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The Ramble for 9/26/11

Westbury, Long Island, NY– A frequent stop for me… dropping off some drinks to the thirsty club shoppers. Nearly 80 here… you’d not know it was fall. Today, I’m going to do a one subject Ramble.

 

Some observations on the GOP races and faces:

  • Romney:Certainly the favorite of the GOP establishment. That alone, given what the GOP establishment has given us  in the post Reagan era… Republicans In Name Only… people who try to claim Reagan’s mantle yet clearly do not share Reagan’s values. Anyone who creates anything resembling Romneycare most certainly doesn’t have a bloody clue what Reagan was about.And let’s do some serious thinking on the matter. Granted he could win the nomination, ….and given Obama’s horrendous approval numbers… the lowest in our history… he could win the general election as well. But what then, do we have? We have a man who is not a conservative, who doesn’t share conservative values, whose policies certainly won’t be conservative, and yet when his playing the center backfires… as it always does… (Observe Nixon, Gerald Ford, 41 and 43) conservatism gets the blame… and the cause of conservatism takes it on the chin along with the country.

    The establishment is uneasy with Romney. They have begin to recognize what I’ve been saying all along; Romney is at best a centrist… and the electorate is up for some serious conservative values. [1]Have been for decades, now. As such if Romney gets the nomination, you should expect a large number of conservatives.. including the newly minted ones added to our rolls as Obama has turned them off to liberalism…. to sit on their hands. Just as they did with John McCain and Bob Dole.

    We tried “centrist” with Bush and McCain and Dole, for that matter. Such are what happens when we allow the leftists in the press to pick our candidates for us. Let’s recall, please… The GOP establishment rejected Reagan in 76 and in 80. The GOP lost in 76 because of their efforts to go to the center, and their ignoring their roots, and the roots of the country. I’ll tell you true… Now as with Jimmy Carter…the only chance Obama has to be re-elected at this point is if the GOP establishment succeeds in nominating another centrist like Romney. And The Democrats know it. Why don’t the denizens of the GOP establishment?

  • Huntsman:Another centrist with all the negatives Romney brings to the table, with the added attraction of being about as interesting to listen to as watching cars rust. Non-player and deservedly so.
  • Cristie:I observe Christie with a slightly amused and somewhat jaundiced eye. Not Christie himself so much… I think we can take his statements as being more or less on the level… Including his “I shouldn’t have done that” kind of statements when he gets called out on various things.It’s the reactions to him I find of interest.I take for example, the high level of interest on the part of the GOP establishment and the left in a Christie candidacy to be a tacit admission of doubt in Romney and his ability to win in the general election. That unease among the GOP establishment, I think, is not without justification, as I’ve said. . A Romney presidency represents less of a loss for the left, including the leftists running the press…  and for the establishment GOP.

    Admittedly, Christie would be lightyears ahead of Obama, as Bush was lightyears above Gore… but, I will point out again, he’s also not nearly as strong  a conservative as what the electorate wants. As for Christie himself, as I’ve said, he would be lightyears ahead of Obama. But he’s certainly not my first choice for the role.

  • Cain:I find a lot of Herman Cain interesting.  He certainly has the guts to speak the unvarnished truth. [2]  He also would not be my first choice but I find him far more attractive as a candidate than I do for example, Romney… or Huntsman for the reasons I’ve stated earlier.
    His win at the debates the other night was remarkable if for no other reason than nobody figured he had it in him. Clearly his message of unapologetic conservatism is resonating  [3] much more powerfully than the left the press and the GOP establishment would like.      That win does not make him the most desirable candidate, however, particularly given his rather sporadic performance at the other venues.
  • Perry: The favorite of the GOP rank and file. You can tell he was in the lead by the way the left and the establishment types have been hammering away at him. As with Cain, I’m unconvinced his debate performances are all that important to what kind of POTUS he would make.  Most of you know, that I spent a few years behind a mike. Some of the smartest people I ever knew tended to freeze up behind a live mike or in front of a camera. Some of the dumbest people I ever met were as smooth as glass in such situations. That’s not the rule, but I’m suggesting that the connection between debate performance and thought process, or for that matter, of a principled foundation, is less than direct. Perry needs to be judged on his principled conservatism, including his mis-steps in that regard, such as the Guardasil thing.  He seems principled enough, and seems to have a good foundation under him.  The trick as with anyone having that kind of power, his keeping him bolted to that foundation.