Pick Romney
Now that The One has announced that he will announce his VP choice this weekend, I felt it was time to offer my two cents on who McCain’s choice should be. Mitt Romney should get the nod. I know, I bashed Romney pretty hard during the primaries, calling him a fraud and a charlatan. I still think he was pretending to be far more conservative than he actually is, and I stand by my view that McCain was the best choice the GOP could have made. But as The One slips in the polls and most conservatives are finally warming up to McCain after his knockout performance at Saddleback, I am convinced that Romney’s strengths outweigh his weaknesses.
As more people tune in to the Presidential race, the McCain campaign is going to need a spokesman, someone who can do the cable and Sunday news and talk shows. Who better than Romney? With his telegenic personality and Norman Rockwell appearance Romney is the perfect talking head. Add to that the fact that when asked to go on message Romney’s like a dog with a bone and it becomes a no-brainer.
Romney’s popularity with a large number of conservatives is his other strength, and the one that is most important. While McCain must keep his maverick image and bipartisan reputation alive to beat Obama, conservatives are still some of his best allies. As the reality of McCain vs. Obama has sunk in, conservatives have grown thicker skins when it comes to McCain’s political sins and many prominent conservatives have spent the past months promoting rather than bemoaning the Republican Party’s nominee.
Now that the days of griping and whining have past, McCain needs to show the conservative movement that he understands that they are a valuable part of the GOP’s efforts, and picking Romney does just that. Romney’s final attribute is his economic fluency. While it is certainly true that picking Romney is an admission that McCain isn’t that strong on economics, Romney’s ability to make economic talking points sound like a fireside chat more than makes up for it.
Romney certainly has his weaknesses, the Mormon thing not least among them. He positioned himself as ‘Mr. Republican’ in a year that looks to be bad for any candidate with an ‘R’ next to his name. His strategy of doing the traditional GOP thing ‘once more with feeling’ was a loser in the primaries and will certainly play into Obama’s narrative of McCain being Bush III. But Romney’s confident and positive economic message should more than make up for any attack Obama can muster.
After disastrously floating the idea of a pro-choice VP, the McCain campaign should realize that while conservatives aren’t the totality of the Party, they are certainly a major part, one the campaign wants energetically on their side. Romney is the best of the VP-bunch, especially now that Obama’s claim on the lead is becoming increasingly tenuous. Pick Romney, it’s the smart choice.
This post was written by Archimedes on August 19th, 2008.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from J. Tyler Ballance
Time: August 20, 2008, 6:26 am
Mitt Romney would be a President who promotes the status quo and if that is what our citizens want, then he’s the man.
I worked to get Mitt on the ballot in Virginia and served as the adviser to the nascent, Students for Mitt group at the University of Richmond (that bastion of Leftist political indoctrination).
Mitt has a wonderful record where he has served his constituents faithfully; something he has been criticized for, since his honest efforts to forge common ground solutions have been sniped at by both extremes at various times. His five boys and wife, Ann (a survivor of Multiple Sclerosis) provide an inspiring image of an All-American family.
The one nagging question that remains about the Romneys, is why, with five healthy adult sons, not one of these young men have felt the need to serve in our Armed Forces; not in the Reserves, ROTC, not even Civil Air Patrol or their local volunteer Rescue Squad/Fire Department. This fact makes Mitt appear hypocritical as he speaks about keeping our military deployed in the never ending Bush contrivance, known as the, “War on Terror.” How can Mitt ask the sons of poor and middle class Americans to go get their arms and legs blown off in un-declared “wars” when not one of his sons has bothered to even serve as a Red Cross volunteer?
Comment from James Atticus Bowden
Time: August 20, 2008, 8:46 am
Romney makes chameleon’s envious. Bad choice in my opinion.
Comment from James Atticus Bowden
Time: August 20, 2008, 8:57 am
chameleons - no apostrophe
Comment from Mr. Churchill
Time: August 23, 2008, 12:35 am
Mr. Ballance,
Lest you forget, I would remind you that we have a volunteer military. I would not have anyone serve in the military for his dad’s sake; nor for some twisted sense of obligation. When I go to war, I want men and women beside me who WANT to be there - not people whose parents wanted them there.
The fact that none of Romney’s sons felt it necessary to serve in the military is not a failing of his leadership, or a failing as a father; it was the choice of his sons, and theirs alone. If they chose to not serve in the military, that is perfectly acceptable in my sight - I will go in their place, if allowed.
Furthermore, the Vice President is not in the military Chain of Command. There is no hypocrisy, since he cannot keep our military deployed anywhere that John McCain has commanded them to evacuate. Learn2politic, my friend - rhetoric does not suit you.
Comment from Joseph Eulo
Time: August 25, 2008, 1:29 pm
I like John McCain too; he seems to be a great guy, personable, likable, a kind of guy that you could invite over to a BBQ. Yeah sure, I respect him for his military service. No it doesn’t bother me that he graduate in the bottom 5% of his class from the Naval Academy, (hey I dropped out of High school) or that he crashed 4 planes,(I crashed my car twice) or even that he was shot down on his first mission over Vietnam,(hey, I’m three time loser) or even the that he started singing like a bird when captured by the NVA, without being tortured, or that he cheated on his wife, while in office, and is trying to portray himself as the candidate for family values, hey who am I to judge, I’ve mad my fair share of mistakes and then some, so who am I to judge McCain for his.
What really gets me is that some of you, won’t name any names, (on a car trip to Florida), spoke about how Bush was going to do this, and bush was going to do that, and how the economy was going to be better….and what happened? Well we started out with a surplus and eight years later were going to end up with the biggest deficit in history, and McCain supported Bush 95% of the time. Our economy has tanked, our Gas Prices have skyrocketed and everything from the cost of food to diapers has gotten insanely expensive. I won’t mention how many Americans lost their jobs, or tax breaks to companies that ship American Jobs overseas. Maybe those of you that are well off can afford the “basic necessities”, or have a “nest egg” to carry you over until the economy gets better, but many Americans, including myself, cannot.
We went to war in IRAQ on a LIE, remember WMDs, 4,146 soldiers are dead 30,182 wounded for a LIE .How did you all get duped into agreeing to spend 12 Billion a month in Iraq for a war, that shouldn’t even be? So far we spent $368 billion on military operations, $45 billion more in veterans care, diplomatic services, training with that type of money we could of rebuilt the nation’s Infrastructure, invested in alternative energy and established Universal Healthcare.
Come on, be honest, when “W” moved his attention from looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan to invading Iraq, you weren’t scratching you head thinking “why in the hell are we doing that?” Intelligent and hardworking Americans such as yourselves?, didn’t have any doubt about that decision? OK, ok, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
What about when the excuse for invading Iraq was proven to be a LIE, WMDs? How about then? Were you outraged? No… no, you just voted him back into office for another four years, with the excuse, “We want him to finish what he started.” What!? Come on, wake up! If that was any other American, he would be in prison.
John McCain has been in Washington for a long time, twenty something years and nothing’s has changed. He is out of touch with reality. He doesn’t even understand economics and even admits it himself, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” McCain said on December 17 in New Hampshire, http://lburl.com/idd0k
I’m astounded, How can smart, Intelligent, hardworking people want McCain for president? Don’t get me wrong, I like John McCain, even after all the crappy things he has done, even after all his flip-flopping, I like him, just not as my Next President!
I am 36, and this will be my first election that I will vote in: presidential or otherwise. It’s Time for a change in Washington, it’s time for a president for the people, from the people, someone who has seen the same hardships that we have, made the same kind of sacrifices we made, and works hard for success, think about that when you cast your ballot in November.
Comment from J. Tyler Ballance
Time: September 19, 2008, 5:29 pm
People who post under fake names are cowards.
That poster who says that he only wants people at his side during a war to “…want to be there…” Damned few ever want to be there once the shooting starts, so good luck on that prospect.
The idea that we can maintain a two front war with an all volunteer military is a farce. If we have another war (not this fake war on terror BS) we will have to return to the draft.
The point about Mitt Romney’s boys was not to infer that we should have mandatory conscription, but that it is a point of weakness when someone who aspires to be President should have five healthy sons and not one has served in any public service capacity; not even the Civil Air Patrol, or Volunteer Firefighter/EMT. There are myriad ways that one or more of the Romney boys could fill this gaping hole, by volunteering in some capacity between now and 2012, when the GOP will have returned to its collective senses and tries to win back the White House from Obooboo.
As for the contention that the VP commands no one, the fact that Mitt has, as a candidate, repeatedly called for continued deployments and extending the wars now ongoing, must be noticed by the citizens. The fact that a very weary McCain could keel over at any moment, means what Mitt’s views are germane, had he been the VP.
Romney could have been a good VP, but Palin is just insulting to the citizens and an affront to the Republic.
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