A Good Play For Romney?

RCP is tracking delegates at link. There's a play here if Romney wants it - and it might not be bad. Based on my previous post, CW has to be McCain is toast. Romney could get between McCain and the nod and given Huck's appeal, his support falls off in many future states. Romney could go to the convention with enough to put McCain over the top. So, he takes the VP slot - builds a national organization in place for 2012. He's a young man and might be smart enough to pull it off, unlike Edwards. Maybe bolster his conservative cred over 4 years. And if McCain wins? Well, he is 72. Hmm.

Comments

[Chris]

"Can I also assume it covers affluent half-black crypto-muslims too?"

Sadly your pal teh Jeebus didn't send his 'terrible' wrath your way last night.

[Totally Heterosexual Conservative]

"I think we should stop the party foolishness."

I can get behind that. Unfortunately, however, those in power in both Parties will see that this never happens.

And Seekeronos, I totally do understand what it is you desire to be the outcome of your proposal - a real world manifestation of the ideological purity you value; fine. However, the average voter does not strive for ideologcal purity - on either side. This tends to be the domain of the establishments of the 2 parties. What you do not seem to appreciate is that this proposal will precisely drive more and more of the public from the GOP. Why? Because it only reinforces the public's growing view of the Party as one that, well, doesn't really *get* what the average person values or experiences, as exclusionary, elitist, and geared more toward rigid ideology rather than addressing their needs.

I promise you that constantly yelling at people, and lecturing them as to how they should behave and what they should value, based on rigid adherence to dogma, will only bury the GOP. You haven't stopped to consider that perhaps your values, judgments, and dogma are being roundly rejected by the public not because it is stupid, but because such has repeatedly FAILED them personally.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

THC you make a lot of sense in that last post.

[Terry Gain]

---------
Even Hugh Hewitt has thrown in the towel. Its over.
He's urging everyone (including Romney and his supporters) to back McCain.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/b7d8fd20-1313-4229-a4a7-5325a3815908

Also, he has an ironclad reason not to sit it out or cross over IF you really are a conservative:
"There are seven reasons for anyone to support the eventual nominee no matter who it is: The war and six Supreme Court justices over the age of 68."

Posted by: docweasel | Wednesday, February 06, 2008 at 01:23 PM

---------

You know weasel, to some of us words have meanings. Here is what Hewitt actually said. I'll know enough not to take anything you say at face value.
-------

Senator McCain has a clear path to the nomination, Romney a very uphill battle, and Huck is fighting for 2012 at this point and for a win in a major vote outside of the south. Certainly they should all stay in through the primaries ahead because it isn't over and because our side needs the excitement of a campaign in such key falls states as Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania to keep the MSM from turning 100% of its attention on to growing the Obama phenomenon. They ought to be scheduling three man debates in every state, making their points and taking every opportunity to look ahead to the fall.

[Sara]

I neither like nor trust John McCain and I will not vote for him no matter who he puts on the ticket. I do not believe he will appoint the kind of justices the conservatives would like to see. No he won't appoint openly liberal judges like Hillary or Obama will, but he will appoint judges who are always considered swing voters in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor, so you will never know which side they'll come down on. Also, the one constant thread on McCain is his vindictiveness. Who do you think is at the top of his enemies list? Conservatives and all those who have spoke out against him. It will be a slaughter.

In addition, there is absolutely no way that McCain, no matter who is his running mate, can beat a Hillary/Obama ticket and that is what is going to happen. Hillary/Obama 8 years, Obama/? for 8 more. I see no way for the GOP to stop such a ticket as things stand now.

And if Fred had not wanted McCain, he would have endorsed Romney and at least given him a win in Tennessee and maybe a few other southern states, but where was he? Silent.

Last night, during the middle of the night, Fox and Friends had a high muckedy muck from the Southern Baptists on to discuss the destruction at the So. Baptist university so badly damaged by the tornadoes. A minute in, he was praising McCain for his Baptist church attendance and what a spiritual religious man he is. Who knew? Don't tell me that religious bigotry in the south was not an issue. I've seen it at work in my own family when my fundamentalist convert Aunt told my Mormon convert Mother that she could no longer visit her home or have any personal contact since she had learned that my Mother became doomed to hell by God because of joining the LDS church. When my Uncle died, she said she wouldn't bar my Mother from attending her brother's graveside service, but she was not to come inside the church for the funeral service since her very presence was an "offense against God."

And please, the idea that the Huckster is more of a family values guy than Mitt is just laughable. There are none more family values oriented than Mormons. It is the basis for everything they believe.

Frankly, I don't see Mitt as the savior of conservatives, I really don't see anyone I can think of right now that can save the GOP from at least 16 years of wandering the WH wilderness.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

"my fundamentalist convert Aunt told my Mormon convert Mother that she could no longer visit her home."

Too bad your auntie isn't a Christian. Sorry for her because nothing is sadder than someone who 'thinks' they are on the path of rightgeousness and really aren't.

[seekeronos]

THC speaks pragmatically, I can understand his point: that compromise and trying to determine what the (presumably, the large swath of Independent voters in particular) want.

Yet, if we are unwilling to maintain a certain level of expected standards within either party, and we try to coalesce the platform down to the greatest common denominator, then we become the DNC-lite (and I have no idea what the DNC would do, other than to slide ever more to the left, as has been their custom).

We can demonstratively prove that socialism, and its nastier cousins Maoism and Marxism do not work well, especially in a Western society that values individualism... fails miserably.

While one could argue that Maoism has the illusion of working well for the Chinese - the PRC elites to be sure, but lacking in freedoms we take for granted in the USA -- yet for millennia, the Chinese have existed under various harsh and repressive regimes, and it is what they are conditioned to by culture and by their spiritual inheritance of Taoism and Buddhism, both which suppress the individual in favour of the community) whilst most of Europe has inherited a statist/nationalist form of socialism based upon the model of Otto von Bismarck.

I'd argue that the net effects of socialism are bad enough in their own right - everything being communalized - talents, time, and energy - with an overhead (government) that must be ponderously large and unwieldy to keep track of everything in order to ensure "fairness" (except for the elites running the system, who of course, are entitled to a lion's share of the People's Labours). It all becomes rather Orwellian, and easily so.

We in the USA on the other hand, have an entrenched culture of individuality, which is firmly founded upon the Judeo-Christian bedrock of personal accountability to God, as well as the community (without loosing our individuality in the process).

Surely, certain aspects of Republicanism (esp. under Bushes I and II) leave a lot to be desired -- wanton interventionism, the pressure about the morality without the inducement to faith, and developing a great hubris about how great we are whilst ignoring discontent.

I'll admit that the GWOT and the post 9-11 security theatre that will be a permanent legacy of it (don't think that Ms. Hillary or Obama will make all those nasty TSA people at the airport go away, much less the petty and arbitrary rules about what to put in what container and in what sort of ziplock bag -- if anything, they will become even more legion - and more heavily unionized). Democrats are fond of Big Government and the police state.

If I had my way, we'd have left Iraq after killing Saddam, and indeed, having left most of the lower-rank to middle management of the Baath party structure in place to keep the lights running and the water flowing. Probably ditto for A'stan, outside of keeping a few CIA units around in deep cover to kill or extract OBL when the opportunity presented itself. Much beyond that, and building a few more dozen nuclear subs to park off the coast of would be Arab nuclear powers... and we could be nearly $1T less indebted to Red China.

Otherwise, beyond that, I'd have withdrawn most if not all of our forces back into the CONUS to keep the Guatemalans and Mexicans from crossing over and being a nuisance.

We've made a lot of our problems, and we will likely pay dearly for them... if that price be high, it may mean having to endure a few decades of socialism to see firsthand for ourselves what a failure it is.

[seekeronos]

Diito what WWS to Sara:

True Christians _know_ that they are wretched sinners saved only by grace. We are as "filthy rags" according to the prophet Isaiah, and certainly no better than anyone else who is lead astray by this teaching or that idol.

Only by trusting in the Saviour, can we be saved.

[tally]

it's all in the numbers. huck wouldn't bring states that aren't going red anyway. can mitt bring say massachusetts? can he turn red blue?

[Sara]

I think if Mitt goes into Ohio and Pennsylvania and appeals to them on the level he appealed to those in Michigan, he has a good chance in both states of pulling out a win. Both states are always in economic trouble due to the loss of the rust belt manufacturing losses. Virginia, on the other hand, is probably McCain's due to the large number of military and government workers that live there.

Does anyone else besides me think it very strange how Romney seems to do so well in what I like to call the levi and cowboy boot states? Who would think that a suit and tie businessman would appeal to those who are independent, not in a political sense, but in an every day life sense. The "cowboy" image of Bush that makes liberals and weenie Repubs. go nuts, seems to find Mitt Romney more appealing than the Maverick.

[templar knight]

Yes, it's numbers, tally, and Mitt and McCain can't win the South. Without the South, no Republican President. Don't you get it?

[seekeronos]

That, TK... is why we need McCain (or Mitt, God willing) to pick a solid, proven Southern conservative VP whose name is not Mike Huckabee.