Why Mitt Romney Will Be Our Next President

November 15, 2007, 11:30 am; posted by
Filed under Articles, Featured, Steve  | 6 Comments

The next in a series. Read the Hillary side here.

I like Mitt Romney, but I don’t love him. I don’t care for his record in Massachusetts or how his changes in position smack of political pandering. I understand why his religion makes many of my closest friends and family nervous. I am fluent in his shortcomings.

But I support him still. And I believe he will be the next president of the United States.

Here’s why.

Soon this interminable season of pre-primary campaigning will end, and states will start picking delegates. Millions of voters who have studiously ignored debates and speeches for the past year will awake once actual elections start. And what will be their alarm clock?

The Iowa caucuses, where Mitt Romney currently leads by an average of 9% over silver-tongued Southern populist Mike Huckabee. The New Hampshire primary, where Romney has a 14% average lead on liberal NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Huckabee actually trails anti-war libertine Ron Paul in a few polls. The Michigan primary, where Romney is the native son with a small lead over Giuliani (while Huckabee sits on the edge of the margin of error), and the South Carolina primary, where Romney and Giuliani are effectively tied, and Huckabee is in fifth.

Back in 2004, when John Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire on the Democratic side, he shot from national support of 9% to a whopping 52%. So after the first two primaries, it becomes increasingly likely that Romney will begin to pick up momentum and improve his numbers in those that follow. Large states like Florida and California will likely still stay in the Giuliani camp, so he very well might be able to withstand an early Romney sweep — but at this point, the other Republican candidates are auditioning for the VP slot. Barring a gaffe, the math says it’s gonna be one of these two guys. Huckabee needs a miracle. Thompson needs a resurrection.

So if I’m right, and it’s effectively down to Giuliani and Romney, all the conservative Christians currently backing the Baptist minister who (to his credit) has been pro-life his whole life, should think about his imminent withdrawal, and whether they will then prefer a man who changed his mind to agree with them, or one who takes pride in saying he never will.

Oh, and back to Huckabee for a second. As MC-B’s friend Jonah Goldberg wrote today:

“If the Christian right — diverse though it may be — starts to become more sympathetic to using activist government as a instrument to impose God’s teachings — or one interpretation of them — then the largest and most reliable voting bloc in the Republican Party will become merely rightwing progressives, using government at all levels to do what they think is good, regardless of whether it’s constitutional or federalist or liberal in the classical sense. Huckabee’s support for a national federal ban on workplace and/or public smoking should be very scary to believers in limited government.”

This is the truest thing I’ve read all week. Huckabee is not what we need.

Anyway, let’s say Romney gets that bounce from the early primaries and beats out Rudy. What about the Democrats? Barack Obama would be the most challenging opponent, but he is currently unqualified and woefully inexperienced. John Edwards is a utopian joke — throwing out nonsense about paying for everyone to go to college and taking away Congressional health care if they don’t do what he wants. I pray the Democrats nominate him.

But if they nominate Hillary, they’ve really thrown the election away. Her voice is grating, her past is divisive, and she is everything but likable. Put her on the debate stage next to an intelligent, successful businessman like Mitt Romney, and she might set a record for the lowest percentage of male votes received.

I would — and will — vote for Romney, Thompson, McCain, Huckabee, Giuliani (in that order), or any other Republican candidate except Ron Paul, over any of the major Democratic candidates.

But I honestly believe that the way things are set up, only five humans (Romney, Rudy, Obama, Hillary, Al Gore) have a real chance to be our next president. Fortunately for me, the most conservative one is also the one who’s going to win.


Comments

6 Comments to “Why Mitt Romney Will Be Our Next President”

  1. James' on January 6th, 2008 7:38 pm

    Ann Coulter said the same things… you and her agree a lot you know?

    Now….

    is there really anything I have to say?

    Who won Iowa? Who’s leading South Carolina now? Florida? Michigan? Arkansas? Texas? New Jersey? Alabama?

    Who’s 2nd in New York? California? North Carolina? Massachusets(Where Romney IS NOT DOING WELL!!!!)?

    And who just got chopped to pieces by Chris Wallace?

    Romney is a fool… he only got Ann Coulters endorsement because she’s as dumb as you say she is.

    Huckabee/McCain 08!!!!

    It’s everything we need.

    with love,

    -James’

  2. Steve on January 7th, 2008 12:47 am

    James.

    I dislike Ann Coulter very much.

    Romney is not a fool. He is an accomplished businessman and a capable leader. There is no need to be senselessly rude.

    I now (sadly) believe that John McCain will win the Republican nomination and that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

    To vote for Mike Huckabee is to believe our next president should be a man who:

    — has no foreign policy experience and frequently seems completely uninformed on even the most basic foreign policy issues
    — insults our current President by arguing that his foreign policy actions have been arrogant and ignorant, and
    — oversimplifies foreign policy by using childish metaphors that compare our nation to a popular high school student that other kids envy

    Not to mention a man who:

    — sounds exactly like the tax-raising populist John Edwards on most economic and trade issues
    — believes that the proper means to carry out Christian compassion is a government mandate, rather than the body of Christ, and
    — naively believes that the IRS can be eliminated by a sales tax plan that would require at least a 30% rate on almost everything that is bought, sold or provided. Who’s going to enforce that rate when people start buying and selling things under the table? Imagine the red tape involved in enforcing it on eBay alone…

    But hey. Be happy. Your man convinced a bunch of voters like you and me (Iowa’s evangelical Christians) that the Republican party should become an American version of Europe’s Christian Democrats — a bunch of wowsers (moral scolds) who think government is the instrument of God, raised up and ordained to solve the fundamental problems of mankind through bureaucracy and middle management.

    That it’s okay for government to get bigger and bigger as long as the man running it is a smooth-talkin’, Jesus-praisin’ preacher-man.

    One problem. Government’s like yeast. Once it grows, there’s no goin’ back.

  3. James' on January 7th, 2008 11:51 pm

    That was almost identical to what Coulter said the other day about Huckabee… you agree with her an awful lot.

    Huckabee is not like that.

    Once again you over-simplify his statements and positions, like Romney does… and I really wish I had more time with this…

    Huckabee stands for balanced government, he criticized Bush for doing exactly what you are saying he’s doing… having a very Hamiltonian style Government. And I don’t like him because he’s a Christian, I like him because he makes sense. I noticed him at the debates, he makes sense… Romney sounds too rehearsed, and it’s just too hard to believe him when he shows in ads that he has no problem not giving the whole story. I was more skeptical of Huckabee when I found out he was a former Pastor, but he is just being himself.

    You supported Alan Keyes? He is/was for the fair tax. He presented an even better argument in the 2000 debates than I have heard Huckabee give yet. Keyes is a genious, I like him…. but he should not have been so rude at the recent PBS debate. I also hate the fact that so much attention is given to Barak Obama being black when Keyes has run three times now… and he’s black.

    You know… the fair tax won’t really be necessary after we end the war. Ron Paul points out that pre-2000 spending levels wouldn’t need the IRS. And he talks about replacing it with nothing, but reducing Government spending to accomidate… problem, allot of that Government spending is on the Iraq war so his plan won’t work unless we actually withdraw from Iraq imediately, and remove most of our foreign bases.

    The fair tax could be viewed easilly as a temporary accomidation during the war… but McCain says that may be a hundred years…. o well.

    -James’

  4. Steve on January 8th, 2008 12:21 am

    Why do you keep mentioning Ann Coulter? I don’t like her and I don’t read anything she writes. Apparently she’s right about Huckabee though. You, on the other hand, didn’t really address my points, other than the ones that accused you of things. Accusing me of “over-simplifying” is not a refutation.

    I don’t intend to be rude. It’s just that you remind me of myself 8 years ago when I supported Alan Keyes.

    I’m not sure what your point is about the war. It reminds me of the worst aspect of Ron Paul’s campaign — the silly belief that we could not only wave a magic wand to remove our foreign military bases and immediately end the war in Iraq, but that we should want that as a foreign policy goal. That kind of reductionist isolationism is insane, in the strictest sense of the word.

  5. James' on January 8th, 2008 12:37 am

    I wouldn’t call it isolationism… but I would call it non-interventionism. I support it 100% aside from one thing…. Ron Paul just plain does not understand radical islam. He said in the ABC debate something that I think made many lose faith in him(many I know did), he said “These people allways need a motivation to attack us and we give it to them!!” I personally agree that we do give them lots of reasons, but they do not need any… it is their DOCTRINE! That’s something that he just does not seem to get no matter how undeniable it is. I agree with Romney here, “Radical Islam has declared war on us!” I think Mike Huckabee will pick someone with foreign policy experience like McCain for his VP, I hope he will at least.

    And I mention Ann Coulter because you hate her so much, but agree with her a lot as well. Especially on Romney and Huckabee… the thing is, many of the Huckabee supporters I know are atheists, who simply like him. His religion has not done him any good up here, and most Christians I know are still undecided, or Ron Paul people.

    My point about the war was just that the fair tax may not even be permanant, and can certainly go down.

    I’m honestly too tired to address the points you made… I will get around to it. But I need to go to bed, I have to work tomorrow.

    -James’

  6. eightmilereb on January 10th, 2008 2:37 pm

    For the sake of our Nation as a whole I pray it will be Huckabee/McCain in 2008

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