Saturday, November 3, 2012

Mittens is the GOP’s suicide pact



By Rick Morris

Mitt Romney has been running for president continuously since 2006.  I was not favorably inclined towards him initially based on what I knew of him and by 2007, when I learned even more, I was a full-throated opponent of his and have remained so to this day.  His scummy levels of character assassination and filth-propagating about his opponents in the 2008 and 2012 primaries were truly historic.  It would be too arduous to link to every column I have done on this subject over the course of 5+ years, but if you do a search on our blog archive page, there will be a great deal that materializes.

It is for that reason that I am resisting the strong urge to vote for the strongest opponent of Barack Obama – with me opposing 90%+ of his policies with every fiber of my being – this coming Tuesday.  I said in the primaries of 2008 and the primaries of 2012 that I could never vote for such a man as Romney, somebody who has flip-flopped on every key issue on the spectrum and somebody who promised another Dubya presidency (more about that in a moment).  In 2008, the Republican Party listened to sane opinions like mine.  This year, they did not.  So be it.  This disaster is on their hands.

Which disaster?  You might rightly ask that, inasmuch as this election is very close and could still, theoretically go either way.  I say that the Einsteins of the GOP have boxed this nation into a situation where disaster awaits either way.  Although I could never vote for someone of Obama’s political ilk, I have reluctantly concluded that his election is the lesser of two evils.  I could never vote for the man, so instead I will be casting a positive, affirmative vote for a great public servant, Virgil Goode, Jr. on the Constitution Party line, in the hopes that the alternative and authentic brand of conservatism promoted by that wonderful party can take greater hold.

Why do I think Obama’s reelection is the lesser of two evils?  Although so many of my friends, family and other ideological fellow-travelers are missing the point, I actually think it’s quite obvious.  We had a disastrous Big Government, warmongering president in George W. Bush and the most central part of his legacy is the election of Obama.  For Romney, a man unattached to any kind of public policy beliefs whatsoever, four hapless years of his “leadership” would lead to a far more effective Democrat in office than first-term Obama: perhaps a “Grover Cleveland Obama” circumstance in which the former president is swept back into office with a huge mandate to implement all of his heart’s desires, or, probably worse, someone like Andrew Cuomo with a clean slate and coattails enough for 60+ Senate votes to implement a radical Democrat agenda.  In short, the choice given to us by the Republican elites this year boils down to confining our large national problems to the next four years and then hitting rock bottom and paving the way for a great American like Senator Rand Paul in four years or having Romney do a slightly better job than President Noam Choomsky (see what I did there!), but then losing in a landslide to restart the clock on the O agenda in 2016.  Of the two putrid selections, I’ll choose Door #1, thank you very much.

[By the way, let’s just knock down the laughable suggestion that anyone with any authority in the Republican Party would “hold Romney accountable” for pushing bad policies.  Look at the Dubya Cheerleader Squad braying about how he was one of the all-time greats as he increased federal spending by a full 70% in eight years.  The Republican instinct is royalism, a mindless worship of whoever is in power.  There is no circumstance possible by which federal spending will be down in the next four years, yet at a Romney reelection convention, there sure as sh%& won’t be a ginormous federal debt ticker!  Speaking of the nightmare that would be wrapped up in the Romney reelection apparatus, consider the words of my old boss Morton Blackwell about the coup that the Mittens Gang pulled at the Tampa convention in order to stifle any internal dissent now and until the end of time.]

That’s what we’re facing if Romney wins.  All year long, I have been saying that he would not, that the idiots running the GOP were seduced by a false image of a winner.  Look at how long it took to put away the nomination even after all the bought-and-paid-for Republican hacks assassinated the character of Rick Perry and the worst field in recent decades was all that stood in his way.  After the way that Obama tanked the first debate and breathed new life into the Republican campaign, I will no longer be absolutely shocked if that prediction is wrong, but in the end, I’ll stand by it.  And that result would vindicate my warnings as well.  It’s the sign of a truly diseased political institution when they cannot defeat a president with the abhorrent record of Obama.  Had the party hacks not conspired against Perry and instead embraced him as the winner that he is (12 years and counting as Texas governor, a truly historic feat in the history of large American states) or succeeded in recruiting an equivalent talent, that candidate would be up five points even in such a narrowly divided electorate (consider that Obama, himself running against an incumbent’s putrid economic record four years ago, racked up a 7.3% win in the popular vote).

In a country that has become completely tribal in its politics, the amnesia about Romney, his record, his unelectable creepy persona and all other aspects of this morally bankrupt individual has proven truly frightening.  During the primaries, I remember a great many conservatives vowing as I did to oppose him without letup until the end of time.  They forgot.  I did not (and to his credit, neither did fellow FDH Lounge Dignitary Nate Noy, a fellow supporter of Goode).  In this pro wrestling landscape that our politics has become, Romney is running against a “bad guy,” so he must be a “good guy.”  In reality, this is the political equivalent of Kevin Sullivan vs. The Iron Sheik.  There is no “good guy” and reductionist inferences to the contrary are merely childish.  The cynical puppet-masters in the Romney campaign and the Republican establishment are counting on conservatives fearing and hating Obama so much that they will actually spite the interests of policies they profess to advocate by elevating a man who will destroy and discredit them.  Although my advice will fall on deaf ears in terms of those you who generally agree with me politically, I beg you not to fall for it.

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