McCain Must Resist Increasingly Surreal Hubris of GOP Elites
My Latest on Townhall.com out today in response to Fred Barnes’ recent piece in the Weekly Standard.
McCain Must Resist Increasingly Surreal Hubris of GOP Elites
By Gregg Jackson
Wednesday, March 19, 2008This week Fred Barnes wrote an article in which he suggests that McCain’s best VP choice is Mitt Romney.
Wow!
Mr. Barnes is correct that McCain’s VP selection is vital because of McCain’s age (71) and because McCain needs to select an authentic conservative with widespread appeal to the GOP base-Evangelical and Catholic Christians, millions of whom have started to gag on the regularly scheduled forced doses of the GOP’s shut-up-and-do-as-you’re-told concoctions.
Mr. Barnes believes Mitt Romney is exactly the man to get them to swallow yet another bitter dose.
Such a claim could only issue forth from the increasingly bizarre, even surreal, consensus in which the “conservative” elites — pundits, consultants, lawyers and self-styled “pro-family” power brokers — swim.
First, Mr. Barnes writes that McCain’s VP should be acceptable to conservatives-especially social conservatives. Perhaps Mr. Barnes does not quite understand how right he is on this. It has long been apparent that among the conservative elites “pro-life” is merely a uniform that one puts on like a free agent ballplayer joining a team in search of a championship.
“You’re now ‘pro-life,’ Mr. Romney? Why should we believe that?”
“Because I said so, and that ought to be proof enough. And only a fool would turn away a convert to the pro-life cause.”
“Maybe so, Slick, and maybe not. But the question remains, why should we believe that?”
“Well, after my conversion to the pro-life side, with every bill that came across my desk I came down on the side of life.”
“Hmmm. Well, does that include your massive government health care plan with which you delighted Ted Kennedy by establishing taxpayer-funded abortion on demand at fifty dollars a pop?”
“I thought Jay Sekulow, James Bopp, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Tom Minnery, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and the kids running the National Review had taken care of all that for me.”
Mr. Barnes, like most of the chattering “conservative elites,” has missed the glaring lesson of a Republican presidential primary in which millions of social conservative and constitutionalist voters just said no to all the RINOs the party nomenklatura stubbornly forced on them, preferring to pick from among the diverse options of Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter. Does Barnes not grasp how much intellectual credibility and moral gravitas the “conservative” mandarins have squandered — outside the beltway and away from the studio lights of Fox News?
rest here
March 20th, 2008 at 1:28 am
You’ve mentioned something very important, the huge difference between economics expertise and business administration expertise. Romney has the latter only. A lot of people don’t realize that he doesn’t have the former at all.
Take two kids who start college at the same time. One keeps going until he gets an M.B.A., the other until his Ph.D. in economics. The total number of courses they take together can be as little as 1 or 2 semesters. Possibly even zero, because some business schools segregate the economics intro courses, and gear it toward business applications.
When Romney campaigned in Michigan, he said that “the one state recession is over” if he’s elected. Romney has no more ability than any other candidate to end a recession. In some of the debates he seemed like he was trying to show off his econ terminology, but it was largely fluff. He might know a little more than McCain, but he’s not trained in economics.
There’s a very excellent blog by Andrew Samwick where he discussed this:
http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2008/01/romney-targets-michigan.html
http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2008/02/governor-romney-takes-his-leave.html
March 20th, 2008 at 10:01 am
“Does Barnes not grasp how much intellectual credibility and moral gravitas the “conservative” mandarins have squandered — outside the beltway and away from the studio lights of Fox News?”
Gregg, my compliments to you on this sentence. It’s a bullseye. Thanks for putting into words a question that I have, not only for Mr. Barnes, but for a lot of people.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Gregg, you are blinded by your hatred of Mormons. I have read your other writings throughout this campaign and that hatred seems to be your driving force. I would admonish you to get over it.
Romney is acceptable to social conservatives. He demonstrated he is pro-life with every act as governor. He has changed only his idea of the role of government. He did not need to change his views on the subject because he always viewed abortion as wrong. When it came to putting pen to paper he took the correct path and abandoned his position that government should be uninvolved.
He is a devout family man and believes in strengthening the family. He passionately called for an end to illegitimate births and promoted marriage as the foundation for child- rearing. No other candidate had a platform like it.
You should believe him because of his acts as governor match his presidential campaign promises which matches his personal ideals. If you don’t believe him, it is because you don’t want to and desire to hold on to your Mormon hatred even if it makes you look petty, silly, and worse, like a fringe extremist. If you accept Romney’s social conservative leadership, then you would have to admit it was really the Mormon thing that you had against him. And you don’t seem to want to admit the real reason you love to hate him. You wouldn’t want any one to think you were a bigot? Too late, I figured that out a long time ago.
March 21st, 2008 at 2:29 am
I disagree with Barnes about Romney being the best choice, but I agree with a lot of what he says about the other choices. Tom Ridge would be a promising choice if he were pro-life.
I think anyone who criticizes what Barnes wrote should suggest an alternative for vice president.
Mine would be Phil Gramm of Texas. He’s 65 years old, younger than McCain. He has a Ph.D. in economics and 12 years as an economics professor. Gramm actually has what Barnes thinks Romney has, when it comes to economics knowledge. Gramm is more conservative than McCain, and has a convincing pro-life track record. He has lots of experience, he was in congress long enough to debate every issue. Whereas Romney has only 4 years (less than Obama, Clinton and Edwards). Phil Gramm is an adviser to the McCain campaign, so we know he isn’t a McCain enemy.
If somebody who ran in the primaries has to be chosen, I think Fred Thompson would be the one to cost McCain the lowest number of votes. Thompson has a good track record and pretty good answers to questions. His campaign was horrible, but as a VP candidate he’d be following the agenda set by McCain’s campaign people. So some of the problems with the Thompson campaign won’t apply anymore.
I think a much closer look should be given to John Engler and Frank Keating, who were on Bush’s year 2000 short list.
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Lori, I am a “fringe extremist” and “Mormon hater” huh? Can you cite one example? The article focussed entirely on Romney’s record not his religion. Instead of name calling and accusing me of “hating” why don’t you try making some sort of coherent argument. Hey now there’s a novel idea.
Gregg