25% Romney can be bought. However, Dick Morris claims that the new GOP structure of the primaries makes it virtually impossible for a brokered convention because there are too many "winner take all" states. He is certain there will be a clear majority delegate count for someone well before the GOP Convention.
So it seems that if Mitt isn't stopped before Super Tuesday, when cumulatively 35% of all delegates will have been apportioned, no one could really keep him from the nomination only because of his money and infrastructure.
Frankly, at this point, the longer Santorum stays in, the more likely a Romney nomination regardless of what Sarah does. Many have told me they think she doesn't want to undercut him and is waiting for him to make that decision. She has said she “wants the process to continue.”
I don’t. Romney is a cancer and as Mr. L CORRECTLY asserted – the end of the GOP if he gets elected, if only because we aren’t playing that game anymore. True – we won’t let Obama win, but we damn sure won’t let Romney do much OTHER than our conservative ideas and prepare to knock him off with whatever it takes in 2016. But all of that could be rectified by checking Romney now.
The doctors won’t do any other surgery until chemo is over having killed the cancer. Why? Because diverting the energy of the body on any other effort will allow the cancer to still grow. It’s like accepting the USSR as a temporary ally to defeat Hitler. It boggles me that anyone who considers themselves a patriot is still on the sidelines. Palin correctly called Perry a patriot for pulling out of South to ensure a win for the conservative cause. Why isn’t she doing the same? Why isn’t Santorum? This is no time to play around and let Romney get ANY more traction money or leverage. At some point, even the cancer overwhelms the treatment.
There is no hand to play for conservatives once Romney gets over 40% of the delegates. Walk out – you give him the nomination. Withhold support and Paul can (or will come close to) being the power broker. Despite all the talk about Ron Paul’s principle – he has shown zero love to do what is best for the party. And by putting in his district earmarks only to vote against them, shows he isn’t above pure politics, Paul principles be damned.
This is all on Santorum and his supporters in my book. Cain and Perry clearly have cast their lot with Newt. And unlike Newt, he hasn’t shown any capability to inspire a significant following. After loosing in Florida, any attempt to stay in his selfish ambition. I’m not saying he doesn’t have a RIGHT to do it – but as he did with endorsing Arlen Specter, he’s proven in my mind the whole “virtuous Santorum” image is more than smudged. He should cut a deal with Gingrich now while it can still be helpful to them both for Defense Secretary or whatever, and ensure he won’t be thought of as a spoil sport.
In my opinion Palin's path to power will be in endorsing Gingrich to help him overcome the hurdle to battle Romney and accept a VP or a cabinet position like Department of Energy.
I hear she’s pretty good with a gun.
I’m hearing from many that not only Romney, but Gingrich and Santorum are all “big government” Republicans. I’m seeing especially a lot of Ron Paul-bearers with almost no sense of history (or perspective) publishing article after article that only they are the “true” conservatives. The idea is that anyone proposing ANYTHING other than complete removal of all subsidies, entitlements, dismantling of EPA, DOC, DOE, DOE, TSA, and the US Forestry Service (Yogi’s been freeloading long enough!) is just not good enough for a “true conservative.” I suspect a lot of this is coming from a Mr. Glenn Beck who no longer can be given the benefit of doubt on his views, no matter how much good he has done the conservative movement.
There is a predominantly Libertarian view that the collection of taxes should be confined to paying for the operation of the 3 branches, building and equipping an army that ONLY protects the shores of the United States and expects to do everything else with the exception of ensuring trade between the states.
The impression is that we don’t need a Federal Reserve AT ALL and we should simply privatize the Post Office. Of course that thinking might be slightly challenged when they learn the early congress authorized the printing of Bibles. Hardly seems like a function of a government of which Ron Paul would approve.
It will especially increase the desire for the decriminalization of marijuana and other hard drugs when they learn that the 9th bill passed by the US Congress established US Treasury funds to build a lighthouse for Chesapeake Bay. Let’s call it the first earmark. Now certainly private industry used the seaway and there must have been quite a few other areas that could use a nice lighthouse. Why should the citizens of Georgia pay for a lighthouse for the Yankees? (Of course the second question is, “when do we get ours?”)
They DID ay for this lighthouse by raising taxes on ships entering the harbor until in 1801, after which the US Government (aka/ WE) just paid for it straight out of the Treasury. I suppose you could argue National Security concerns although I can’t find reference to it. By the second year our founders of the greatest representative democracy ever known began regulating fisheries. That certainly had no national security interest. So much for a clearly “free market,” as some of misguided libertarian friends might argue.
Q: When Newt Gingrich starts talking about
Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of his most impressive heroes, does that make you a little nervous?Du Pont: No, because Franklin Roosevelt was a President who had to govern at a time of crisis, so was Abraham Lincoln, so was Winston Churchill, the leader of the British, at a time of crisis. And if you're going to make fundamental changes in the way a nation thinks, you have to have the ability to take the crisis of the moment and use it to shape an agenda.
Franklin Roosevelt was very good at that. We don't particularly agree with the way his agenda turned out, though to tell you the truth, I think it was more Lyndon Johnson's fault than Franklin Roosevelt's. Nevertheless, he was a great leader. He saw how to use the levers of power to affect change. No wonder Newt appreciates that because that's what he sees too.
(It is worth noting that Dupont turned over GOPAC to Gingrich to run and thought Gingrich was the defender of the conservative movement. More on that here.)
So is Gingrich in love with Government as Beck bellows? The Georgia Congressman has been consistent in reciting the same story for 50 years:
PBS: "I got active in this business of politics and self-government in 1958, when my father, who was serving in the U.S. Army, took us to the battlefield of Verdun." The boy stared at the bone pile left by the great battle, and "over the course of the weekend, it convinced me that civilizations live and die by, and that the ultimate margin in a free society of our fate is provided more by, elected political leadership than by any other group. That in the end it's the elected politicians that decide where we fight and when we fight and what the terms of engagement are, and what weapons systems are available." That awakening, he says, led to a 180-page term paper on the balance of world power. When he turned in the paper, he informed his teacher that his family was being transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he would become a Republican congressman.
In the last Florida debate, it was quite amazing “Mr. RomneyCare” tried to indicate that government couldn’t help create jobs. As Gingrich explained in the transition from Carter to Reagan, lowering taxes and reducing regulation and bureaucracy DOES help entrepreneurs create jobs. (Hmmm. Is this lack of understanding why Romney was 47th out of 50 Governors in job creation in his single term as Governor?) If you think about it, government helped ensure equality for blacks, protected intellectual property, made possible home ownership to QUALFIED home buyers in areas with no capital, and facilitated commerce, communications, and technology creation from nuclear energy to microwaves which would have been near impossible to develop in private enterprise.
And frankly, reading Heritage Founder and Conservative Icon Paul Weyrich, state that Gingrich’s conservatism is based in limited government and government reform I now see Gingrich as closer to Ronald Reagan than what I remember living through the 80’s. After his initial Department of Education vote (a professor thing, maybe?), he voted with Reagan’s agenda which resulted in the closing of 12 of 94 departments. (Hopefully he learned his lesson on the SBA. After cutting the budget by more than half, it ballooned to 10X it’s original size. Got to kill ‘em dead or they come back stronger.) You can’t fake votes. A 90% ACU rating over 30 years makes you wonder how ANYONE could buy that lie much less propagate it.
But “HOW BIG SHOULD GOVERNMENT BE” is very important question. Many of us deplore SOPA wanting true freedom, while the Santorum-minded have legitimate concerns over child pornography.
I have a feeling that since we have witnessed THIS administration ignore the law and abuse it’s power on China, ObamaCare, the offshore Gulf oil, business, Eric Holder’s refusal on Fast & Furious subpoena, etc, etc., we are not only going to want reform but also stronger guarantees government can’t grow without Constitutional authority.
Which leads us to one question: How in the name of Silence Dogood do you actually DO this?
There are probably less than 9 “true” conservatives in the Senate (Jim DeMint being somewhat the gold standard) and 20 or 30 in the House. Even supposed “real” conservatives like Paul Ryan and Alan West wouldn’t stand on the debt ceiling/budget fight to “hold the line” with Jim DeMint so that number is even squishy.
Why? Leadership.
Reagan got his tax cuts and reforms through because he got the American people behind so much, the Democrats and liberal Republicans caved for fear of their own seats. (That is a bit simplistic. Of course there were many more conservative Democrats back then who truly wanted to do the right thing for the country.)
Reagan used ALL of his political “goodwill” from the election to implement the “supply side” tax cuts. It took 2½ years to kick in, and he could not get the same support as his personal approval ratings dove with the failing economy. By the time the economy kicked in, it was reelection time and ideas like shutting down the Department of Education, welfare reform and the like often had to be traded for compromises on more pressing priorities.
One then craters and stops all other desires of the ruling party – the other allows a second generation to continue. In the case of Reagan, Gingrich’s Contract With America was the one to benefit and build on doing it in cooperation with American acceptance. Thirty years of conservative ideas were implemented in a few years with a Democratic President leading Time magazine and others to define Gingrich as a de facto President – since he was the one setting the national governing agenda and not the President. (Clinton went from bad to worse with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and HillaryCare – again trying to push things the American people weren’t sold on yet.)
It is interesting that the Ron Paul and “true conservatives” somehow think that a Presidential who wants to impose all of these extreme cuts and limitations to government will:
At some point the public has to be SOLD. Gingrich did a pretty damn good job, leaving with a 60% approval rating of the Congress he formed which registered only 20% when he took over as Speaker. Why? He EXPLAINED why these concepts would work. (It also doesn’t hurt that he selected ideas already with a large approval.)
It explains why Heritage Founder Paul Weyrich pleaded with Gingrich NOT to run for President against Clinton in a second term. Weyrich THOUGHT Gingrich would win and destroy any chance of keeping the complex and fine balance of 435 Congressmen and women under GOP influence. That is a pretty high recommendation of someone’s leadership skills and a pretty damning commentary on the whole “he was kicked out” notion.
Secondly, at the time he saw it as a way to start to migrate entitlements back to a free enterprise model with Health Savings Accounts. Just read how upset liberals were with this component of the bill. Some even SAID he would use it to dismantle Medicare (and kill off old people of course. Liberals are only creative in Hollywood.)
It makes what Gingrich (and Clinton) did in the 90’s quite amazing. It also should wake up conservatives we have a fine line. Too moderate and like Bob Dole in ‘96 and John McCain in ‘08 and you’ll never draw a clear enough distinction from Democrats who will lie about anything. Too wild and aggressive of a Libertarian approach and you’ll be the only engine on the track with no box cars and no caboose to follow.
It is necessary to understand that there is not just POLICY requisites in our candidate to remove Obama, but also POLITICAL STRATEGY beyond the campaign trail. A leader is needed who can mobilize a national sweep of not just GOP Senate and Congressional wins, but conservative ones.
So who fits that mold? The checklist:
I wish I could say that I see some hope of Ron Paul becoming more inline with the foreign policy of John Bolton.
I wish I could see that Rick Santorum had some ability to get people in his own party to follow him so I’d know he could appeal to America.
I wish I could know that Mitt Romney would do what he now says he will do - when as Governor he didn’t when he could have.
And I wish I could believe that Newt Gingrich will see pure conservative boundaries in the ideas birthed from great brainstorms on solving this country’s problems.
And it still turned out pretty well.
