At this point, residents of South Carolina are already getting tired of those TV ads and documentaries detailing the destruction wrought by Romneycare.  They are jaded by the flashing screens of middle class sob stories from respectable Massachusetts taxpayers – taxpayers who never requested handouts – being forced to struggle with skyrocketing health insurance costs as a result of the market-distortions engendered by Romneycare.

Every South Carolina resident can recite the now infamous closing line of the anti-Romney ads by heart: “shall we nominate the grandfather of Obamacare to run against its father?”

Oh, wait.  Those ads never ran.

Amidst this week’s contretemps over Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, for some reason, we are obscuring the real albatross around Romney’s neck; the issue of healthcare.  While Romney’s record at Bain might provide Obama with his biggest campaign weapon, Romneycare will disarm Romney, and by extension, all Republicans, of our biggest campaign weapon, namely, Obamacare.  And while Bain might provide Romney’s Republican opponents with a useful political argument (Romney’s electability problems in the general election), it does not provide them with a prudent and virtuous ideological argument.  Romneycare, on the other hand, provides the Mitt-alternatives with inviolable ideological arguments as well as political ones.

Romneycare is the antecedent to Obamacare.  It dramatically distorted the free-market of private insurance; it dumped a few hundred thousand people onto federally funded Medicaid; it set up gov’t-run exchanges that disincentivize success and offer larger subsidies than those proposed in Obamacare; it placed unreasonable mandates on employers to fund their employee’s healthcare.  The net result of Romneycare was the archetypical outcome of every statist policy; the price of a vital service was purposely distorted as a means of enticing more people to become dependent upon government.

Yes, it was all orchestrated by state government, not the federal government.  Such a rationalization, according to Mitt, will ameliorate all of Romneycare’s vices – vices that are identical to those inherent in Obamacare.  Somehow, regressive statism is desirable simply because Romney had the “right” to implement it as governor of a state.

Read More →

At this point, residents of South Carolina are already getting tired of those TV ads and documentaries detailing the destruction wrought by Romneycare.  They are jaded by the flashing screens of middle class sob stories from respectable Massachusetts taxpayers – taxpayers who never requested handouts – being forced to struggle with skyrocketing health insurance costs as a result of the market-distortions engendered by Romneycare.

Every South Carolina resident can recite the now infamous closing line of the anti-Romney ads by heart: “shall we nominate the grandfather of Obamacare to run against its father?”

Oh, wait.  Those ads never ran.

Amidst this week’s contretemps over Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, for some reason, we are obscuring the real albatross around Romney’s neck; the issue of healthcare.  While Romney’s record at Bain might provide Obama with his biggest campaign weapon, Romneycare will disarm Romney, and by extension, all Republicans, of our biggest campaign weapon, namely, Obamacare.  And while Bain might provide Romney’s Republican opponents with a useful political argument (Romney’s electability problems in the general election), it does not provide them with a prudent and virtuous ideological argument.  Romneycare, on the other hand, provides the Mitt-alternatives with inviolable ideological arguments as well as political ones.

Romneycare is the antecedent to Obamacare.  It dramatically distorted the free-market of private insurance; it dumped a few hundred thousand people onto federally funded Medicaid; it set up gov’t-run exchanges that disincentivize success and offer larger subsidies than those proposed in Obamacare; it placed unreasonable mandates on employers to fund their employee’s healthcare.  The net result of Romneycare was the archetypical outcome of every statist policy; the price of a vital service was purposely distorted as a means of enticing more people to become dependent upon government.

Yes, it was all orchestrated by state government, not the federal government.  Such a rationalization, according to Mitt, will ameliorate all of Romneycare’s vices – vices that are identical to those inherent in Obamacare.  Somehow, regressive statism is desirable simply because Romney had the “right” to implement it as governor of a state.

Read More →

As far as I’m concerned, too many people believe the best indicator of electability is how well the candidates appeal to moderates rather than electrifying the base of their party. I want someone starkly different than Obama, not someone that is more appealing to independents or moderates. The tone at the top is to take the solid conservative base of the party for granted and then, when it comes to the nomination, throw the values and beliefs we each feel so passionately about to the wolves. We saw the fallout of this phenomenon in 2008 when John McCain got the nod. We are all too familiar with McCain’s ultimate failure to excite the conservative base of the party. The Republican conservative faithful likewise failed to turn out in support of him. We constantly overlook the exciting outspoken articulate conservatives and instead search for the John McCain and Mitt Romney pushovers in hopes that we just might get a couple of the ever important moderates.
Rather than forming a campaign that focuses on moderates, if we build a campaign that centers on the conservative base rather than sacrificing our ideals at the onset, we will inevitably gain some moderates as conservative ideas MAKE SENSE. We have consistently nominated “empty vessels” of candidates. The American public can see that these candidates aren’t individually excited about anything except maybe getting elected and they don’t stand for anything, except getting elected. The “establishment” believes that since these candidates don’t have any strong opinions or are willing to take whatever stance they think might get them the nomination, they will be the best candidate to “grab moderates.” This is why our party’s leadership forces them down our throats, but it is also the same exact reason that no one gets excited by them or particularly cares to vote for them. If the individual isn’t excited about anything themselves than how can you expect them to excite others. The RNC wants us to support Mitt because they believe that he is the candidate that can capture the independent vote, but this time around America is not buying it. As Mitt has hovered around 25% since the beginning of polling, he has watched each of his opponents surge much higher than him because of the same group of people: conservatives looking for an alternative to Mitt Romney. Let’s face it, Obama has passionate stances, the American public can feel that passion and it is infectious. Even though his ideas might just be the end of this country, people were refreshed by his passionate enthusiasm and therefore came out in droves to vote for him.
Obama’s nonsensical policies are obviously a real threat to our country. Our only hope and my expectation this year is to select a nominee that can clearly articulate the conservative ideas and policies that we feel so strongly about and then ultimately draw a stark distinction between those policies and the socialist concepts preached by the Obama administration. I believe that there is a clear and simple recipe for success in 2012:
Ingredients:
Strong Ardent and Articulate Conservative Nominee (Starkly Different Than Obama), Conservative Ideas, Ridiculous Obama Socialist Ideas, Common Sense.
Directions:
Step 1: Clearly communicate conservative ideas
Step 2: Identify and call out the Obama socialist ideas
Step 3: Identify the stark distinctions between the two aforementioned ingredients
Step 4: Articulate how and why conservative ideas made our country the great place it is today
Step 5: The party Nominee then explains how he will advance these ideas
Step 5: Mix in deeply buried yet inherent American common sense
Results:
The result will be an excitement of the conservative base and a reason for them to come out in droves for the election and moderates who will inevitably join as the conservative economic ideas make sense, stand on their own, and create excitement and opportunity.
How can we draw a stark distinction between our passionate conservative ideas and Obama’s if our candidate has literally been on every side on a majority of the issues that our base feels so passionately about? Romney has repeatedly stated that he is the strong conservative in the race and that he has the best chances against Obama. Romney cannot and will not be able to articulate these stark differences as he has literally held both sides of most of these important arguments. It would be political suicide for him to illuminate these arguments as he would just be highlighting areas he has been inconsistent:. Conservatives are being duped into thinking that Gingrich’s laundry is too “dirty” to be competitive with Obama when he is the clear he is the strong, ardent, and articulate conservative we need to satisfy the aforementioned recipe. Establishment republicans banter that Gingrich can’t be competitive with Obama as he supported the individual mandate and has openly met with Nancy Pelosi to discuss the environment when it is evident that their “chosen one” has clearly had many more controversial conflicting stances than Gingrich.