The 2012 Election is Reverse of Bush-Kerry in 2004

Finally someone wrote what a lot of us have been saying.  Romney reminded me in 2008 of John Kerry with all his flip flops but he is worse this time.  According to the Republican Establishment and those who have drank the Romney koolaid, Romney has evolved not flip flopped.  Give me a break, the man will say anything if he thinks it will get him votes just like John Kerry.  Must be the Massachusetts water because Romney is no conservative, never has been, and never will be.  That is not something you discover over night when in 2007 he was part of a group of liberals opposing Sam Alito for the Supreme Court.

Now he has people out scrubbing the net of some of his 'scorched earth' comments against conservatives along with his comments on women like that is going to make a difference as we all have memories of what he said plus a lot of us have the quotes on record.  What if a Democrat spokesman for Obama said they were going to scrub the net.  The Republicans would go through the roof especially some of the conservative Republican media.

The hypocrisy in this election by the Romney supporters knows no end.   Even their critique of Obama using AF One so much is hollow when you remember in 2004 that President Bush used AF One more than any other President to campaign.  It is okay for a Republican to use AF One to campaign but not a Democrat?  Is this what this election has gotten down to criticize your opponent for what you did in 2004?  Beginning to look just like that.

Guess when you have a candidate that is pretending to be something he is not this is what happens.  Happened with Kerry who flip flopped all over the place and now with Romney.  Sooner or later when you have no core values on issues, it comes out.  How can you be an independent, run as a liberal in MA not to mention govern as a liberal until you decide to run for President and then start morphing into a conservative yet expect people to believe you?

This weekend is the Libertarian Convention in Las Vegas.  Will the former Republican Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson receive their nomination?  The Libertarians are on the ballots in all 50 states this time so he could make the race interesting since he is a true economic conservative.  You know where he stands on issues and doesn't flip flop all over the place.  Reagan had a rule about agreeing with someone 80% of the time and he is your candidate.  If I apply that rule, then Johnson would be my candidate not Romney who I seldom agree with.

• 4/27/12 at 4:41 PM

The 2012 Election Is Bush-Kerry in Reverse

• By Jonathan Chait

The parallels between this year’s presidential election and the one we had eight years ago are striking. Incumbent president with middling approval ratings faces rich guy from Massachusetts with a reputation for flip-flopping. Hilarity ensues. By “hilarity” I mean, specifically, that people get extremely worked up about a series of procedural controversies, and then the two parties trade places on them the next time around. 

It is actually kind of eerie how closely the two elections have tracked each other. How many issues like this have the parties switched places over? Let us count them: 

Air Force One. At the moment, Republicans are raging at President Obama for having made a series of official speeches, at government expense, that also dovetail with his campaign themes. The Washington Free Beacon finds this so outrageous it actually quotes Solzhenitsyn — at length! — to denounce the “lies.” And certainly Obama has been engaging in some pretense here. Conservatives were distinctly less outraged in 2004, when USA Today reported that Bush was “using Air Force One for re-election travel more heavily than any predecessor.” 

Big donors. In 2004, Bush had put together a powerful fund-raising network, and Democrats were dependent on large donations from outside groups. Republicans attacked the Democratic donors. The donors felt it was outrageous they should be attacked. (Large donor George Soros: “I have been demonized by the Bush campaign.”) In response, Dinesh D’Souza wrote in National Review: 

Soros begins with a plea for personal sympathy. Such pleas are always dubious when they come from billionaires who are trying to pass themselves off as victims. But as the man who is the leading contributor to groups like moveon.org, groups that have launched some of the most vicious attacks against President Bush, shouldn't Soros expect to be "demonized" in return?
Now, of course, Republican billionaires are making huge donations, Democrats are attacking them, and the GOP billionaires and conservative pundits are waxing hysterical over the unfairness of the poor billionaires enduring public criticism. 

Flip-flopping. How important a character flaw is flip-flopping? Just about the most important thing in the world, said everybody in the Republican Party in 2004. It was so vital, Bush insisted in 2004, it was better to vote for a candidate you don’t agree with than to vote for one who has changed his mind on something. (“Even when we don't agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.”) Even Mitt Romney gave a speech ridiculing John Kerry as a flip-flopper. Now, it’s not such a bad quality, after all, to have the ability to admit when you’re wrong. 

Negativity. The challenger thinks it’s a devastating admission of failure that the incumbent has to tear down his challenger rather than run a positive campaign. Amazingly, Karl Rove, who defined this tactic in 2004, now weeps bitter tears almost every week over Obama’s meanness. 

Politicizing foreign policy. In 2004, Democrats were furious that Bush used the 9/11 attacks as a political asset. Now, Republicans are indignant that Obama is running on having killed Osama bin Laden. (Of course, the difference is that 9/11 was at best something Bush had no responsibility for and at worst a colossal blunder, while killing bin Laden is an actual accomplishment.) 

Attacking the rich guy. Obama implicitly contrasts himself with Romney’s wealthy upbringing, and his allies have explicitly highlighted Romney’s vast fortune. Republicans consider this vicious class warfare. If you want to see some real attacks on a guy just for being rich, get a load of this: 

The Republican National Committee produced a game called Kerryopoly, in which a player earning $40,000 a year "can land on properties like Nantucket, worth $9.18 million, Beacon Hill, worth $6.9 million, or Idaho, worth $4.9 million." A television ad from a pro-GOP group mockingly lists his assets. "Designer shirt: $250. Forty-two-foot luxury yacht: $1 million. Four lavish mansions and a beachfront estate: over $30 million.” 

It does seem that, at least so far, the Republican Party has a greater capacity than the Democrats to generate outrage over something they find perfectly fair when their side is doing the same or worse. Still, Democrats are hardly immune. And it’s worth it for liberals to keep this in mind: Remember how outraged you felt eight years ago, when the president was exploiting his incumbency for reelection and tearing down his opponent? That’s how Republicans feel now. 

Source:  http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/04/2012-election-is-bush-kerry-in-reverse.html

These are facts which have been verified which shows the total hypocrisy of the National Republican Committee along with their pundits and elected Republicans who are shilling for Romney.  When Priebus said the other day that Romney was gaining with conservatives.  What conservatives what he talking about?  The wealthy?  The ones I know are more adamant then ever not to vote for Romney after the way they are attacked by Romney supporters when they say they won't vote for Romney on various sites.  They are particularly nasty on Twitter and continue to attack a good friend who refuses to back down.  Where in the Constitution does it say if you are a Republican you have to vote for the Republican candidate?

Establishment Republicans refused to vote for Barry Goldwater in 1964 but now that the shoe is on the other foot they call conservatives names and frankly want us out of the party the way it looks.  The Establishment GOP is now going after good conservative Senate candidates to support more moderate candidates so is this a purge of conservatives from the Republican Party?  If that is the case the rhetoric of 'smaller government' is just that out of some of the leadership in Congress and some of the men and women we elected.  That would explain why Government grew under President Bush and a Republican Congress instead of being cut.  No wonder they didn't want Dr. Coburn in the Senate to join a few others.