Levin: Conservatives Must Rally For Romney, Now!

You need to appreciate the full context of this Levin piece linked below. He is a pundit with a successful and, I would assume, lucrative broadcasting career. They do not gain from making pronouncements such as this. It is a complete risk in the sense of the buzz and reputation that go with a broadcasting career. It could also prove costly by alienating those who would disagree. He doesn't have to do this. He could straddle the line, as so many of his ilk will do.

But Mark Levin cares about conservatism, first and foremost. Clearly he is taking this risk for its sake and not his own. Win or lose, he is to be applauded for that.

But, more importantly, as Mark asserts, conservatives MUST rise up and realize we can still win. But the time to act, not just get angry, is now. Donate, volunteer - do what you can.

It is conservatism that will suffer a defeat, not just Romney, not just you, or me. But conservatism, itself. And if that happens, my friends, we all lose - big.

I don't know what else to say, really. Either the electorate, or parts of it conservatives need to win, are disengaged, uninformed, or angry and ignoring this election. McCain's endorsement are, while not totally, mostly coming from RINOs. If conservatives want to yield control of the party to its most liberal wing, I suppose they are free to do so. But, make no mistake, failure to strongly support Mitt Romney now and allow McCain to prevail will set conservatism back decades, if not longer. And that, my friends, is a fact.

Once in office for what is likely to be one term by choice, if not a loss in 2012 - the preening McCain we watched on the stage last night will marginalize conservatism from the bully pulpit of the Presidency, assuming he does win. Or, more likely, he will inadvertently do it in the Fall campaign - lose - and with it, we will lose Iraq and much else to a liberal Congress and White House.

Now is the time to act. And time is running out. Read it all.

Let’s get the largely unspoken part of this out the way first. McCain is an intemperate, stubborn individual, much like Hillary Clinton. These are not good qualities to have in a president. As I watched him last night, I could see his personal contempt for Mitt Romney roiling under the surface. And why? Because Romney ran campaign ads that challenged McCain’s record? Is this the first campaign in which an opponent has run ads questioning another candidate’s record? That’s par for the course. To the best of my knowledge, Romney’s ads have not been personal. He has not even mentioned the Keating-Five to counter McCain's cheap shots. But the same cannot be said of McCain’s comments about Romney.

Last night McCain, who is the putative frontrunner, resorted to a barrage of personal assaults on Romney that reflect more on the man making them than the target of the attacks. McCain now has a habit of describing Romney as a “manager for profit” and someone who has “laid-off” people, implying that Romney is both unpatriotic and uncaring. Moreover, he complains that Romney is using his “millions” or “fortune” to underwrite his campaign. This is a crass appeal to class warfare. McCain is extremely wealthy through marriage. Romney has never denigrated McCain for his wealth or the manner in which he acquired it. Evidently Romney’s character doesn’t let him to cross certain boundaries of decorum and decency, but McCain’s does. And what of managing for profit? When did free enterprise become evil? This is liberal pablum which, once again, could have been uttered by Hillary Clinton.

Comments

[mike]

Not to beat a dead horse here but Mitt needs money so if you all don't want McCain and you'd like Romney to run ads against him, then dig deep and give to his campaign and call your friends. If we are really more than the chattering class get up and do!

[Earnie]

I am beginning to believe that the party will allow the Republican candidate to lose, so that conservatism can rebuild and rescue the Republican Party. The only other explanation is that our society has become older, and the Boomers want someone they know and trust, the old "war hero" badge from Republicans past. As the Boomers still dominate the population (with only some of the equally populous Gen Y only just now able to vote), this may make some sense. He is of their soceital position and age.

I just can't believe that this is a rational, thought-out conclusion. McCain just cannot be that popular, and he will lose big to whomever the Democrats choose. It may be the best thing that ever happened to conservatism, because both Obama and Clinton will fail miserably.

[IslamoLlama]

"Not to beat a dead horse here but Mitt needs money so if you all don't want McCain and you'd like Romney to run ads against him, then dig deep and give to his campaign and call your friends. If we are really more than the chattering class get up and do!"

Also, while you are up, drop a few quarters in the Red State collection bin. Liberals sabotaged their intertubes, and they need to get replaced.

[jon berzerk]

Why?

I am not convinced that he is a conservative!
His past does not suggest so.
Mandated health insurance and being for the AWB is not conservative.

It will take more then his promises that he is conservative this to get my vote

[tally]

the problem - romney is not a conservative. levin must think his listeners are stupid.

[seekeronos]

RedState can go beg off elsewhere, IMHO... I don't care much for supporting them when they have a policy of stealth banning folks contrary to their own posted "rules".

I don't care much for that AWB and the mandatory insurance, but bearing in mind that Massachusetts and particularly Boston is the east coast HQ for liberals in America... I might be willing to give him a limited pass for signing those items.

He's still better than the alternatives.

[Kaitian]

Are you two people idiots? The mandated healthcare plan actually cuts down on Medicare / Medicaid fundings which it makes people take money out of their own pockets to pay for health insurance or face fines. Is that not being a fiscal conservative? Reining in entitlement programs by forcing people to buy insurance who can afford it?

[tally]

yeah, "forcing" people to buy is not conservative. this isn't russia.

[seekeronos]

I tend to draw a distinction in the case of a state government doing its own "mandatory" health insurance programme -- in that it deals with it in a manner appropriate to that state, as opposed to imposing a MASSIVE healthcare system nationwide.

For me, it is more of a federalism item.

However, the idea of "forcing" people to do stuff isn't very much in the mold of the "stay off my back" small government conservatism I like.

Yet, Mitt did this in a state that likely would have done cartwheels to get a true socialized medicine program (which is not at all what Mitt's programme is).

The beauty of it is, it doesn't affect me here in NY state, so I'm not complaining about it: so long as he doesn't try to apply his state solution to the entire country.

[Dan Riehl]

Getreal folks. You have competing interests in the health care case. Did you mind when BIG GOVERNMENT told people to go to work and get off of welfare with work fare? That was government telling free loaders to get off their ass, thereby protecting tax payers. Stopping free ride, ER health care is the same thing. It requires a bigger pool of people to make the actuaries work, insurance wise. If you can't support a program like Romney in Mass, you have to stop bitching about people walking in and out of ERs on your dime.

You can't have it both ways and expect to be taken seriously. Maybe you just like being mad.

[Steve J.]

McCain's endorsement are, while not totally, mostly coming from RINOs.

Perhaps but McCain does have some true conservatives behind him.

McCain gets by with a little help from his Senate friends
By Jessica Holzer
Posted: 01/22/08 12:01 AM [ET]

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who endorsed McCain after dropping his own presidential bid, called McCain a “solid pro-life guy” in Iowa.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), another prominent abortion foe and a tough critic of pork-barrel spending, announced his support for McCain days before the South Carolina primary.

...Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) — an icon of supply-side economics — and former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) attested to McCain’s conservative bona fides in the state.

On the day of the Iowa caucuses, Kyl and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) found themselves phone-banking voters from the campaign’s Des Moines office.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) was caught in a blinding snowstorm on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula en route to an event he was headlining for McCain last week.

In 2006, Coburn and Thune got a 100% rating from The American Conservative Union and Kyl has a lifetime rating of 96.9%. Brownback's lifetime in 94.0%. Burr is the "liberal" in this group - he only has a 91.2% lifetime rating.