Why We MUST Have Romney; What a Foolish Argument

The Republican primary for the 2012 presidential election has officially begun, and many voices are proclaiming Romney as the only one that could possibly beat Obama. Romney is also presented as a true conservative candidate behind whom the party should unite. Here’s an article written by Lauren Noble on the Daily Caller Opinion Page, one of so many flooding the internet these days, followed by the truth about Romney.

Right at the start Lauren begins with an oft-repeated lie.

As many in the GOP scramble to find a candidate, there have been calls for anyone but Romney. Efforts are already underway to brand Romney as a RINO. Such a label is profoundly inaccurate and hurts the Republican Party’s best chance at recapturing the White House in 2012.

Mitt Romney doesn’t have to be branded as a RINO because he’s never been a conservative. He’s the one that supports gay marriage, was pro-abortion, an environmentalist, and pro-ethanol subsidies. He is known to have said that the former Senator Kennedy was not liberal enough for Massachusetts. So no one is suddenly branding him as a RINO. He’s always been one and his record proves it.

Lauren then continues with the following:

Romney’s acumen as an executive stands out in any field of candidates and this one in particular. From his extraordinary success in the private sector, Romney can speak credibly about the economy and job creation. His fiscal conservatism reaches beyond balanced budgets in the short-term. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney not only balanced the budget every year without raising taxes but also rescued the Commonwealth’s Stabilization Fund, also known as the “rainy day fund.” By the time Romney left office in 2007, the fund held $2.3 billion.

Palin, Pawlenty, and others have also been executives, and pretty successful ones. For those of you shouting that Palin wasn’t a governor for a full term while Romney was four years, Pawlenty was eight years, so don’t get all wee-weed up. 

Although Romney’s extraordinary success in the private sector is truly remarkable and I give him credit for his achievements, that doesn’t necessarily create a conservative small-government candidate. Warren Buffet and Mike Bloomberg are also very successful businessmen.

About the taxes claim, perhaps Mitt didn’t create any new taxes, but he did enforce several fees, and his state-run healthcare mandates forced his successor to implement new taxes to cover for the rising costs of Romney’s legislation. Mitt also has left his state with a deficit and because of his policies the debt of MA has been increasing with each passing year.

 

Look at what comes next:

Contrast this record with that of former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who is seen as one of Romney’s strongest challengers for the Republican nomination. In his efforts to balance Minnesota’s budget, Pawlenty emptied his state’s rainy day fund. Before he entered office in 2003, the state’s budget reserve contained $653 million. By 2010, Pawlenty’s last year in office, the balance of the account was zero. Is that the mark of someone serious about entitlement reform and the national debt? Such a record inspires little confidence in Pawlenty’s ability to successfully tackle these long-term problems.

I’ll be up front with you and admit I’m not that too familiar with Pawlenty’s figures since I disagree with him on several issues. I do know that Palin left a multi-billion surplus that Alaska still benefits from today in a time when the rest of the country including MA was suffering from a recession. Additionally, If you have access to any recent poll whether Gallup, Rasmussen, or others, Pawlenty is way down on the bottom next to Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum,  and John Huntsman. The front runners are Romney, Palin, Gingrich, and even radical Ron Paul. So if you want to debate who the best candidate for the GOP is in 2012, don’t just pick one guy and declare him as Romney’s greatest opposition and pretend it’s either Romney or Pawlenty so we have to go with Romney. There are other great candidates joining the field.

 

Now for the most hilarious part of her article:

And yet, in spite of his fiscally conservative credentials, Romney continues to endure criticism from conservatives primarily because of his support for universal healthcare in Massachusetts. In 2008, it would have been difficult to imagine that Romneycare could become Romney’s greatest political liability. At a fundraiser in Massachusetts during the 2008 primaries, Romney even joked that the fact that he and Senator Ted Kennedy agreed on a piece of legislation might have meant one of them hadn’t read it.
  
Now that Romney takes heat for the fact that his plan is cited as the blueprint for Obamacare, he continues to offer the same defense he gave in 2008: namely, that Romneycare is imperfect and not intended as a “one size fits all” plan. At a speech in January 2007, for example, Romney admitted: “I can’t tell you that what we came up with in Massachusetts is the only and best solution.” Such an explanation did not stop National Review from endorsing him for the Republican nomination in 2008 as “the most conservative viable candidate.” And it should not stop conservatives from supporting him today.

Because Mitt Romney was able to joke at the fact that he and Ted Kennedy agreed on his state-run healthcare mandates and that the National Review endorsed him, I’m supposed to ignore the true facts about his healthcare? Why didn’t you find it important to bring this Romney quote which he had said at that time? “If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation." Or perhaps this exchange he had with Charlie Gibson in the ABC debate?

GIBSON: But Government Romney's system has mandates in Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.

ROMNEY: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.

This article has become way too long, so here’s one last piece of nonsense, and you can read the rest if you wish over here.

Conservatives need to accept the reality that Romney had two options governing a state as blue as Massachusetts. The first option: reach across the aisle and govern. The second: stand against the Democratic legislature and get nothing done. The first can be politically risky; the latter can be politically reckless. Why should Romney apologize for choosing leadership over posturing?

I got a third option, if you can’t stand up and govern according to your principles then get out of the kitchen. Find even one conservative principle Romney claims to support that he hasn’t abandoned in his quest for governorship? Have you never heard of someone standing up to their beliefs? If he’s a conservative, what’s he doing in liberal MA anyways? A person has to put principle before one’s position. He doesn’t have to apologize; he simply doesn’t have to pretend being conservative either.

This article has been cross posted at Red State.