Over at NRO,
What Is It with Massachusettes Governors and Armored Vehicles? There are actually some reasons to vote for Mitt Romney in this year’s GOP Primaries. I don’t personally find them compelling, and have endorsed one of Gov. Romney’s opponents. I admire the man’s ability to manage large projects and he does know how an executive office works. Voting for Mitt Romney may not be my personal predilection, but it isn’t quite as pointless as wearing a rally cap or tossing maidens down a well for good luck. People have also offered sales pitches on Romney’s behalf that are about as believable as SpongeBob Squarepants discovering the Higgs Boson. One of the sadder aspects of Mitt Romney’s mild ride this year has been watching people I have deemed intellectually powerful perform about as well at ratiocination as my little boy’s favorite cartoon character would at advancing particle physics. When Jonah Goldberg of National Review Magazine wrote The Case For Romney about a week ago, I remembered what outstanding work he had done in the past, and therefore delayed this post until it could age a bit and marinate. I felt I owed him a better expression of my angst than “WTF?” Goldberg states the hypothesis that Mitt Romney would make a great president for Conservatives because he would owe us. He states the following: …there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you…..If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments. Oh my! Is that really so? When he was Governor of Massachusetts, how did he repay all the Republicans he owed up there? Romneycare? Was it the complete and utter destruction of the state’s GOP infrastructure and popularity in his wake? Martha Coakley has done far more to help Republicans win high office in Massachusetts than Mitt Romney. Jonah Goldberg tries to explain why Mitt Romney doesn’t quite gel with Middle Class and Working Class Conservative voters. He makes Romney sound like the slightly nerdy white guy sitting around studying mathematics problems in Southside Richmond, VA. Romney doesn’t dislike these people as much as he doesn’t grok their folkways quite, and can’t make himself look authentic. I think this dramatically understates Mitt Romney’s problems with Conservative voters. To Governor Romney, Southern and Mid-Western Social Conservatives are like Dustin Hoffman’s character in the great Western Little Big Man was to the Cheyenne Indians who rescued him from death. Mitt Romney doesn’t even subconsciously believe he comes from the same species. The word Cheyenne, when translated literally, means “human being.” Those who were not Cheyenne were considered something else. Mitt Romney, I’ve come to sincerely believe, considers those not from his own rather isolated Cheyenne Village to be something else. It explains how he could even accidently articulate the fact that he doesn’t worry about the very poor. He’s willing to be nice to people like myself, but it’s not like he’ll any more use for me after Election Day than he would for a prophylactic after an act of sexual intercourse. I couldn’t make Mitt Romney understand who I am and where I come from even if he was really bored one afternoon and decide to amuse himself by actually giving a rat’s anus. There simply isn’t any way on God’s Green Earth that Mitt Romney would ever afford me the status of someone he would actually owe something to. If I ever were presumptuous enough to suggest such a thing it would serve as a profound affront to his self-image and dignity. Like Ann Coulter in the wake of her “THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE” debacle and the Massachusetts GOP, anyone foolish enough to believe Mitt Romney owed them something in return for a vote would quickly discover the finite limits of Lord Willard’s sense of noblesse oblige. Some reasons actually exist to support to support Mitt Romney for President. One or two of them might even be worthwhile. However, any sense that he feels a bond of honor to movement Conservatism is simply delusional. I look back at all the great, wise and hilarious things Jonah Goldberg has written for National Review Magazine. This body of superb political commentary gives me reason to hope this endorsement he penned of Mitt Romney was just the lower tail of his Bell Curve. Jonah, for the sake of your honor as a man of intellect; climb down from the Mitt Romney Tank.
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Vote For Romney Because He’ll Owe Us?….Seriously?
[Posted by Karl] Jay Cost did a little mythbusting Monday regarding conservative support for Mitt Romney: The conventional wisdom is that conservatives are dissatisfied with Romney, whose electoral coalition is comprised mostly of moderates and even liberal voters. That might be true of conservative media elites, but the broader electorate of conservatives have been much more amenable to Romney. *** No doubt, Romney is dominating among moderates and liberals, but his haul is just as strong among “somewhat conservative” voters . It is only among the “very conservative” that Gingrich has a lead – although even this is much less than what one might have thought based on the way the media has been covering the story. RTWT, as Jay has plenty of insights about how Romney’s voter base has changed from 2008 and the potential strength of his coalition. It’s also a detailed example of one of Jay’s enduring truths of elections: strong partisans do not dominate the political process . I would almost be tempted to end the summary here, as people who are sufficiently absorbed with politics to be reading (not to mention writing) are likely those most in need of a reminder that we are not all that representative a sample, even of Repbulicans or conservatives. That message might be even more important the day after Rick Santorum sweeps Romney in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado (an impressive feat, but one involving low turnout caucuses where Romney did not camapign much). However, as useful as Jay’s analysis is as a tonic, I doubt he would claim it tells the entire story of the GOP primary campaign. Notably, Jay wrote earlier this month about the growing regional divide among conservatives : Those in the North and Midwest are more sympathetic to Romney, viewing him perhaps as one of their own. But when we turn Southward, the links between Romney and the right seems to be much more tenuous. What is so fascinating about this is that we’re talking about people in different states who answer the ideological question similarly. This is geography, not ideology . I’m not sure that last bit (emphasis in original) is entirely true, depending on what Jay means by it. It seems entirely possible to me that Northerners who self-identify as conservative do not always mean the same thing as Southerners do when self-identifying as conservative. And the same is possibly true of other regions. Indeed, based on last night’s results in Minnesota and Missouri, it’s not clear that the Midwest is as sympathetic to Romney as Jay may think. Minnesota ends up looking more like Iowa than Iowa, let alone New Hampshire, Florida or Nevada (where, as Jay notes, Mitt won 57% of the somewhat conservative voters and 48% of the very conservative voters). The easy explanation of some of these regional differences would be religion, but in examining that issue, Sean Trende adds the following caveat: “religion could be a stand-in for ideology, and that, regardless of self-identification, a self-described conservative evangelical Republican is significantly to the right of a self-described conservative who is non-evangelical.” In sum, while I basically agree with Jay that political junkies tend to overstate the case that Romney does not appeal to conservatives, I also think we should be careful when we throw around the conservative label. To take a more obvious example, many look at polls showing twice as many identify as conservative than identify as liberal without considering that: (a) some still self-identify as conservative Democrats and are likely more liberal than moderate or liberal Republicans; and (b) many self-identifying moderates are functionally liberal, but have fled the label. Relying on self-identification may be a necessary evil in political polling. However, in a nation as diverse and sprawling as the US, we need to always keep in mind the limitations of self-identification and the necessity of any candidate appealing to more than one type of conservative. –Karl
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Romney, conservatives and conservatives
If you’ve ever wanted to hang out with the next President of the United States, you’ll have your chance this weekend at D.C.’s Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. The three top candidates for the Republican nomination — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum — will speak Friday at the 39th Conservative Political Action Conference . Sarah Palin will give the final keynote speech on Saturday and, if that’s not enough to excite your interest, the protesters from “Occupy DC” have promised to show up and keep things lively. On their website , Occupy DC vows “non-violent resistance” at this year’s CPAC, aiming to “make this a conference the attendees will never forget.” And Occupy DC calls CPAC “a who’s who of dastardly politicians… another gathering of bigots, media mouthpieces, corrupt politicians, and their 1 percent elite puppet masters,” who will “attempt to perpetuate the radical right wing’s imperialist ideologies… pursuing its racist, sexist, patriarchal and exploitative agenda.” Indeed, this is exactly what my friends and I have in mind when CPAC convenes Thursday. In between attending speeches, seminar panels and cocktail parties — where our “elite puppet masters” will exhort us to perpetuate their “imperialist ideologies” — we’ll make occasional visits to the Marriott lobby, hoping to catch an entertaining glimpse of the clashes between police and smelly hippies from the Occupy DC encampments. What could be more fun than watching left-wing scum getting tased, pepper-sprayed and hauled away in handcuffs by the Metropolitan Police? CPAC is, as I have called it, ” Mardi Gras for the Right ,” a three-day annual festival celebrating everything conservatives hold dear, including free-market capitalism. And it is entirely fitting that this year’s CPAC should be held at the posh Marriott Wardman Park, considering that two heirs to the Marriott fortune are among the billionaires who have donated money to Republican “super PACs.” Alas, the Marriott brothers are supporting Romney, but we won’t begrudge them that while we party with our friends in the VIP suites, gazing down from the balconies — champagne glasses in hand — at the Occupy DC protesters waving signs, chanting slogans and shivering in the cold on the sidewalks behind the police barricades. The conference annually attracts thousands of conservative activists from all over the country. Officials are hesitant to predict this year’s total attendance. CPAC spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said Tuesday that advance registrations are on track for a 20 percent increase over last year’s conference, which was the biggest ever. The first-ever CPAC appearance by Palin is certain to be a favorite event for many attendees. “We’re thrilled to host the governor,” said Campbell, noting that “logistical issues” had prevented Palin’s attendance in previous years. And the ongoing presidential campaign also adds a special element of excitement to this year’s conference. “I think, if you just look at where we are with the primary season… if you look at Friday, that’s really going to be a day to highlight the conservative alternatives to Barack Obama,” Campbell said of the three Republican candidates who will address CPAC. Campbell added that while a fourth candidate, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, was unable to attend because of a scheduling conflict, he will be represented by his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The CPAC stage will also feature former presidential candidates Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Atlanta businessman Herman Cain. In addition to the presidential candidates, conference attendees will also hear from a long list of Republican congressional luminaries, including South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, as well as the Republican governors of Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. There will also be speeches and seminar presentations by many leading conservative columnists, authors, talk-radio hosts and TV personalities including Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, Craig Shirley, Oliver North, Jonah Goldberg, S.E. Cupp, Cal Thomas, Dana Loesch, Rich Lowry, Ed Morrissey, Matt Lewis, Roger Hedgecock, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson and Dinesh D’Souza. The American Spectator ‘s own Jeffrey Lord will appear on a Thursday morning panel discussion of “The Future of the Conservative Movement,” and indeed, the future of the movement will be in heavy attendance at CPAC. “Every year we hold a job fair for young conservatives… a lot of people come here hoping to break into politics,” Campbell said, noting that student passes for the conference are only $35. “More than half of the attendees who come to CPAC every year are students. This is a great opportunity for students to come out and get involved.” Consider this ironic contrast: While conservative students who aspire to careers in politics will be inside CPAC attending job fairs and hearing paeans to the glories of free-market capitalism, outside the conference the left-wing protesters from “Occupy DC” will be complaining about economic woes they blame on what they call “another gathering of bigots.” But what really annoys the Occupiers, I suspect, is their envious belief that the right-wingers at CPAC are having lots of fun. And in that belief, at least, they are absolutely correct.
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The Best CPAC Ever
Rick Santorum has won the Minnesota caucuses and the nonbinding Missouri primary. At this writing it looks like he may win the Colorado caucuses, too, but even if Mitt Romney pulls out a win there, this is Santorum’s night. As noted here at the time, Santorum
