Patterico's Pontifications

9/17/2014

Romney Running Again?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:37 am



So says a top GOP money man. (Well, he says he might.)

It’s a test of your ability to be civil to one another. Please try.

103 Responses to “Romney Running Again?”

  1. Too early to care about Presidential runs. 2 1/2 years out is a little too far.

    My only Presidential election prediction this far out is that Hillary Clinton has no chance.

    Dejectedhead (a094a6)

  2. i’ll be civil, and NOT use the language i want to when i hear about this sort of “news”…

    “Hell to the NO!”

    Mittens, the Huckster, and all the other RINOs who think it’s “their turn” can all go die in a fire.

    hopefully, seeing CashAndCarry go down in flames this year versus Moonbeam will knock some sense in their heads, but RINOs are notoriously stupid, and slow to learn, so i figure we’ll have another Demonrat in the White House in 2016

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  3. Current events, like nuclear winter, leave a barren political landscape
    where everyone with people thinks they have a chance.

    I’m certain the GOP will lose another few million in voters for POTUS.

    Whether they will have enough to beat Warren or someone else with a pulse is a crapshoot.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  4. If he couldn’t stand up to Obama how will he stand up to the “first woman” candidate?

    Nice guy but can’t fight.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  5. Romney might as well run. He has a mostly conventional conservative message, and he can thus be used as a benchmark by which we evaluate all the other GOP candidates. It would be interesting to see how he stacks up in debates next to Jindal, Rubio, Cruz, Walker, or any of the other potential candidates.

    JVW (638245)

  6. He’s old and worn out. He already was in 2012. But if a guy just wants to retire in luxury and play golf all day at the taxpayers’ expense, the Presidency is the way to do it.

    nk (dbc370)

  7. And you lost me with Jindal, Cruz, and Rubio, JVW. Can we please, please have an American President this time around? I’d like to see the qualification changed to third-generation American citizen to avoid what we’ve been going through with the Kenyan-Indonesian-Muslim-Communist.

    nk (dbc370)

  8. I’d like to see Rick Perry. Those horn-rimmed glasses would make all the difference in the world. He could actually see what he garbles up.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  9. No more hillbillies, either, Haiku.

    nk (dbc370)

  10. I’d like to see the qualification changed to third-generation American citizen to avoid what we’ve been going through with the Kenyan-Indonesian-Muslim-Communist.

    See, I kind of think the opposite. I’m tired of long-standing families like Bushes and Clintons and Gores and Kennedys and Romneys. I like immigrants (well, those who are conservative) because they actually seem to have reverence and respect for what America is all about. To me, they are way closer to reflecting the ideals upon which this country was founded than someone who was born into wealth that their family accumulated 100 years ago and thinks that the American Dream is all about hobnobbing with celebrities and media titans and captains of industry at the Bohemian Club retreat.

    JVW (638245)

  11. But hey, maybe we can both agree upon Scott Walker, eh nk?

    JVW (638245)

  12. Just the guy I had in mind, JVW.

    nk (dbc370)

  13. Or snowbillies, nk. Or preeners… Or Lonesome Rhodes-types…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  14. I don’t think he’ll do it, plus it’s too early to get worked up about it. I want to see people get excited about a non-interventionist flip-flopping libertarian who wants to legalize drugs or a true conservative who has no chance of winning.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  15. 7.And you lost me with Jindal, Cruz, and Rubio, JVW. Can we please, please have an American President this time around?

    nk, I’m stunned. You do realize Bobby Jindal is an American. The was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother (which makes him American) and a Cuban father. Marco Rubio was born in Miami Florida so he too is American. Now if any of you guys believe any of those three guys wouldn’t make a better president than any a-hole the Dems could put up tell me why.

    And if any of you believe these guys couldn’t beat liars like Hillary or Chief Warren I disagree. But if you all don’t think they should head the tick may I suggest Scott Walker with any of those three as vice president.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  16. Why shouldn’t he run? He’s an A-list candidate. I guarantee that EVERYONE will find he isn’t the worst Republican running — we have a deep bench and some of that bench is pretty terrible.

    Sure there are other candidates that I like better, but I’d be satisfied with a President Romney and frankly I have no time to spend arguing with people who would rather starve than have half a loaf.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  17. I will try to be civil, but there seem to be a lot of over-focused people here who think their narrow brand of politics defines the GOP and everyone who disagrees with them on some issue is a “RINO.”

    Again, there is ONLY one definition of “RINO” — someone who claims to be a Republican who doesn’t vote for the party’s candidate. If you want to call someone a “conservative in name only”, fine, but “Republican” is whomever the majority of the party says is one.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  18. Sure there are other candidates that I like better, but I’d be satisfied with a President Romney and frankly I have no time to spend arguing with people who would rather starve than have half a loaf.

    Kevin M, they are not settling for half a loaf, they get a whole loaf of leftist redistributionism buttered with lies, denials and blame for others. Trust me, we’ve been getting the whole loaf unfortunately shoved in the wrong hole.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  19. I’ve said it before and I say it again. Romney would have been the most honest and upstanding man to ever inhabit the WH. As we all know now, he would have knocked TFG into a cocked hat if not for the IRS, Candy Crowley, MFM et al running interference for JEF. Please explain how SCOAMF has been better than Mitt would have been. The animosity to the man astounds me.

    Gazzer (b9113e)

  20. Romney has been plain he is not running. He would be an appropriate candidate. He is as highly accomplished as anyone who has run in the post-Eisenhower era excepting his lack of military service. He has ample executive experience in the public and private sector. One possible problem is that Congress is foreign territory to him.

    If you take our more capable chief executives as examples, a synthetic candidate with the optimal background would look like this:

    1. Some time in consequential positions in the federal government (say, 7 years).

    2. Experience as a public executive (say 8 years), for which private sector experience might substitute.

    3. A stint in Congress, long enough to get an idea of how things work but not be caputured by its rancid institutional culture (4 years, perhaps).

    4. A considerable adult work history apart from and antedating one’s entry into political life (say 15 years) with focus on one trade (a baseline of 10 or 12 years, perhaps).

    5. As a consequence, miles on the odometer. One should be at least middle aged when one seeks office (say 39 or older) and in early old age when seeking the Presidency (say 60 or over), but not too old (not past 72).

    6. A stint in the military (a few years will do).

    7. An orderly domestic life.

    Harry Truman punched all of these tickets, and Gen. Eisenhower all but one. Most of the current crop are missing aspects of this in their past. The most crucial I suspect is time as a line administrator. Govs. Romney, Huckabee, Jindal, Bush, and Perry have it. Sens. Cruz, Paul, Santorum, and Rubio do not.

    Re Sen. Cruz, he seems a principled man, which Richard Nixon was not. However, memoirs of the Nixon Administration give some insight into some of the pitfalls of putting a highly intelligent lawyer without executive experience in the president’s chair (made deeper, of course, by Nixon’s somewhat fractured psyche, which Cruz likely does not share).

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  21. Let the Revolution begin….it’s a target-rich environment.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  22. It’s not animosity, Gazzer, it’s remorse. A lot of Republicans refused to vote for Romney for a whole bunch of spurious reasons and now we have this lying, incompetent piece of $hit in the White house and all those people who refused to vote Romney know it’s their fault. So now they live in denial rather than understand that the WORST Republican is still better than the BEST Democrat.

    Holding back your vote helps the enemy, period! Voting third party helps the enemy, period. Why is it the idiot, lemming Democrats understand this but the concept is lost on thinking, patriotic conservative Republicans?

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  23. Is this just another ploy to fill seats at those booked speaking engagements?
    It sure has kept Hillary relevant.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  24. This country made a big mistake in allowing the dullards, the media cabal, etc re-elect TFG and we’ll be paying a heavy price – one that we can’t even comprehend yet, as the squadrons of chickens will be coming home to roost for decades – for that EPIC mistake, but Romney won’t run again.

    Of all of those I’ve seen, I like Walker.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  25. #19… well said, Gazzer. difficult to understand the how or the why… he’s a cut well above the rest that had their hats in the ring.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  26. This is why we can’t have nice things. I agree with Walker as a choice. I am against senators as Prez and prefer ex governors, Huckabee not withstanding.

    Gazzer (b9113e)

  27. Again, there is ONLY one definition of “RINO”

    The RINO discourse, as in “McCain’s a RINO”, is often bloody silly. When you’re the Republican presidential nominee, you define what an authentic Republican looks like, not some combox blowhard. The term only made sense in describing someone whose affiliation was purely expedient. Recall, for example, Robert Dole’s recollection that he ran as a Republican in 1952 because there were twice as many of them in his home county than Democrats. However, irritating as Dole can be, his nexus of observed policy preferences is proximate to the Republican median, not the Democratic one. Even old-style liberal Republicans were not properly called RINOs, as the parties did not used to be strictly defined by policy preferences and they lacked the set of union and machine associations which Democrats commonly had (as well as the segregationism which commonly characterised Democrats. The best example of a true RINO was Jacob Javits, who ran under the Republican banner after 1945 because his gurus told him he could be more useful as a Republican than in running under the banner of the 3d parties he actually preferred.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  28. #22… Hoagie… it’s the principle of the thing… don’t you get it?!?!?!?

    Me neither…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  29. Colonel Haiku, the principle is to beat the tar out of leftist Democrats (I’m redundant again, sorry.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  30. 26. Me too, en toto. But I don’t see Walker clearing the rabid flying monkees ululating ‘Holy War!’ hurdle.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  31. Romeny ahd a very good chance after the first debate to win by running all out. And he pulled his punches instead, lest he be called RAYCESS.Further MassCare took the GOP’s best domestic issue of the table. While it’s great to talk tough baout overseas adventures, there is a casual air about Romeny and the GOP when they talk about more war.We are not intervening in Ukraine, there will be no more troops in the Middle East and most of the options in those places are bad ones. Obama may be a fraud and buffoon, but he knows there is no appetite for more dead soldiers. And NEVER has Romney ever discussed the disaster at the border.

    PASS.

    Romeny clearly was a better chouce than Obama. But can we please get a real conservative who can finish his sentences. Possibly even a candidate who understand and can explain limited constitutional governance. Silly me.

    Bugg (f0dbc7)

  32. As to Walker-he has managed to alienate a lot of middl class (dare I say: white) working class voters. There are a lot of cops, teachers, firefighters, nurses, utility and vuilding trade people who ae very recpetive to a samller governemnt. Heck, many of them know that from the inside. Walker has no differentiated the union leadership from the rank and file. One example: last month numerous teachers started withholding their union dues that were used for political purposes after their leadership got involved in an anti-cop rally. Walker basically writes those people out of any winning coalition.

    Big Business(even Romney’s old firm) is firmly in the Dem camp. The GOP must start to realize that Big Business likes big government, and that middle and working class people are not the enemy but the way to victory.Those people have way more votes that the Chamber of Commerce. When they turn their convention into Entrepenureapalooza and saying nothing about the illegals cutting their wages, they are costing themselves a win in 2016.

    Bugg (f0dbc7)

  33. “…Walker has no(sic) differentiated the union leadership from the rank and file…”

    Well, until you take steps to solve the problem, you’re part of the problem.
    Your complaint is about actions that Walker took prior to last month’s push-back against union leadership by those withholding their dues. They’ve changed sides now, and I’m sure that the Governor welcomes their support, and supports their efforts following his lead.
    Though the Chamber is a convenient target – and one used by me – I don’t think Walker’s efforts were shaded by any support he may or may not be getting from them. He was trying to keep WI out of dire financial straits, a condition that would affect all taxpayers, and residents of the State.
    The simple step of not having the government employer deducting union dues automatically from paychecks did more to free reluctant union members from the grasp of those unions than did anything else – you have seen the membership numbers plummet haven’t you?

    askeptic (efcf22)

  34. “Big Business(even Romney’s old firm) is firmly in the Dem camp.”

    Bugg – With respect, you are absolutely bugg nucking futz if you believe that. There are certain issues where segments of the business community are in the Dem camp such as illegal immigration because the companies want low cost, low skilled labor, but that does not affect all business. Most business are not in favor of more regulation, higher taxes, more intrusion into employment practices and benefits, etc.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  35. There are several “Bains”, not all of them are the firm that Romney was most closely associated with.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  36. Again, there is ONLY one definition of “RINO” — someone who claims to be a Republican who doesn’t vote for the party’s candidate.

    i’m a conservative, not a “Republican”.

    the GOPe doesn’t represent me, nor do they care about me or this country. all the Beltway RINOs are interested in is maintaining their personal access to power and the concurrent ability to keep their snouts in the trough.

    you want my vote, earn it. running as a “Demontrat Lite” on the grounds that you will bleed me out slower than the full size leech that is your opponent just gives me two choices in how to suffer. personally, i’d rather you knife me in the chest, not the back, which is what RINOs do.

    i’m never again voting for the lesser of two evils, because evil is evil, and i reject it. i will NOT provide the fig leaf for your criminal behavior.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  37. make that “Demonrat Lite”

    stupid fingers

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  38. As I told Romney way back when, “I didn’t vote for you. I voted for Sarah to be VP and kill you 30 seconds after you took office.” Ok, I lied. I didn’t tell Sarah to kill Romney. I didn’t have to, it’s intuitively obvious!

    TheHat (58d08b)

  39. Most business are not in favor of more regulation, higher taxes, more intrusion into employment practices and benefits, etc.

    Sorry, daleyrocks, but as an economist and a lifelong businessman I must point out you’re technically wrong. Almost all small and medium businesses are not in favor of those things but only some large businesses aren’t. In fact almost the entire lobbying industry (with the exception of unions) is driven by big business trying to regulate, tax and intrude into any and every possible competitor. That’s why as a member of my local Chamber of Commerce I have almost nothing in common with the national platform of the C of C.

    K Street is loaded with crooked, crony capitalist lobbyists who earn a living by trying to game the system mostly for the benefit of larger businesses, unions or groups against any interloper who would dare to compete. That’s part of the reason I’m against “Tax Amnesty” to move your business to a certain location. The new business gets all sorts of tax breaks while the little guy who’s been there for twenty years and paid his taxes gets screwed? How on earth is that fair and how on earth is that treating everybody equal under the law?

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  40. 39-
    Dittos.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  41. I have absolutely zero doubt that Romney is one of the good guys. I don’t think I would have any problem with him as a Cabinet-level secretary. But as a President? No. What drove the stake through the heart as far as I’m concerned was his son mentioned just after the campaign that his dad didn’t really want to be President anyway. OK, Junior, just why in hell did your dad just waste our time and our resources- our votes- with a doomed-from-the-start bid anyway? There was, AFIK no refutation from Mitt over this claim.

    I’m not gonna hate on Romney, but no. Just no. Let someone else take the nod.

    Bill H (f9e4cd)

  42. the GOPe doesn’t represent me, nor do they care about me or this country.

    So how’s that workin’ out for ya, redc1c4? You got the government you want now? Cause you got the government you deserve if you didn’t vote GOP.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  43. In case you guys can’t or won’t recall, Mitt Romney, with all his flaws, was a good, competent and just man. He was and honorable man and a good businessman, family man, husband, father (including adopted father) and had more class than anything those leftist dogs have put up for office in twenty years. Maybe he was too damn good for a nation which has sunk so low.

    Don’t make that mistake again guys, it could be your last. Hold your nose, hold your breath, hold your balls for all I care but vote Republican or say good-bye.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  44. “Sorry, daleyrocks, but as an economist and a lifelong businessman I must point out you’re technically wrong.”

    Hoagie – I fit your description as well and I can tell you you are technically wrong as well, so there. Please point out to me those bigger businesses you believe are in favor of higher taxation, more government intrusion in the nuts and bolts of their operations, hiring and firing decisions, compensation, benefits, and environmental impacts. Are those the bigger businesses going through corporate inversions to redomesticate offshore? Are those the bigger businesses choosing to locate expansion in red states rather than blue states?

    You miss the point that the U.S.Chamber of Commerce is not a unified block all lobbying for the same thing. Businesses are out for themselves not businesses in other industries, which does not put them in the pocket of Democrats.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  45. What drove the stake through the heart as far as I’m concerned was his son mentioned just after the campaign that his dad didn’t really want to be President anyway.

    This oft-quoted nugget needs a little context. Mitt didn’t want to be Pres, just as he doesn’t now. However, he ran, and might again, out of an abiding sense of civic responsibility. But that doesn’t fit the MFM and the left’s (but I repeat myself) preferred narrative.

    Gazzer (b9113e)

  46. Please point out to me those bigger businesses you believe are in favor of higher taxation, more government intrusion in the nuts and bolts of their operations, hiring and firing decisions, compensation, benefits, and environmental impacts.

    There are none I can think of, daleyrocks, but that’s because they favor those things for “the other guy” not themselves. But when the Solar industry lobbies for EPA regs against the Coal industry they’re still in favor of more government intrusion etc., just on someone else. When unions lobby for higher minimum wages they hut their competition, not themselves, but they still want “compensation” decisions made by government not their competitive employers.

    In my opinion the U.S Chamber of Commerce is, de facto, a unified block because just like a Political Party has a platform so do they and it does not include the small or medium businessman or the “new guy on the block” or the young upstart or the kids in a garage with a new idea. What their platform protects is themselves and only themselves. They are no different than the NAACP or any other group invested in their own survival.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  47. “K Street is loaded with crooked, crony capitalist lobbyists who earn a living by trying to game the system mostly for the benefit of larger businesses, unions or groups against any interloper who would dare to compete.”

    Hoagie – Every citizen has the right to petition his government and that does not mean they are crooked or in the pockets of Democrats. I question the definition of what people call crony capitalism. I spent years working for a company which joined a trade association formed by industry participants specifically to fight illegal government encroachment into what was previously exclusively a private sector revenue and profit making activity. Democrat Congress whores and lobbyists fought us tooth and nail, while we had Republicans on our side. I don’t need to be told I’m wrong on this stuff when I’ve had decades of experience telling me the exact opposite.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  48. Mittens ran just hard enough, with some help from the MFM, to beat out those scarey conservatives… then he stopped, rolled over and played dead after he got the nomination. he can go die in a fire.

    as for this gem:

    So how’s that workin’ out for ya, redc1c4? You got the government you want now? Cause you got the government you deserve if you didn’t vote GOP.

    i live in #Failifornia, so i get the government the Free 5hit Army votes for, which is why i know that trying to be Demonrat Lite is a waste of time. they’re going to vote for the real deal every time, such as Moonbeam for governor, not some pseudo-Republican like #CashAndCarry.

    either the GOPe offers up a real choice to the voters or they don’t win many elections. of course, since they don’t really give a damn about anything but their own access to power, that isn’t an issue to them. they are happy to be the perpetual minority party, as long as they continue to get their share of the graft and corruption.

    you may be okay with that, but i, and many others, aren’t. as i said, better to see who’s stabbing you, than to take it in the back from someone you trusted.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  49. “There are none I can think of, daleyrocks, but that’s because they favor those things for “the other guy” not themselves.”

    Hoagie – Then you have no point.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  50. “But when the Solar industry lobbies for EPA regs against the Coal industry they’re still in favor of more government intrusion etc., just on someone else.”

    Hoagie – At the same time the solar industry is lobbying for one thing, the coal industry is lobby for something else? What is wrong with that? They each have a voice if they want it or if the corrupt EPA deigns to listen.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  51. “What their platform protects is themselves and only themselves.”

    Should they be communists instead?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  52. Just so you understand my point, daleyrocks, my local C of C here in scenic Montgomery County, Pennsylvania spends most of our time in meetings trying to figure out how to make it easier for everybody to coexist in our local business economy. For example, how to cut back zoning regulations, set up local hiring seminars, promote new and innovative businesses, reduce insurance costs, snow removal costs and other costs by group purchasing. We just started joining with landlords to promote renting some of these empty stores all over that the Obama economy blessed us with. You see, a half empty shopping center doesn’t look good and doesn’t attract shoppers well. So we help each other, we’re not there to “help ourselves”. Which is why we don’t have nor need lobbyists, we’re our own lobbyists. It’s hard for the Mayor and Borough Council to tell 65 local businessmen “go to hell if you think trash collection fees are too high” if they plan on getting re-elected.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  53. Palin..

    EPWJ (992ed5)

  54. Hoagie – At the same time the solar industry is lobbying for one thing, the coal industry is lobby for something else? What is wrong with that? They each have a voice if they want it or if the corrupt EPA deigns to listen.

    Neither the coal nor solar industry is the problem. That corrupt EPA that causes these guys to have to lobby is the problem. They are the regulators, answering to no one. They are not elected and have life tenure yet these bureaucrats can end a persons livelihood with the stroke of a pen. I’ve seen and had it done with local zoning.

    Neither the solar nor coal industry should have nor need a “voice” unless they were being treated differently. Or should I say, if they couldn’t BUY favors.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  55. Should they be communists instead?

    No, daleyrocks, they should be Americans and realize if we don’t hang together we’ll hang separately. Americans, real Americans demand the law treats us all fairly and equally and therefore no one gets special favors and no one gets singled out. That’s what Democrats do, pit one group against another. They do black vs. white, rich vs. poor or solar vs. coal or electric vs. gas. And that is the Democrats strength, they keep hanging us separately!

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  56. And, it has been revealed, the policy makers at EPA more and more come from the ranks of the Enviro Groups that notoriously sue the EPA for not doing something/enough, and then get a court settlement imposing what they (and secretly, the EPA) wanted.
    These are groups that seemingly are in favor of any source of energy that is expensive, but when it becomes relatively cheap and plentiful (Natural Gas), they oppose it – as they are doing now with their caps on carbon.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  57. The people have already voted against the vietnam war draft dodging chicken hawk coward already. Send him on another mormon mission to france!

    mr.gop (db70c2)

  58. i was wondering when the voice of insanity would appear on the scene…

    who won the pool this time?

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  59. A Harry S Truman type is what we need.
    No college degree.
    Not afraid to kick ass.
    Knows how to drive home when finished.

    mg (31009b)

  60. The entirety of Wall Street was in Obama’s camp. Most media companies and all of Hollywood were in Obama’s camp. Most of Silicon Valley was in Obama’s camp. Many big agribusiness and manufucaturingf were in Obama’s camp. Now most of those people don’t like higher taxez and more regualtion, but they do like BIG. They like the idea of stability for it’s own sake and in practice to keep barriers from new competition high and expensive.They like susbsidies and big unwieldy programs that spin off cash for them. Which is the point; small companies and startups don’t have a place at the table, less so under the Dems. And that is where the econmomic growth is going to come from.

    Understand thoguh the idea the GOP is “good for business” really depends on what kind of business.

    Bugg (f0dbc7)

  61. he slithered out through a crack in the porcelain, as usual…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  62. The people have already voted against the vietnam war draft dodging chicken hawk coward already.

    And it has already been pointed out to you that his dealings with the Selective Service System were perfectly above board. He had a high lottery number (#300), which is why Selective Service took no interest in him, as it took no interest in anyone born on 12 March during the years running from 1944 through 1950. He also had dependent children from March of 1970 onward, a dispensation offered to any mope and in effect from 1940 to 1973 bar a two year period running from the fall of 1943 to the fall of 1945 (and available contingently during the 1st World War as well). His ministerial exception was temporary (lasting 30 months), unlike that granted Jesse Jackson. He had a student deferment for one academic year (1965-66), granted co-incident with a college admission granted when the American troop strength in VietNam was all of 25,000 men there to train South VietNamese troops.

    The only political involvements he had between 1954 and 1974 amounted to working on his mother’s campaign for Congress in 1970. She ran as a dove.

    Romney was a state level politician, which does not involve foreign policy much at all and at no time during his career as a national politician has he made a particular point of interest in any overseas conflict.

    Why not make an effort to stop lying and stop behaving like a snotty adolescent?

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  63. It is what it is.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  64. I wonder, just wonder how many “chicken hawk” Democrats there are? I do know that a lot of Democrats are little more than “chicken chokers”.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  65. there are apparently a whole lot of stupid ba5tards in both parties…

    the only people we whould be arming in the Middle East are the Israelis…

    and maybe the Kurds, but i have my doubts about them too.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  66. “Which is why we don’t have nor need lobbyists, we’re our own lobbyists.”

    Hoagie – That is a good thing since you have access locally. Why does it suddenly become a bad thing if companies get together and do it together at the national level?

    The answer is that it doesn’t.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  67. “Americans, real Americans demand the law treats us all fairly and equally and therefore no one gets special favors and no one gets singled out.”

    Hoagie – You are going to have to define what American, real Americans, define as special favors because you and I don’t see eye to eye on petitioning the government to either remove onerous regulations or pass favorable regulations which is part of the Democratic process. I am not talking about handing out $500 million 0% 100 year loans to mine moon rocks to friends of the president or Congress either.

    There is nothing different about what you described doing at the local level than what others are doing at the national level and you are kidding yourself if you think there is.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  68. It’s bad in the same way as giving an Uzi to a nine-year old. The shiftless pols use them in place of independent investigation and judgment on the needs of the nation. There are stories about bills being drafted by lobbyists.

    nk (dbc370)

  69. It’s not bad, daleyrocks. It’s just f’in wonderful. I say let’s encourage more laws, regs and agencies and hire more lobbyists. Yes, that’s sarcasm.

    I suppose if, as a businessman and an economist, you cannot discern the difference between small businessmen getting together to petition their local boards to redress grievances or joining together to bring down local costs and multinational corporations pouring billions of dollars into lobbyists to buy political influence from OUR government then I can’t help you. But for some reason I do see a difference. The same difference I see between local funding for schools and federal funding along with its obligatory mandates and control. It must be me.

    And if you feel well served by lobbyists getting tax exemptions for GE and half billion dollar grants for Solyndra and see a similarity with my local Chamber pooling their own money for para-transit for the elderly to do Christmas shopping I will never reach you.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  70. “The entirety of Wall Street was in Obama’s camp. Most media companies and all of Hollywood were in Obama’s camp.”

    Bugg – Don’t you mean the people making political contributions from those companies? Guess what, those people on Wall Street were able to limit the damage from Dodd Frank and litigation from the 2008 meltdown, Hollywood still gets favorable tax breaks and media companies still get access.

    The individuals, though, don’t want to pay higher taxes any more than you or I do. It’s all liberal hypocrisy.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  71. “But for some reason I do see a difference.”

    Hoagie – I was a member of local business associations as a real estate owner and employer where my company was headquartered but also a member of national trade groups, not the Chamber of Commerce, which I did not think represented our interests.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  72. Millions of dollars, from AIG, Countrywide, Washington Mutual, did go to Biden, Obama, Dodd, well it did buy them immunity from prosecution,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  73. So, my opinion on candidates (not that anyone asked me):
    Mike Huckabee: One of my preferred candidates.
    Rick Perry: Likewise.
    Ted Cruz: Might make a great president, but perhaps a bad candidate.
    Bobby Jindal: Would be my pick if we were looking for a dark horse candidate.
    (I don’t think we are.)
    Scott Walker: Maybe; I tend to agree with those positions I’m aware of, but don’t know all of them.
    Romney: Tend to agree, but I don’t think he can deliver his position well. (Not the best candidate.)
    Jeb Bush: Meh. (Very much establishment, and seems not to care so much about moral issues)
    Rand Paul: No thanks! Worse at foreign affairs than Obama, seems to be against Israel, doesn’t
    understand the 14th amendment, not a social conservative.

    Ibidem (a4af47)

  74. Dailey-

    If people donate to the Dem candidate, they are supporting him. There is a difference between huge companies and those that work there, but operatioanlly right now it’s meaningless. We have had a fundamenttal shift here. Perhaprs the Obama donors in Silicon Valley and Wall Street would like to pay less taxes, but really they’re gonna shelter their money in investment instruments. And when Romney championed eliminating estate taxesa, we’re talking about a very samll sliver of people that leave estates that large. And this is after Bush tax cuts that with ATm were illusory to most working American anyway.

    The middle and working class KNOW that we’re getting screwed every which way. We’re on the hook for entitlements that may be gone by the time we retire. Our wages are being squeezed by illegals at the entry level and on our college grads because the ZUckermans and Ellisons wants visas to hire pay foreigners instead of our kids. We have kids graduating with tons of debt and little good prospects. And we have a huge government that taxes us to death while borrowing against our chdilren’s future. And a government that seems to care more about others than Americans. And to bring it all back, Romney had very little to say about these things in 2012. What would be different this time?

    Bugg (f0dbc7)

  75. @62 I noticed you didn’t bring up mohammed ali and his supreme court case where he argued if you gove deferments to others(mormon missionaries) why notmuslim ministers and since the republicans on the supreme court didm’t want to draft mormon missionaries they couldn’t find ali guilty even though they wanted too!

    mr.gop (db70c2)

  76. slime alert!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  77. @62 I noticed you didn’t bring up mohammed ali and his supreme court case where he argued if you gove deferments to others(mormon missionaries) why notmuslim ministers and since the republicans on the supreme court didm’t want to draft mormon missionaries they couldn’t find ali guilty even though they wanted too!

    I did not bring it up because it was irrelevant. In any case, Ali was not a missionary of any kind. He was a professional athlete. Any valid claim he had to a dispensation from military service would have been on the basis of his IQ scores, which were at the 8th percentile.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  78. which were at the 8th percentile.

    Putting them 2 percentile above mr.gop if he can’t tell the difference between a boxer and a missionary.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  79. This oft-quoted nugget needs a little context. Mitt didn’t want to be Pres, just as he doesn’t now. However, he ran, and might again, out of an abiding sense of civic responsibility. But that doesn’t fit the MFM and the left’s (but I repeat myself) preferred narrative.

    Gazzer (b9113e) — 9/17/2014 @ 12:49 pm

    Sorry Gazzer, but context does nothing for me if he doesn’t want to be there. As good, fine, decent and upstanding as I believe Romney to be, if he doesn’t want to be there, he isn’t going to be as effective as possible. Enforced duty out of a sense of civic responsibility has to wear on a person pretty severely after awhile.

    More is the shame, too. I was genuinely looking forward to Romney politely tearing Preezy 404 a new asshole after that first debate.

    Bill H (f9e4cd)

  80. 65. The Roll:

    http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2014/roll507.xml

    The usual suspects, 159 Republicans carrying the bill to passage.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  81. nk, I’m stunned. You do realize Bobby Jindal is an American. The was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother (which makes him American) and a Cuban father. Marco Rubio was born in Miami Florida so he too is American. Now if any of you guys believe any of those three guys wouldn’t make a better president than any a-hole the Dems could put up tell me why.

    I’m stunned too, if only because nk in the past has been resentful about my casting aspersions upon a type of human emotion I call “compassion for compassion’s sake.” Or a bias that is at the core of what fuels a lot of liberals, modern-day centrists and, for that matter, people who lean a bit further to the right, including someone like Mitt Romney.

    Flinching at laying out clearly and loudly the ideological predilections of a person or group of people may make the observer more likely to focus on the race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexuality of a politician in particular instead of his or her ideology.

    Simply put, I’ll generally always favor and vote for:

    A truly (with an emphasis on the word “truly”) conservative black to a liberal white.
    A truly conservative Latino to a liberal Anglo.
    A truly conservative woman to a liberal man.
    A truly conservative Jew to a liberal Christian.
    A truly conservative gay to a liberal straight.

    Mark (c160ec)

  82. A perfunctory review of the above likes & dislikes should be enough to put this fantasy of Republican control of 2/3 of government to bed, with a load of chloroform on the pillow over its mouth.

    Having some pantywaist at the titular head of anti-Amerikkkan Borg, would the impossible come to pass, puts the lie to any partisan cheerleading.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  83. My grandfather left Chicago in 1912 to go fight for Greece in the First Balkan War. An American President should have no roots, no bonds, no ties, no affections, no loyalties, to any other countries except America, and his American values should have been learned from his parents and grandparents from birth. Race and national origin have nothing to do with it — the undoubted existence of a purely American conscience is my argument.

    nk (dbc370)

  84. After that, you can ask if he’s a liberal American or a conservative American.

    nk (dbc370)

  85. An American President should have no roots, no bonds, no ties, no affections, no loyalties, to any other countries except America, and his American values should have been learned from his parents and grandparents from birth.

    Only problem with that is liberal or leftist instincts — now more than ever before — naturally or intrinsically move a person away from his or her roots or bonds to the US. And, for that matter, his affections and loyalties to this society’s ideals and stability too.

    The opposite would be the case if America had been founded by lazy, effete Europeans, pro-feudalistic Asians, two-bit Communists, sloppy atheists, tricky Islamicists, pro-la-raza/banana-republic Americanos, Evita-Peronized sophisticates, slave-trade-embracing tribal Africans or Nobel-peace-prize dilettantes. If such types of people, in fact, reflected the mainstay of this nation’s history, then loony liberalism now and in the future would be in the socio-political DNA of the USA.

    Mark (c160ec)

  86. No person should be President unless they popped out of a pod in the basement of the Dept. of Agriculture, and was raised in a State Orphanage receiving the proper state-approved education.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  87. All I’ll say is WE need to wake the FU*K up, people… http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2014/09/17/obamas-catalist-database/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  88. Aren’t they going after walker, based on allegations of coordination?

    narciso (ee1f88)

  89. Here you go guys. The scene with Joe Pesci and Matt Damon from The Good Shepherd. It says it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA7zaxSDvzE

    nk (dbc370)

  90. After that, you can ask if he’s a liberal American or a conservative American.

    Among Democratic Presidential candidates, you’d have to work to find one in the last generation who does not fall into one of the following categories:

    1. Skeezy careerist
    2. Subscriber to the Vision of the Anointed with all its bourgeois hauteur.
    3. Born prior to about 1932.
    4. A mix of the above.

    Wesley Clark might be none of the above; you could give the benefit of the doubt to Bill Bradley, Robert Kerrey, and Paul Tsongas.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  91. either the GOPe offers up a real choice to the voters or they don’t win many elections. of course, since they don’t really give a damn about anything but their own access to power, that isn’t an issue to them. they are happy to be the perpetual minority party, as long as they continue to get their share of the graft and corruption.

    you may be okay with that, but i, and many others, aren’t. as i said, better to see who’s stabbing you, than to take it in the back from someone you trusted.

    redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/17/2014 @ 12:59 pm

    You’re saying the people who supported Romney did so in order to reelect Obama? Really? Who would have been nominated if they wanted to win?

    Gerald A (d65c67)

  92. Gerald – you’ll get crickets if you ask that question, as many others have. Who is this mysterious highly principled Brave Sir Robin? Put up or shut up.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  93. nominating the guy what invented obamacare was silly

    oh just stop it

    Romney would’ve been a crappy president and done nothing but to underscore how sclerotic and irrelevant to modern life the boehnerwhored-up tom donohue republican party has become

    it would be kind and generous of him to pass that torch to Jeb I think

    happyfeet (a785d5)

  94. I recall Rush Limbaugh saying during the 2012 GOP convention that “they” nominated Romney because “they” weren’t interested in winning the White House, they just wanted to regain the Senate. So Romney was somehow supposed to win them the Senate by losing his race.

    When has a Congressional chamber switched to a party’s control in the same election they lost the Presidential race? In 2000 the Democrats gained a tie in the Senate but Gore actually out-polled Bush in the popular vote – hardly a normal situation. Otherwise it’s never happened that I know of. And of course they didn’t regain the Senate. The idea makes no freaking sense whatsoever.

    I also don’t understand why if “they don’t really give a damn about anything but their own access to power” they would prefer to be in the minority. How do they have more “access to power” in the minority?

    These kinds of statements resemble the 9/11 conspiracy theories. There’s no specifics, no way to tie the various claims together in a way that makes any logical sense.

    Gerald A (d65c67)

  95. the only thing Romney ever had going for him was how stupid dismal and trashy the other candidates for the nomination were

    and he took advantage of this

    happyfeet (a785d5)

  96. the only thing Romney ever had going for him was how stupid dismal and trashy the other candidates for the nomination were

    Romney was the best nominee the GOP has put forward since Reagan. I don’t see how that is even disputable.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  97. And, note that I preferred Gingrich somewhat. I would love to see Newt as Speaker right now.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  98. 97. That and a garden gnome are pleasant company.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  99. That and a garden gnome are pleasant company.

    He is not someone who generates much enthusiasm for his political projects, but KevenM does have a point. Gov. Romney is a capable and accomplished man like few others and has an admirable domestic life. Steve Forbes or Alan Keyes or Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum might have a more engaging set of position papers. Dr. Keyes is a better public speaker and Dr. Gingrich better at forensics. Sen. McCain put his life on the line. But if you want someone in that chair who knows how to assess information make decisions and induce the bureaucracy to implement those decisions, there likely has been no one in the post-Eisenhower era more suitable to the task.

    Any candidate is going to be a mix of strengths and weaknesses.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  100. Romney would’ve been a crappy president

    You haven’t a serious thought in your head.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  101. Romney does seem to be declining to run less forcefully every time.

    “and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other, and at every putting-by mine honest neighbors shouted.”

    Kevin M (b357ee)


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