Romney Bails!

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Officially, he's "suspended" his campaign in a effort to make sure the GOP presents a united front against whichever Democrat gets through the primary bloodbath. On one hand I'm glad because I can't stand the thought of living in an America under Romney, and on the other I'm sorry he didn't whup McCain because we'd have a much better shot at getting a progressive president.

Your thoughts?

 

Thus dies the GOP's last hope to elect a conservative as President

 

Stewart's reaction was right on target: Fsk you, Mr. Romney.

 

"Doesn't matter what we stand for as long as we don't have a Democrat in the White House" somehow doesn't strike me as a particularly well-thought out and reliable program.

 

You forgot to add, "because the Dems will surrender to the terrorists"

 

Apparently, someone never bothered to look at Romney's record...

As governor of Massachusetts, "conservative" Mitt Romney supported gun control, brought socialized medicine, and promised to defend the woman's right to choose. When campaigning for the Senate, Romney promised to do more to protect gay rights than his opponent, Ted Kennedy(!). In this very campaign, Romney came out in favor of ethanol subsidies and promised Michigan a 20 billion dollar bailout for the auto industry. Conservative? Sure.

I hate to break it to you, Snook, but McCain is far more conservative than Mitt Romney.

 

That may be your opinion. It surely isn't the opinion of the conservative side of the blogosphere or mine.

 

So what you are saying, in essence, is that what a politician says while campaigning is actually more indicative of where he stands than what he actually, you know, did while holding office?

 

Good riddance! The guy was almost as bad as GWB.

That's all they have at the moment.

 

I said no such thing. There are and were plenty of conservative issues that both Romney and McCain didn't believe in. However in the ones that I and many other conservatives really felt strongly about McCain was more liberal then Romney. You forget, that conservatives are made up of many groups. The group you seem to be highlighting (the evangelical christians) are the ones that focus on gays, abortion, etc. The non-evangelical conservatives are more concerned with the second amendment, immigration, taxes, the economy, campaign finance reform, etc. and in most of these areas Romney is/was more conservative then McCain.

Referring to a different thread, but people like Coulter and Rush aren't against McCain for nothing. On many of these issues he is more of a Democrat than a Republican.

 

TGS - I was very surprised to see that more social and fiscal conservatives did not flock to Ron Paul's banner. I thought that on the issues, like the economy, Constitutional rights, and smaller government, he was pretty strong. Maybe they thought he could not win the general election? What's your take?

 

That clearly was the main reason. He also seems to want to change the past and I'm too much of a realist to believe in that. In the other thread, I mentioned where in the constitution does the government have the power to enforce social security. While I personally believe, like Paul, that a lot of these government agencies shouldn't exist, they clearly do, and I don't think we can just waive a wand and make them go away. Paul wanting to do away with the IRS and the federal income tax is a fantastic idea, it is nothing more than an idea. He has way too many outlandish ideas to get elected.

Speaking for myself, his campaign also turned me off. It seemed like it was being driven by internet kiddies. You couldn't go anywhere on-line without being assaulted by the Paulnuts.

 

Well, you might have a point, but I think his speeches conflicted his record a few times already - iirc mostly on religious issues, but on others as well. I just don't think he'd stick by his non-spiritual issues any more than he did for his spiritual ones.

Edit: Oh me, oh my: I just caught a part of his speech - the part about "not aiding a surrender to terror." OK, thank you. Good bye and good riddance - for good. An Obama or Clinton election being equated to a surrender to terror, that goes beyond simple partisanship, dishonesty or ********* - this is freaking insulting. After all the "good" the Iraq war has done for combatting terror, now it's being equated to the struggle against it? Are we talking about the same Iraq that had little to do with Al-queda and global terrorism before the whole war started? There's no lower move than exploiting a problem that you helped create, and I think that's what Romney - and a few other people, mostly from his party - are doing with their Iraq stance. I'm sorry, but I hate such political *********** with a passion.

Then again, probably people were depicting going out of Vietnam as a surrender to the USSR.

 

Great, now all we need is for McCain to have a heart attack or something.

Aww, I shouldn't have said that. What is it Larry the Cable Guy always says? "Lord forgive me for that joke, and be with the Pygmies in New Guinnie, Amen."

Seriously, though, the guy's 72, right? I mean, I seem to recall seeing him on TV with white hair when Bush Sr. was in charge. His health can't be that good, and I can't think of a single president that has ever been elected, or even nominated, with any serious suspicions of health issues. What would happen if he did show signs of poor health?

 

NOG: FDR was wheelchair bound from polio. He was never in great physical shape. Reagan was not exactly a spring chicken when he was elected -- at least McCain doesn't dye his hair.

Chandos and TGS: Ron Paul previously ran for president as libertarian -- and then came BACK to the republican party. There was no way the republican party would support him -- he had no chance of getting the nod. Most people would consider such waivering as lack of commitment, as the poll results showed.

The surrender to terror bit was right on target with the republican party line. I'm not sure how much I agree with the assumption that a democrat will allow terrorism to advance. However, I do believe an early pull out of Iraq (i.e., before they are set up as an independant, self-sustaining government) is a bad idea. The belief that an unstable Iraq will provide a strong foothold for terrorism is not unreasonable(paranoid, yes, but not unreasonable). I do not believe we need to stay in Iraq as long as Bush is telling us, but I also believe the democrats are not being realistic either.

Rally: I believe either McCain or Obama would be progressive. I would really like to see those two get their party nods -- it would be Win-Win in my opinion. My biggest concern is that Huckabee's campaign will get a huge shot in the arm with this. It is quite conceivable (and yes that word means what I think it means) the conservatives in the party will rally behind Huckabee instead of supporting McCain. Huckabee could have the party nomination.

 

T2Bruno, FDR hid his disability from the public, and in a nation before TV, that wasn't hard. He had stints put down his pants so he could stand for campaign speaches, and aids to lean on so he could 'walk' up to the podium. Reagan wasn't young, sure, but I'm pretty sure he was younger than McCain. Also, I'm not saying age itself is the factor, but rather that, at his age, the odds of a health problem appearing during his campaign are much higher than, say Obama or Huckabee. Of course, those years in a Vietnamese POW camp couldn't have helped things any, either.

Personally, I think Huckabee would be much more progressive, at least in the major areas: economics, foreign policy, etc. than McCain. Remember, Huckabee supports the Fair Tax Bill, and is for staying in Iraq until it is stable, which is what you were asking for. His health plan may not be what you want, though, and that is a major issue these days. His biggest conservative features are in the social areas: abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cell research and the like, which is exactly where the other candidates have all been weak, which is why he's getting so much conservative support.

Personally, I think Huckabee's the best bet to really change things in Washington and to turn around the American economy. At the very least, you have to like the idea of axing the IRS.

 

I thought that was Ron Paul that wanted to do that...

 

...and replacing it with a consumption tax. Huckabee says it will only be a 23% tax, but this figure is incredibly misleading. They are using "tax inclusive" calculations, which means they include the total tax in our hypothetical dollar. In other words, they assume that the item costs 77 cents, add 23 cents of taxation, and then they divide that total dollar -- including the added tax -- by the tax rate to get 23 percent. But that's not how it works. If the total cost of the item is 77 cents, then adding 23 cents to it is a tax rate of 30 percent. Add state sales tax into the mix, it goes up. Exempt food or home purchases from the tax, it goes up even further (the 23% rate assumes that there are no exemptions). The consumption tax could easily end up costing us well over 50% of every dollar spent. For the wealthy, this is no big deal, but the poor -- who pay almost no taxes under our current system and live paycheck to paycheck -- would be ****ed.

 

Why?

 

@NOG: Lincoln was relatively young, and quite healthy when he was elected. So was Kennedy. Fat lot of good their youth and health did them. Playing up McCain's age is a specious argument that's designed to prick the fears of the ignorant.

Huckabee is, first and foremost, a minister. I'm terrified by the prospect of giving him a national pulpit. If the Constitution should be changed at all, I think the change should be to prohibit clergy from holding elected office - a man can't serve two masters, after all.