Howard Fineman pretends to know what’s best for the tea party and plays into the hands of the establishment by issuing back-pats for Mitt Romney.
The show did not delve into whether the GOP candidate had a legitimate complaint about Virginia’s ballot access laws which will only include the names of two Republican presidential candidates on the ballot for the state’s March 6 primary.
Yes, apparently it’s “megalomania” to be upset when ridiculously stringent rules for ballot legitimacy are changed mid-game (a must-read post on this). Basically, the rules for the Virginia’s primary ballot access are more complicated than those of Whack Bat:
Perry wasn’t called names for objecting to VA’s oddball rule change most likely because he isn’t nearest to Romney in the polls. Newt Gingrich is a larger-than-life beltway candidate, but he’s not the establishment’s choice for this race. They’re squarely behind Mitt Romney this time [my emphasis]:
“A lot of us who normally would have been in this presidential race a long time ago, have been waiting for Christie to make a decision,” said Georgette Mosbacher, a Republican uber-fund-raiser and former finance co-chair of the Republican National Committee who was among a group of Republican bundlers hoping to convince Christie to enter the race. “I think tomorrow, we’ll be contacting one another and probably put something together with Romney.”
That oldie-but-goodie afore-linked article, by the way, gets better the further down you read. Like here, when they tried justifying soul sales:
“The speech I gave to my conservative friends was, if you pick somebody who makes you 100 percent happy, you only get 47 percent against Obama,” said Catsimatidis. “We have to capture the middle in order to win and make a change in this country. Ninety percent of them stood up and said, ‘You’re right.’”
What good is principle if you sacrifice it to win? You’re not winning on your principle because you didn’t enter that horse in the race; you’re winning on a compromise of that principle. You can tell yourself that it’s a “strategy,” a strategy to inch us ever closer back to that place of simple government conservatism, if doing so makes you fall asleep easier at night. Compromising your principle to present less of a difference between yourself and your opponent isn’t a strategy, it’s forfeit. You’re not winning on your merits, you’re winning on theirs. It’s almost as if the establishment’s strategy was devised entirely by the Democrat opposition: be more like the other guy to win. Be Democrat-lite. That serves Democrats, not Republicans. The GOP establishment thinks that you won’t notice if they dress it up with a shiny red “R” by the name. It’s not like the Devil can quote Scripture or anything, right?
It’s frustrating to see so many Republicans simply throwing up their hands and throwing in the towel for Romney because they have such low political self-esteem. That’s what this is: it’s a self-esteem problem. We think we can’t do any better than what we have right now and we lack the self-confidence to try.
The right has an inferiority complex (or we’re sadists) and people like Howard Fineman and the MSM can’t get enough.
The battle for conservatives isn’t the general (have you seen Obama’s approval ratings?), it’s the primary. The first and best blow that The One can deliver to the GOP is by nudging the establishment to nominate a candidate that cancels out his own faults. Nominate a guy who drafted the blueprint for nationalized health care and you remove health care ammunition from your stores in the general. Nominate a guy weak on immigration and you remove that weapon from your arsenal. There isn’t a bogeyman against which the DNC can pit Obama; aside from congress–whose own approval rating is tanking so it’s useless–their second best choice is to make unnoticeable the difference between Obama and the GOP nominee.
Much of the media has been complicit in this; They use their column inches and broadcast time to take out the more conservative candidates and baby the chosen ones at the debates. They blow up stories about painted rocks on leased-out hunting grounds and stories sans Gap dresses; they fabricate narratives about the employment of other candidates and protect the current administration. The majority of the GOP primary candidates are too scared to go negative on Romney because deep down, they’ve given up too and are hoping for a job in a possible Romney administration.
It’s hard to believe in candidates that sometimes don’t inspire belief in themselves. It’s hard to believe in victory when a portion of the right has such shaky belief in it that they’re willing to make a deal compromising the soul of conservatism for the shot at a win.
I hope that I’m proven wrong, I really do. I don’t like divide on our side. But the debacle in Virginia–and the subsequent reaction to it by some in the media — isn’t doing much to allay my concerns.
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More pungently: If you're willing to sacrifice your principles for electoral advantage, can you honestly say you have any principles? "Principles" under those conditions reduce to "initial negotiating positions."
The hell of it is that Americans will rally behind clear, hard-edged principles enthusiastically and quite readily, whereas the technocratic wonkery of major-party politics recent years is the main reason why so many voters stay home on Election Day.
I don't think it's necessarily poor self esteem (by political proxy), although there are certainly those of us who are extremely disappointed in our field of candidates as a whole – those who are convinced, as I am, that a Sarah Palin or a Marco Rubio or a Paul Ryan would be a much better nominee than any of those currently running.
We have already had second-best thrust on us.
To me, it feels like 1969, when I was a kid in New York and my beloved Yankees failed to make the World Series for the fifth straight year, but the hapless Mets – who I detested – managed to win it all.
I had to root for the hometeam, and take solace in the fact that they whupped up on the Orioles, who had humiliated my Yankees for at least the past two years.
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."
DeNozzo
Never Say you're sorry. It's a sign of weakness.
Gibbs
It ain't over till it's………over.
Yoggi Berra
You're going to make mistakes. Just make sure you make them going forward.
Me
Yep, the go along to get along establishment of the big government, repugnut party is looking for a rino Romney win. They don't care about anything other than holding onto power and Americans be damned.
As I watch the 'Pubbie field, more and more it looks like Obama gets a second term.
That stinks on ice. Are these clowns really the best the Republicans have to offer?
Romney is not my first choice. He isn't even my current favorite. It does not matter. There is one character trait in a candidate that is more important than any other:
Respect for the Rule of Law and the Will of the People
In 2005 President Bush proposed a plan to reform Social Security. While he felt strongly about his plan, it was clear that the majority of Americans were not in favor of it. He respected the will of the people, however and dropped his plan. Not long after that, an alien amnesty program was proposed and many in Congress – including Sen. John McCain – were for it. The People made their voices heard and still to this day John McCain speaks of that experience.
Congress has a long history of using legislation to impose it's will upon the Executive Branch. We have the War Powers act, for example, that severely limits what the President can do without seeking approval of Congress. Though every past president disagreed with the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, they acquiesced. every one that is except for Barack Obama.
We are currently faced with the biggest threat to our nation: A president who does not respect the rule of law and the will of the people. Just one example:
"When President Obama signed a budget bill on Friday, he issued a signing statement claiming a right to bypass dozens of provisions that placed requirements or restrictions on the executive branch. Among them, he singled out two sections barring the use of money to transfer prisoners from the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, into the United States and limiting the ability of the government to transfer them to the custody or control of foreign countries."
There is a word for it: tyranny
It matters not whether Gingrich or Romney (or even Ron Paul) is the nominee. It doesn't matter how many times they've flip-flopped on a given position or who sat on a couch with whom. Nothing matters if the President does not respect the rule of law and the will of the people.
Our choice in 2012 boils down to one simple issue:
Shall we reelect a President who does not respect the rule of law and the will of the people, or replace him with someone who does?
If we get this one wrong nothing else will matter.
I recently heard Romney described as a combination of McCain and Al Gore….
I dismissed it at first, but after a while, it made sense….
I have always believed Romney was a combination John Kerry and Ted Kennedy clone.
On sacrificing principles unless your candidate reflects 100% of your views by nature you have to sacrifice some principles.
But it comes down to would you rather have Obama or one whose beliefs don't mirror yours?
Of course how much one should sacrifice is the issue….
That actually makes more sense….
The problem is, Romney is no more of a compromise than any other GOP candidate this time around. They all suck, none of them are what we want (or deserve) and I really thought you were smarter than this column. Evidently I was mistaken.
Let's face it … this election season has been a disappointment for the Tea Party (notice capitalization). The favorites – Cain, became a liability, Bachmann, was systematically routed by the MSM and Republicans, and Palin, has perhaps wisely sat on the sidelines.
Frankly, I would rather see a polarizing Obama elected for another 4 years than to see the Tea Party movement disarmed by a RINO – who will offer phoney promises and succumb to liberal Washington. Compromise at this point will spell the end of this country – we've already compromised ourselves into socialism and bankruptcy.
I will vote for an honest conservative, Tea Party candidate or I won't vote.
@ editor– Why must we get relevant news from over seas? Fortunately DRUDGE linked this. this site was first to pump out this deceptive edit video earlier earlier this week. Having ran the "irked walk off headline" you are obligated to set the record straight.
The full video is here. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078343/R...
Andrew's run in with deceptive edit accusations causes those of US who come to the site & click the advertising to wonder what if there isn't some old media bias permeating the BIGS…
STILL WAITING….
me too.
Ron Paul or 4 more obama years.
Ive been looking but I cant seem to find ron paul flip flopping any where….
In order to put our nation back on it's proper course, we need to use COMMON SENSE and follow some basic behavior that results in success, starting with the end result that we want to achieve! America is not Europe. It is where people from the British Empire and European countries who were shackled by tyranny came and threw off those chains and for the first time knew Freedom, Equality and Liberty. We are not lorded over by any class or King. This is OUR country and it is OUR government. The Legislative branch has the responsibility to limit the powers of the executive branch so that office does not have the power to single-handedly make law. Every office holder in our government has been elected to SERVE at the will of the people, including the President. The elected civil servants of the 3 branches seem to get big heads and think that they are part of some "special" privileged class and begin to think of themselves as "Lords and Ladies" of the manor. The end result that we must pursue is to inject some reality back into these "royal" servants and wake them up from their dreams of grandeur! The man who will become our next President needs to be a man who has his feet firmly planted in reality. He must be acutely aware that his role as President is a humble one. That he serves and represents the will of the American people. Nothing less than that will be satisfactory. No matter who the candidate turns out to be, the American people must serve him with a reminder of that role. And they must do that NOW, not wait to see who is selected. It is for US to decide how that man must behave when he enters office. Every one of us must speak up in a clear and resonant voice, together, and repeat the message over and over and over again until it is heard very clearly in the halls of every government building in America, from the white house down to every city council. You are NOT LORDS AND LADIES! You are humble Americans who are serving your neighbors for a term or two until it is time for someone else to take a turn.
Fellow conservatives of all stripes: Removing Obama from power is the vital goal for US in 2012. If that is not your focus, then you need to reevaluate what it is you're doing to help achieve this essential outcome. 4 more runious years under His Oneness is not an option.
Now stop this food-fight and get to work.
"It’s hard to believe in victory when a portion of the right has such shaky belief in it that they’re willing to make a deal compromising the soul of conservatism for the shot at a win."
You're absolutely right, Dana. And the shaky right who would compromise the soul of conservatism should be driven out of a conservative dominated GOP. They already have more in common with Democrats, anyway.
Problem is, when we pick a squishy moderate like Romney for a shot at a win, we lose big time. Paul Ryan is right in saying we can't afford another four years of our history's worst president. I pray I'm wrong, because I'm concerned what our nation will look like after another four years of this tyranny.
Ora pro nobis.
I always thought that Romney was Obama without the tan.
They both had John Holdren as a science adviser. Holdren was Paul Erlich's co-author of "The Population Bomb" which, among other things, suggested putting drugs into the water supply to render men sterile as a means of reducing the population.
Romney's top economic adviser, Greg Mankiw, believes that there is only one economist, John Maynard Keynes. Friedman, Mises and Hayek were soothsayers incapable of understanding the intricacies of Keynes' work. Similar sentiments have been expressed by Austin Goolsbee, Obama's former top economics adviser.
It's weird but if Romney gets the nomination we will get four more years of Obama no matter who wins.
Anyone who doesn't flip-flop can't be trusted.
<sarc off>
"Nothing matters if the President does not respect the rule of law and the will of the people. "
Don't you understand that it is one or the other but not both? If you respect the rule of law then you will defy the will of the people to preserve the integrity of the law. If you respect the will of the people then law becomes meaningless and is replaced by mob rule.
Individual rights are not subject to the popular will which is why they are codified in law by the Bill of Rights. Rights are inherent within our nature. No matter how many people want to silence you they cannot do it by right, merely by force. No matter how many people want to seize your property they cannot do it by right, merely by force.
Individual Rights and the Will of the People are incompatible.
Yes because being wrong on more than half the issues relevent today has no reason to flip flop.
We heard this same BS in the 90's and again in 2008, I for one am not going to vote for a RINO and then have to share the shame when he caves in to everything the liberals put forth simply because he has no back bone.
Better to die fighting than to live as a coward.
who warned the congress as early as 2002 about the housing crash?
I won't be SCARED into accepting a police state. I will not surrender the American Way of life to Appease the terrorist and let them win….if you want to surrender you are free to do so.
I get the sense that the G.O.P. strategy was set last year and they don't think that Obama could be beat. They gave up the run for the White House and will try to pick up the Senate and the House. That way they can still be the outsiders while the younger bunch of Republicans build their credentials. The G.O.P management is divided between the National Senatorial Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee as well as the RNC itself. They will circle the wagons and protect themselves first and foremost. On the positive side, we've got a bunch of fine folks in the bull pen, while the Dems only have one good starting pitcher going into 2016 and beyond. Depressing in the short term.
And wherever you go, there you are. lol
Sorry, Tejas, couldn't resist it….
"I hope that I’m proven wrong, I really do."
You won't be. You're despairingly right.
Republicans have internalized the Left and media's conditioning to self-doubt and finally to self-loathing. Republicans move and mince around the popular culture and media landscape like deers in a state of tense readiness for the hunter's gun or the paralyzing beam of the headlights. Look at our hapless, sapless candidates. Aside from Gingrich, does one of them know how to say "boo" to the Left? We act as if our very existence owes to the grace of the progressive cultural gods. And with resignation and supplication we turn at last to the least objectionable and most innocuous establishment "player" who, we perennially fool ourselves into thinking, will be acceptable to the gods, will pass their test, will not arouse their fearsome wrath. We're pathetic. And so we lose.
The Left seeks out in the most corrupt, compunctionless and baggage-laden candidate they can find and flaunts them in front of our face. We, however, fret and sweat and agonize over a candidate who will meet their standards of presentability and, in so doing, choose the perfect chump every time.
Before all of us "settle" for Romney or Gingrich, allow me to post a few thoughts:____1) As LastBestHope said, the primary goal of the 2012 elections is to get President Obama voted out of office. Before we concede another four years to Obama, take a long, hard look at his record and performace. Take a look at other states under Democrat rule (CA, IL). Do we REALLY in our heart of hearts want FOUR MORE YEARS OF THIS?____2) Everybody: QUIT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE CURRENT GOP FIELD. No Cain. No Palin. No Christie. No Rubio. Let it go.____3) STOP LETTING THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA "PICK" YOUR CANDIDIATES. F**k the polls. Vote for whomever candidate is the most conservative. End os story.____4) Back up our GOP candidate with strong conservative Tea Party candidates in the House and Senate elections. Bohener and all the establishment GOPers need to be primaried. A GOP President will work with a Tea Party GOP Congress.____
5) Finally, recognize that November 2012 will be the most important Election Day in history. We the People need to encourage/cajole/threaten the GOP into standing up and putting up a fight. Let them know that America may not survive another four more years under Obama and Democrat rule. if we need to be Marine Drill Instructors to move the process forward, so be it.
Spread the word, folks…"FIGHT'S ON!!!"
One last thing…for any Republican who openly declares or even HINTS at conceding a second term for Obama in favor of just focusing on retaking congress: if he/she holds an office, he/she gets his/her coward a$$ primaried. No exceptions.
Republicans are royally screwed. Do you realize it yet? Are you really upset that Mr. "I love RomneyObamacare" Gingrinch can't get on the VA ballot?
You seem to think that any one of your candidates can beat Obama. You're so blinded by your hatred, you think a monkey can beat him.
Sorry, it's simply not so. Check the pollls
All you had to do was put up one one credible candidate who doesn't sound like a dunce (Perry), kook (bachmann), or zealot (Santorum) and this election was yours for the taking. But you couldn't do it.
As it is, Obama will be a 2 termer almost certainly now. Way to go!
It is amazing to this liberal how you baggers managed to field such a poor roster of candidates.
Obama is a 2 termer now. It's as good as done. Who's gonna beat him? Seriously
We didn't field anybody. If you had allowed the substance of the article to penetrate your calloused mind, you would've understood the gist of it. In both parties, the media and the party elites decide who the nominees will be, all under the illusion of democracy.
While I agree that we will suffer a second 0bama term, it is more based on the media's favoritism than it is the GOP candidates, such as they are. At this point, anyone but 0bama will do, unlikely as it may be.
I think we need John Belushi to give Republicans and Conservatives a pep talk. This election is not over until we say it is! Obama! Out! Biden! Out! Reid! Out!
Romney is not my first choice, or even my second choice, but Romney will be infinitely better than Obama. If you want to sit on your hands and not vote because Romney is a RINO, I suggest you get out of your chair in November and vote for Barack Obama.
I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, or write a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When Regan was the candidate against Carter, the same caterwailing was going on within party Republican, the media had written him off. After all he was only a washed up "B" series oater movie star who played opposite a chimp. Never did media point out his success as Govenor of CA, nor his history as President of the Screen Actors Guild, or that once he was a stalwart Democrat and Union member. Party Republican establishment types were wringing their hands in dismay over this "outsider". The American people are much wiser than their elected officials give them credit for being. All the punditry had it wrong Carter vs. Regan……………the souffle is being made ready for lamestreet, punditry and Mr. Fienman. Would you like some Tabasco to go with them eggs?
Paul is passable on financial matters, meaning the Fed does need to go. On EVERYTHING ELSE he is a nutjob, and has no place anywhere near the Oval Office.
You're not in control of this site…if you were…since you're a Paulite…we would see anti-Semitic ramblings and anti-Israeli propaganda.
Good luck with that. The Marxist is a fool, and so are you.
Four years ago, the GOP let the media pick your candidate , McCain.
This year , the media picked Romney for you.
The media is not your friend.
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