Mark America

The Best We Can Do?

I’ve watched with some interest as the media has all but coronated Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee, and it’s fascinating to see all of the RINO-types emerge briefly from the shadows long enough to tell us to jump on the Romney bandwagon, but frankly, I don’t give a damn about the establishment except inasmuch as they are another faction of anti-American sentiment that must be defeated.  I really wonder if the Republican establishment thinks conservatives are aboard for all of this, and to watch a news outlet like Fox News, you might have formed that impression, but for my part, I’m not interested in Romney, and I don’t believe this race is over.  My state, Texas, has yet to hold its primary, scheduled for the last Tuesday in May, and I’m not voting for Romney in that primary.  Bank on it.

When May 29th comes around, I will be voting for Newt Gingrich as the only alternative we conservatives now have, but also because Mitt Romney remains unpalatable to me.  His latter-day conversion to something approximating conservative views simply is not convincing, and I refuse to support the Massachusetts liberal.  What the establishment of the Republican party should begin to ask itself is if it gets its preferred candidate, what will have been the cost?

How many conservatives will now abandon them? It’s not fair to say I am unenthusiastic about Mitt Romney.  The notion of a lack of “enthusiasm” does the concept no justice.  I am stridently opposed to Mitt Romney, and I would like to help my conservative friends understand my reasoning.  For decades, I have watched the establishment of the GOP act as a fifth column for the Marxists on the left, always undermining conservatism, and always cutting deals with the left.  For a time, I believed they were merely misguided people who foolishly believed in a Chamberlain-like appeasement policy, but as time has gone on, I’ve realized they are much worse than that.  It’s not a matter of incompetence, but instead, a matter of malevolence.  The GOP Establishment doesn’t like conservatives, and if the truth is told, they prefer the company of their leftist friends.  In too many instances, even during the short lifetime of this blog, we have seen a number of sell-outs by the establishment of the Republican party, particularly in the legislative temperament of Speaker Boehner, who has undercut the conservatives in his own party with deals on critical issues imperiling the nation’s future.

All of us on the conservative end of the spectrum knew what would happen if Boehner cut a deal on the Debt Ceiling increase last summer, and despite our warnings, and in spite of our attempts to get them to reconsider, they went along with the insane lunacy that provided Obama trillions more in borrowed money, a piggy-bank he is already breaking in order to help his own re-election.   We knew it.  We urged Boehner and the House Republicans to stand strong.  Boehner made a deal with Reid even before the ink was dry on Cut, Cap & Balance, leaving us dangling in the breeze.  This form of surrender, whereby we find that we have no support for the most critically important items on our agenda is simply a continuance of the same old thing:  Conservatives fight for a conservative agenda, and the establishment, that gives lip service to conservatism, walks it all back at the first opportunity.  The problem with Mitt Romney is that he is a perfect example of this kind of Republican, and to date, everything he has said that claims a conservative inclination, I fully expect him to walk back.

I don’t need another president like that.  Moderate establishment types assure us that Mitt Romney is at least somebody we can hope to control, but I don’t want a President who needs to be led or controlled by conservatives in order to govern in a conservative fashion.  What’s the point in that?  If we need to spend four years of a Romney administration preventing him from surrendering to the left on a whole range of issues, I’d just as soon not have a Romney presidency.  Try, if you will, to see it from my point of view:  I’m one of those guys who pays attention to what lame-duck sessions of Congress may be doing.  Most people go back to their daily lives, post-election, hoping things will work out.  What I know is that they seldom do work out.  Instead, the permanent DC political class continues its agenda full-time, and when most Americans stop paying attention, they’re working their worst at our expense.  If Mitt Romney is President, you will do what?  How closely will you pay attention once the election is over?  Most Americans go back to their ordinary daily grind, and their usual diversions.  It’s the nature of things that the greater body of the electorate pays attention for roughly ten weeks before an election, and roughly one week afterwards, the rest of the time ignoring it unless something big happens that cannot be dismissed.  It is this that gives me pause about the notion of another President with an “R” next to his name that we conservatives would be forced to battle in order to prevent Chamberlain-like appeasements of the left.

Many like to point to the US Supreme Court as one reason that we should accept any Republican over Barack Obama, and while at first blush, this seems true, the fact is that we suffered with David Souter as a result of the presidency of George HW Bush, and had conservatives not lashed out in vigor, George W. Bush might well have appointed Harriet Miers to the court.  You see, I don’t want a Republican president who we will need to fight on judicial appointments.  Even the record of Ronald Reagan on this matter was a bit spotty, at least on the high court.   If we’re going to have a Republican president, I’d just as soon have the sense that conservatism was the default philosophy used in making decisions, rather than having to worry that it’s not going to be observed as a guiding anchor in a new administration.  The simple fact is that with another moderate, or even liberal Republican in the oval office, too many people will again assume that the policies issuing from such an administration will be conservative, but as we have seen repeatedly since the elder Bush, that’s not the case.

Conservatives simply won’t fight a Republican president, no matter how liberal, as strongly as they would a leftist demagogue like Obama.  This is not an endorsement of Obama, but what I’m waiting to see is what conservatives will explain as the method by which they will exercise control of any sort over a Romney administration, the campaign for which has done everything conceivable to ignore conservatives and win the nomination in blue states without them.  Exactly why would Mitt answer to we conservatives?  I can’t think of a single reason.  It’s for this reason that I will continue to fight for Gingrich, and hold out for a brokered convention.  I don’t blame any conservative who evaluates the record of Mitt Romney and finds it sorely lacking.   In short, I’m right there with you.  Romney simply isn’t a conservative, and he knows it.  So does the GOP establishment, that hopes to win the nomination for him, with or without conservative support. I don’t have any interest in supporting another moderate Republican in the primaries, so when the Texas primary comes around, I’ll be voting for Newt Gingrich.  He understands conservatism, even if he has not always been its most perfect practitioner.  Romney is still unpalatable to me.

Will the GOP establishment ever learn?  I suppose the answer to that question lies in the evidence.  After all, maybe they have learned.  Maybe the real lesson for the establishment is that if we conservatives have no remaining options, we’ll ultimately surrender, and go along to get along, that we conservatives will ultimately accept their leadership if only to prevent worse under leftists like Obama.  Maybe the question shouldn’t be whether the establishment of the GOP will ever learn, but whether we conservatives will ever exhibit the determination to defeat the establishment.   After all, come mid-November, as we go back to our football and our plans for the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, who will be minding the store?  Us?  Or the GOP establishment?  I see this as the real problem.  It’s not a matter of Mitt Romney, so much as it is a question of our diligence.  The establishment we fight knows we will shut up, most of us, and go on quietly about our business while they run the country.  It’s not their fault.  It’s ours.