Is Romney a conservative?
Howard Sutherland writes:
What do you make of this? Bay Buchanan—not someone I should have thought of as a confirmed Romney supporter—gives Mitt Romney a ringing endorsement, saying he’ll do all the right things and can beat Obama into the bargain. Very nice to read, but does it ring true to you?
LA replies:
She says he will get the economy going again, get government spending and debt under control, that he’s anti-same sex “marriage,” a committed pro-lifer, and has the best anti-amnesty position of anyone in the race.
First, I’ve never felt that Romney was as bad as many conservatives say he is. Romney is not a horror like McCain, and to equate them is idiotic. Also, as someone who has not voted for the GOP nominee in 20 years, I look amazedly at people who undoubtedly voted for McCain in 2008, and who now say that Romney is as bad as McCain and even as bad as Obama so we shouldn’t vote for him.
At the same time, Romney says he has no intention to repeal the homosexualization of the military that was passed in December 2010, thus showing himself to be a liberal who will keep moving the country in a liberal direction. His statements on repealing Obamacare show a distinct lack of passion. He’s a mindless follower of the mindless GOP policy of planting our troops forever in Muslim countries (and he’s even worse, saying that jihadism has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, though in his defense he has never expressed any strong belief in the neocon idea of Muslim democratization).
On balance it is impossible to feel good about him. But we are in an unprecedented crisis. Obama and the Democrats are revolutionizing, tyrannizing, and, I believe, deliberately seeking to destroy the country. As I’ve been saying in recent months, while I no longer believe that the overall liberal direction of America and the West will come to an end short of catastrophe, I also believe that it is possible and vitally necessary to slow the devilish progress of liberalism, to limit as much as possible the damage it is doing. For these reasons I will most likely vote for Romney if he is the nominee.
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Vincent Chiarello writes:
I remind you that Pat Buchanan’s sister is a Mormon, and “blood loyalty,” very commonplace amongst members of my ethnic tribe, is also de rigueur among members of LDS.
The truth is that conservative minded voters will, even on Election Day, still have their doubts about how loyal to conservative principles Romney will be if elected.
Howard Sutherland replies:
God in Heaven! How does Pat Buchanan’s sister, of all people, come to be a Mormon?
Vincent Chiarello replies:
I met Bay Buchanan while she was the Campaign Director for Tom Tancredo’s 2008 electoral bid, and I was part of a team from my anti-illegal immigration group that served as “foot soldiers” for the campaign, distributing material and pounding the bricks talking to people about the costs of illegal immigration. It was then that I found out the story of Buchanan’s “conversion.”
Bay Buchanan was first married in a Catholic Church, but after her divorce she met married a Mormon, eventually becoming one. In my experience overseas, becoming a Mormon, a religion that stresses the importance of family, was often the choice of those affected by divorce. From what I surmised during our conversations, the LDS is a significant part of her life.
Pat Buchanan, a very observant Catholic, has kept his very strong familial ties to his now Mormon sister, for to him, blood is thicker than water.
LA to Howard Sutherland:
You didn’t know that Bay is a Mormon?
Howard Sutherand replies:
I had no idea. I guess the rock I’ve been living under is unusually large. How did she come to be one of the Brighams—as one of my old battalion commanders used to call them, to annoy the Mormon officers in our battalion—anyway? I suppose I assumed all those Buchanans are more Catholic than … well, you know the rest.
Back to Romney, though: I find it very hard to believe that he will in fact tackle any of the (now) difficult social issues should he replace Pharaoh in the White House. And, with respect to immigration specifically, I would expect no better of Romney than of any Bush. His sect are notoriously insouciant about mass immigration, and I’m sure he has warm feelings for all the lovely Latin American domestics who have been so very nice and deferential to Mr. and Mrs. Romney over the years. HRS
“Brighams—as one of my old battalion commanders used to call them, to annoy the Mormon officers in our battalion—anyway? I suppose I assumed all those Buchanans are more Catholic than … “
LA replies:
” I suppose I assumed all those Buchanans are more Catholic than … well, you know the rest.”
I think you’re operating under the widely shared assumption that Buchanan is an Irish Catholic. He is not. None of his background is Irish Catholic. His father was a Scots-Irish Protestant, his mother a German Catholic. The children were raised Catholic.
Howard Sutherland replies:
That would explain his Scottish surname. Thank you for the family history.
James P. replies:
You wrote,
“Romney is not a horror like McCain, and to equate them is idiotic.”
He only has to be as bad as Dubya Bush to be a disaster for conservatism and the country.
“But we are in an unprecedented crisis. Obama and the Democrats are revolutionizing, tyrannizing, and, I believe, deliberately seeking to destroy the country.”
I remember right-leaning pundits using the exact same logic to urge me to vote for the GOP in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. It may even be true that the Democrats have been trying to tyrannize and destroy the country for the past 20 years, but at this point I am feeling a certain amount of crisis fatigue, as well as resistance to being played for a sucker once again. If it is so all-fired important that the GOP needs my vote, they should nominate someone I actively want to vote for, not another flaccid “lesser of two evils” candidate.
LA replies:
So the fact that I, who have not voted for the GOP nominee in 20 years (each time resisting the same arguments that you are resisting this year), feel that the crisis now is so bad that the GOP must win, does not have any effect on your idea that what the Democrats are doing and threatening to do now is no worse than what they’ve done and threatened to do before?
James P. replies:
I guess your pro-GOP nominee trend line is pointing up, and mine is pointing down. =)
I have lost my ability to be horrified and surprised by the Democrats. I didn’t think we could do worse than Jimmy Carter—until we got Bill Clinton. I didn’t think we could do worse than Bill Clinton—until we got Barack Obama. Based on that progression, who will be the next Democratic President—Satan himself?
I’ve held my nose before, and unless Romney does something very impressive between now and November, I’m not going to do it again. (And by that, I mean something more impressive than choosing a supposedly conservative running mate as a sop to prole sensibilities.) In particular, I’m not going to vote for him if he pulls a McCain and refuses to fight Obama this Fall. I can support a genuine fighter who loses, but I’m not going to reward someone who’s merely acting a part in a sham contest.
The fact that the crisis is so bad is exactly the reason we need a man who has ideas, a plan, and internal fortitude. A lackluster moderate won’t help us. Right now, it is not clear to me that Romney has the principles necessary to save the country, has a plan based on those principles, and has the courage to implement such a plan.
Clark Coleman writes:
James P. writes:
“If it is so all-fired important that the GOP needs my vote, they should nominate someone I actively want to vote for, not another flaccid ‘lesser of two evils’ candidate.”
Who are “they?” How does the GOP nominate someone who does not run for the nomination? As I have mentioned before, conservative voters need to discard the paranoid, helpless victim rhetoric. There is no GOP establishment either forcing unsatisfactory candidates on us, or preventing good candidates from running. We needed a successful governor of a conservative state to run for the nomination. We did not get that. Bad luck and bad timing, but not a conspiracy by a mythical cabal.
LA replies:
It’s true. No matter how often you point out to people that candidates for major party presidential nominations in the modern era are self-selected, not the annointed product of any establishment, people keep believing that there is some roomful of men deciding who the candidates will be.
Yes, the GOP establishment certainly approved of Bob Dole in the 1996 nomination race, and they approved of George W. Bush in the 2000 nomination race, and they support Romney in this race. But they did not determine who would run, and who would not run.. They did not say, “This is our boy,” and that was that. Romney and the others generated their own candidacies. And, as is well known, several whom the establishment types wanted to run this year, chose not to run.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 21, 2012 01:39 PM | Send