Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Man Up, Republicans!


By Alan Caruba

“I’m beginning to think Obama will be reelected”, writes a friend, a conservative and a Republican who is having grave thoughts about the narrowing GOP field of candidates. He is not alone as I hear similar thoughts from others.

As he put it, “Approximately 45% of the people think this idiot is doing a good job.”

There is a solid 30% of voters (and those who do not bother to vote) who are hardcore liberals, immune to facts and the reality of the destruction of both the Constitution and the economy being perpetrated by Barack Obama.

Republicans appear to have lost the fire in their political belly, the willingness to go to war over political principles of limited government, lower taxes, national security, and greater opportunity for the upward mobility that has always marked our society.

A case in point was the selection of John McCain as the party’s candidate in 2008. Famous for reaching across the aisle to seek accommodation and agreement with Democrats, McCain—whose personal courage cannot be impugned—waged a tepid campaign against a virtually unknown Illinois Senator offering a vague promise of “hope and change” combined with the “redistribution of wealth.”

My friend is wise to worry about the reelection of Obama. A recent Rasmussen poll found that “voter confidence in President Obama’s handling of the economy is at its highest level in a year’s time. Forty percent (40%) of likely U.S. voters now rate the President’s performance in the economic area as good or excellent.”

This President presided over the first historic downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, has driven the national debt to more than $15 trillion, has seen millions of jobs disappear during his term, and squandered billions on failed “stimulus” programs and failed green energy companies all rapidly going bankrupt. And some people still think he’s doing a dandy job.

Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan, has pointed to the low turnout of Republican voters in the Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri primary caucuses and races that gave Rick Santorum a boost when he had been all but written off, along with the bloviating Newt Gingrich.

Casting around for reason, Noonan wondered “maybe it’s the increasing negativity of the campaign, maybe it’s the widespread dissatisfaction with the field. Maybe it’s that, and more.” Perhaps she is thinking of the way the mainstream media continues to cover-up and spin Obama’s blunders starting with Obamacare, a widely unpopular bill being challenged soon in the Supreme Court.

Noonan also noted the falloff of interest in the President, citing his State of the Union speeches that, “in February 2009, drew 52 million viewers. A year later the State of the Union had an understandable falloff to about 48 million. In 2011, another fall; 43 million watched. A few weeks ago his 2012 State of the Union drew just 38 million.”

“Maybe the story is that people are tuning out altogether. Maybe they’re bored with politics, and most especially with politicians. Maybe they think our government can’t solve anything.” We're in a Depression. It's normal to be depressed!

To those who do not think Obama can and will be defeated, I would remind you that, by November, Americans will have been paying $4, maybe $5 a gallon for gasoline and much more for everything they purchase at the supermarket and everywhere else. They will be tired of talk about “fairness” and tired of his endless lies about how the economy is improving and unemployment is decreasing. They will be worried about his attack on the nation’s health care system, on freedom of religion, and his shredding of the Constitution. .

Here’s what I worry about. Not if, but when Israel launches an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, an intervention on its side by the United States would be widely applauded by the American public and it would put Obama in the position of being a President during a shooting war; an event in which voters would be reluctant to “change horses in midstream.” Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense, even predicted when the conflict would occur—sometime this spring.

Obama won the 2008 election in part because of the timing of a too-convenient financial crisis that he blamed on President Bush, banks, and everyone other than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A war just prior to the November elections would be equally helpful.

Many Republicans have concluded that Mitt Romney will be the party’s nominee, but are unenthusiastic about him. Noonan lamented that he brings little passion to his campaign. He brings “maturity, serenity and a jolly spirit” but he is also being criticized for waging a strong campaign against his primary opponents. What is Romney expected to do when Rick Santorum suggests that he “rigged” the CPAC straw vote and while Newt Gingrich attacks him for “vulture capitalism” and fellow Republicans for “right-wing social engineering”?

Republicans paying attention to their party’s races are beginning to fear an Obama reelection and right now many are running scared at the prospect. Most modern elections have been won with narrow margins. All Republicans have to do is to turn out and vote!

In the Gallup and Battleline polls, for years, Americans have self-identified themselves overwhelmingly as “conservative.” They are yearning for a strong conservative voice from a strong conservative leader. Romney’s primary victories, though slim, reflect the judgment by Republicans that he can defeat Obama.

On the facts alone, Obama can and should be soundly defeated.

Republicans will field a ticket that puts an end to the regime’s reign of terror. For now, however, their spirits are flagging. The long primary process is daunting. Only the Tea Party movement and serious-minded conservatives seem to understand what is at stake.

What Republicans need now is a lot more courage and a readiness to go to war with a President who is destroying America and the future for our children.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Apathy abounds...

And honestly, just how excited are people supposed to get when all they see from the GOP is a recycled pile of BS?

I was surprised when John McRino and Northwoods Barbie didn't team up again...

AB said...

Alan, you keep on pushing Romney, but you don't see that he is the reason why Conservatives are not excited, but deeply disappointed and disillusioned. I read many conservative blogs and most comments are extremely negative towards him. I think you’re missing the mood of the people. Romney has rigged his way to being number 1 by spending millions in vicious advertising against his fellow candidates, buying votes and bussing his supporters in. He wants to be the nominee so badly he doesn't care how he gets there - typical liberal ‘the end justifies the means’. You fail to see that if Romney is the nominee then he will lose against Obama as there is no daylight between the two. Ask yourself how Obama can still be at 50% approval three years into destroying the USA? And you are naive to think that by November people would have miraculously gotten it. They haven't got it now! The majority of Americans are either extremely stupid or they have been brainwashed by their liberal education and MSM into believing the hope and change messiah. I sit outside your country and I can see what a disaster Obama is, yet he has 50% approval. In Australia our PM is in free-fall in the ratings after what she’s done to destroy our country – at least we have seen the truth and we know they’re gone next election. I'm afraid it's going to be 4 more years of Obama so get used to it and the reason is that the GOP establishment want Romney to be their representative– they love their life and Obama or Romney will keep them in it. And finally, to end on a joke I heard recently: A Conservative, a Liberal and a Moderate walk into the bar. The barman says ‘Hi Mitt”.

Alan Caruba said...

AB: Too many people are ready to cede the election to Obama before a single vote has been cast. That is a very bad attitude if you want to WIN and Republicans do want to WIN.

I have favored Romney from the very beginning, not because he even comes close to be the ideal conservative, but because I believe he can win against Obama. The early primariy/caucus results seem to suggest that others feel as I do. No enthusiasm, just a strong desire to be rid of Obama.

If Romney kept a pet monkey on the desk of the Oval Office, I would not care a bit at this point.

Steve Koch said...

Nice post.

A lot of GOP voters want to nominate a social conservative even though that will turnoff indy voters. America does not want an anti gay or anti birth control candidate. The GOP needs to nominate a social MOR candidate if it wants to win the prez election. Fiscal conservative is great, social conservative nominee is just throwing away the election. Mitt is great but a lot of religious right wingers are appalled that he is Mormon.

The idea that there will be little difference between Obama and Romney is incredibly stupid. Must be huge numbers of dem trolls circulating that stupidity.

I'm glad to see negative campaigning by Mitt. Newt's weaknesses needed to be exposed, as they surely would in the general election. Mitt will do the same thing to Obama.

Let us wrap up this nomination process and start attacking Obama. He is vulnerable.

Ronbo said...

@Alan:

I agree that an old yellow Republican dog would be a better president than Comrade Obama - and the mutt will get my vote come November 6, 2012.

And I'm sure my dead mother, father and brother will send their Republican vote for Mutt from The Other World.

However, I do not believe the outcome of this election will determine the course of this country, as the division between the Right and Left has grown into the same deep abyss last seen in 1860.

The bottom line is the "Great Compromise" between capitalism and socialism has broken down - the final outcome in the next decade will be one thing or the other - the battle lines are already drawn in the sand.

Ayn Rand The Prophet/Philosopher wrote on this coming civil war in her opus, "Atlas Shrugged" and predicted the complete collapse of the USA into tiny fiefdoms at war with one another.

I am ever the Cassandra who agrees that if the issue become civil war to the death between capitalists and socialists, the end may well be smoking ruins where rival gangs fight pitched battles over cans of beans.

Harry Dale Huffman said...

Honesty, openness, and a focus upon personal character and desire to serve the common good. I feel those will win the White House. If someone writing on the national stage can write a series of articles about Romney that provide the needed focus upon his character, the Republican herd will look up from its trough of daily concerns and rigid dogma, and get behind him. The conservatives WANT a conservative Messiah, but as the title of your article forthrightly says, they NEED to get their noses out of the conservative Holy Writ and come together, NOW. Otherwise, they are just another bunch of ethnic boobs, divided by cross-purposes between "classes" (the haves and the have-nots, primarily), living in the past of old traditions, at war with the times that are changing too fast for them. They need to act like living, breathing people, not stone sentinels in the temple of their creed. Instead, they are whining and cranky. They don't even deserve the candidates they have; they are not going to get the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and I doubt they would like it if they did--he would tell them off, but good.

Will Harmon said...

@Alan: "On the facts alone, Obama can and should be soundly defeated".

Problem is the voters with the big "D" stamped on their forehead could care less about facts as you also so aptly point out. The independents aren't much better....the people who sit on the fence, who can't make a decision, who have no conviction, who can go either way, and who wait until the last possible moment to see where the apple is going to drop so they can be on the winning side. We can thank all the independents out there for giving us Obama in the first place.

If the calculus is to start a fight with Iran in the spring so Obama can feel safe in the notion that we couldn't possibly change horses in the middle of a shooting war, it's bad math. No recent democrat president has ever executed a war effectively. Not Roosevelt (it took Truman to end it), not Kennedy (Bay of Pigs fiasco and Vietnam), not Johnson (Vietnam), not Carter (Iranian Hostages), not Clinton (USS Cole and Lebanon), and certainly not Obama who has a yellow stripe down the middle of his back. The Bush's prosecuted war. They went into Kuwait, Afganistan, and Iraq and kicked some serious butt. And it was the Bush W administration that put all the pieces in place so Odummy could come in for the kill on Bin Laden...it was just a matter of time until someone got him.

So if we're going to be in yet another scrap before the election, the best thing in the world we could do would be to elect a Republican President, more Republican Congressmen, and a lot more Republican Senators. If Obama and his Democrat cronies have their way, we will have a military capable of not even winning a game of marbles before very long.

There is much better Presidential material on the republican side, unfortunately, they are off in the wings. The crowd we have to deal with has no hopes in winning against the Democrat lie and smear machine. Trouble is, Republicans don't know how to street fight dirty like the Democrats do. And the establishment Republican machine has its pecking order of who is 'next in line' for the Presidential run. A 'Republican' Obama, someone coming out of nowhere, could never happen within the GOP. People have to wait their turn there.

I think we are going to lose the election. There are just too many democrats and independents who think this moron is doing a good job. There are too many people getting free lunches compliments of the Democrat socialist agenda who will continue to vote for the 'candy man'. It's all about staying in office. As AB said, 'they love their life' and all about staying in office.

The America I grew up in is lost. Maybe I'll become a Canadian.

Anonymous said...

Looking at it from the UK. I see the same problem over in the States as we have here. Tea Parties not withstanding - your republicans don't look enough republican to me.

We have a UK Prime Minister who is further to the left than the left were 50 years ago.

The only guy who appeals to me is Ron Paul - but I guess many folks don't want to grasp the truth of what he has to tell you.

I fear your misgivings about a second term for Obama are well justified, as a British conservative libertarian, who loves the USA, I wish the GOP well.

LarryOldtimer said...

Alan, a mere defeat of Obama, which with Romney would mean only more of the same, is of no value.

In order to get a Republican elected we need a man not only conservative, but a man who is bold enough to attack Obama front and center, one who has the ability to bring forth fire in the bellies of conservatives so that they have the courage to go on the attack nationally, state wide, and locally, and Romney is decidedly not that man.

The times are so critical that gradualism won't work in time.

If Obama gets reelected, we are doomed within no more than 1 year afterwords. Unfortunately, Romney has chosen to viciously attack personally other Republican candidates, instead of the significant issues of the times and precisely how he would go about making change, and quickly at that.

The failed Rick Perry is the only Republican I have seen who could have done that, but he was driven from the race because of petty and unimportant issues.

Remember, united we stand, and divided we fall. However, we do need a Republican who has the sort of fire in his belly that can stir up fires in the bellies of others.

"Give me some men, who are stout hearted men, and I will soon give you ten thousand more."

First, we need some Republicans who are stout hearted. Who can rouse others. And not dilly-dally around, being pussy-footed about the disaster Obama and socialism is, but attack with enthusiasm not other Republican candidates, but the real target, the progressive/liberal genuine real target.

Anonymous said...

AB said...
Alan, you keep on pushing Romney, but you don't see that he is the reason why Conservatives are not excited, but deeply disappointed and disillusioned.

FULLY AGREED... Romney is a bigger wreck than McRino was last go round..

It's rare we disagree this much Alan, but if Romney is elected it's just Obama, version 2.