Why Romney is …
…uniquely positioned of all the GOP candidates to make the argument against Obamacare, according to Paul Goldman and Mark J. Rozell.
Readers of this blog know I’m a Romney supporter, but I don’t think the article is especially good. It depends to whom the argument about Obamacare is being made.
I think it’s definitely true that Romney is the GOP candidate best positioned to appeal to Independents in general, and not just on the issue of Obamacare. But it’s my impression that Romney’s biggest and most numerous naysayers on the issue of Obamacare are on the conservative side (liberals won’t be voting for him anyway); a lot of conservatives just don’t trust his sincerity or his dedication when he says he wants Obamacare to go (more on that subject in another post, although not today). Of course, if he’s the nominee, how many conservatives will choose to stay home because of that, or write in a third-party candidate? When push comes to shove, will it really be a significant number?
Then again, the whole thing may be moot, if SCOTUS really does strike down the entire HCR bill. But I think that’s a longshot, despite what some prognosticators say.
In this case, it looks like the conventional wisdom is pretty reliable: The four staunch liberals will uphold; the four staunch conservatives will not; Kennedy will provide the deciding vote. But the key here, is how far will Kennedy go? And it sounds like there is much more hope that his reason and sensibility will demolish PPACA altogether. And hopefully, the sad comic performances of Breyer and Ginsburg will push Kennedy firmly into the conservative camp.
Romney went a long way towards helping conservatives reverse their doubts about him when he wrote an article about Obama’s hot mic comments.
Staying at home or voting for a third party is a vote for Obama and the left. That’s how we got Bill Clinton. How hard is that to comprehend?
Here’s the article Romney wrote:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/27/bowing_to_the_kremlin?page=full
I think the basis for Romney’s support for the health care bill in Mass. is centered on the federal law that requires hospitals to render aid to anyone that comes through the door. That’s not free aid. The Hospitals eat a chunk of it which reduces services they can offer to others. Private insurance holders eat a chunk through higher costs of all services at the hospital. I assume the state eats a chunk. All because of the expense of free riders that can’t be layed off easily. The state, hospital, private citizens can’t print money to get out from under those costs. Therefore, Mass. offered a way to cover some of those people thru susidized insurance and imposed a penalty if people didn’t get some kind of basic insurance. Romney was pushing for a private insurance solution aided by state pressure as was the Heritage Foundation at the time.
The rationale doesn’t work at the federal level because, like it or not, the feds can print money. The bind isn’t the same so the justification vis a vis free riders for feds doesn’t, to me, lead to draconian changes.
We have a couple of months to get used to the notion that a Technocrat will be our new overlord…
Count me among those who do not trust, not Romney’s willingness to try some form of repeal (partial or whole), but his willingness to get blood on his hands to make sure it happens. That is, my doubts are about the depth of his convictions on the matter. Obama fought and was willing to fight to the death for his awful bill, because it expressed his deepest convictions. We may not need to fight that hard for repeal, but then again we might. I doubt Romney will do it. I hope it doesn’t come to the point where we have to find out.
That being said, it is absolute madness not to vote for him when (not if) he is the nominee. I’m not sure there are all that many conservatives who dislike Romney more than I do, and not for one split second would I consider doing something as foolish as sitting on my hands because of my dislike for him (my sense is that most who threaten to sit out or go third party are hardcore libertarians anyway, not conservatives). Compared to Obama, I am madly in love with Mittens. He’s just so dreamy next to Barry.
Curtis makes a good point about Romney on foreign policy, an area where I do believe Romney means what he says, and indeed, I think he wants to say more. It’s the one policy domain where I think he tries to moderate how right-wing he actually is for general consumption. When I supported him briefly in 2008, it was for that reason (when I stopped, it was for every other reason). I think he’ll be an awesome foreign policy President.
He’ll appoint non-insane Justices. He will go for budget policies that are at the very least sane, and he may even go bold if his and the down-ticket victories are convincing enough to seem like a mandate. He’s not going to assault the freedom of religion. And so on.
However bad he seems, good lord, just look at the alternative.
So I agree with I R A Darth Aggie that Romney is a technocrat to the core. But it’s about the full context. Romney is a standard-fare RINO technocrat, with a dodgy finger-in-the-wind streak that can be leveraged if the wind is blowing out way. Obama is just a socialist. Moreover, Romney really does love this country. Obama hates it (I use that word advisedly). Romney values our allies and will not betray them. Obama hates them. Romney will be a Republican President with a Republican Congress which can put a whole lot of pressure on him. Obama will rule by executive fiat. Etc., etc…
I do not think these are trivial differences.
Let’s get Obama out. Out. Out. Out.
A funny comment observed elsewhere regarding the vertigo experienced by sensory deprived leftist elites from the late Supreme Court oral arguments:
I will bathe in their bitter tears and have a schaden-boner that will last much more than 4 hours.
Why would anyone label Romney as a technocrat? In what sense. Because he is competent?
Romney was a venture capitalist. These are people who take risks. They risk their own wealth, or they persuade others to trust them with theirs. They are not green eye shade technocrats , politicians, or bureaucrats.
One more point. Romney exercised his veto power 800 times in Ma. How could anyone say that he would not be willing to get (political) blood on his hands?
Much of what I read with regard to Romney leads me to believe that a lot of people are writing from ignorance or without thinking..
Oldflyer: agreed.
I’ve noticed that there are certain memes that get bandied about over and over again by those on the right who don’t like Romney. They are superficial, and usually don’t take into account the guy’s actual history. That’s not to say that all criticism of Romney from the right is of that type; hardly. But way way WAY too much of it is.
I keep wondering, also, if a lot of it is perpetrated by trolls on the left, at least initially.
Why “technocrat”? Because Romney doesn’t have that spark of romantic fire; he’s dry. Because he’s a bit wonky and likes to study things. Because he’s not an outsider coming in on a white horse trailing streams of glory.
Also, I’m not sure those who use the word know what it really means, because the definition isn’t an especially negative one:
I recently listened to an speech by Grover Norquist. I’m not predisposed to like him, given his support for Islamists. But I thought the speech was very good. He made the point that legislation is supposed to originate in the legislative branch, and the President’s job is to sign it.
We Tea Party types need to do what we can to put people in the House and Senate who will give President Romney conservative bills to sign. There is no doubt that he would sign them. That would include repeal of Obamacare, if SCOTUS doesn’t kill it first.
Romney is a technocrat but he surely understands that the nation’s balance sheet and budget are in crisis. If the GOP have control of both houses, Romney will have the power to use his business skills to solve some really serious problems. Here’s hoping.
To those who say that Romney = Obama, I say nay.
Romney is not a race baiting, metrosexual, community organizing, narcissistic, madrasseh trained islamophile intent on reducing American military power and stature.
His father was an American republican governor much favored by the state of Michigan, not an anti-colonialist socialist tool from Kenya.
That’s pretty self-evident.
PPACA: People Protection, Action Criteria of the Apocalpyse:
Have you seen summer in years!
The winter’s way is bold.
Ahhh very lonely, so cold!
And all your longing, fears.
They say everything you do
hurts and means letting go
is just a dream and you too
make life a scream. Please flow.
But these whisperers are jokes.
When treated to a lunch
breakfast, dinner then a punch
you hear their bones go crunch.
Welcome home, apocalyptic warrior.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., probably more than anyone else, changed the law into what we know it. He could not have accomplished this without his wonderful and staggering genius, but even so, he was very unequal to the task. He knew this and stated it often while enjoying the encodements of his efforts by other great minds who wished to destroy formalism for something he really never defined. He wrote “The Common Law” too early because of his supersitition that if a man is going to do anything he would have to make his mark by 40. So a man supposedly ruled by science, was ruled by superstition when it come right down to it.
“The Common Law” propogated his belief that science could and should be man’s sole guide to the future. It was still possible in his time for one man to keep abreast of the various disciplines and science was integrating nature and society. That man was his own rule and progenitor, given the right rules were enforced, was the theme, and basing opinions on “science” whether sociological or material, offerred, well, Utopia. Hence, eugenics with its cold but real propositions, demanded respect and got it. Holmes Jr., sadly, supported eugencis. His was the best supported, educated, and brilliant mind of the day.
We are now faced with a similar prospect. The group must coerce the individual because overall the group will prosper. This did not turn out to be the case in eugenics and it will not turn out for good in Obamacare. The constitution provides a bulwark against “group v individual” legislation, but ultimately, one cannot rest one’s argument on the fact that Obamacare is unconstitutional.
Why is it unconstitutional, hence wrong? We are asked to go to deeper grounds. It is obvious that the clear language of the Constitution does not allow it. But why?
Here, the experience of the Founders with authority invested with powers needed to bring Utopia, instructs. Whether the Utopia be Catholic or Protestant or other was less important than the horrible historical record. Utopians, including the green scientific crowd, have not learned this lesson. They are behind the learning curve on this issue and their intransigence threatens us all. Like Holmes Jr., they rely on “science” for their future, a mad future.