George Will: Mitt Romney May Be The Next Michael Dukakis

The last paragraph of George Will's column sums it up very well (my bold):

Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from “data” (although there is precious little to support Romney’s idea that in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants is a powerful magnet for such immigrants) and who believes elections should be about (in Dukakis’s words) “competence,” not “ideology.” But what would President Romney competently do when not pondering ethanol subsidies that he forthrightly says should stop sometime before “forever”? Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?

Romney signed into law Romneycare in 2006 when he was Governor which gave illegals the right to free medical care in MA but yet that same person attacks Governor Perry on giving the children of illegals in-state tuition claiming it would be a 'powerful magnet' which has not been shown.  The children getting in-state tuition have been in this Country for years and is the only country know.  Rick Perry signed a bill in 2001 giving instate tuition for children of  illegals that was approved by all but four members of the legislature.  This bill was signed in the spring of his first year as Governor after taking over from then Governor George W. Bush who became President.  

Romney wants Perry's whole career to be in the public venue which Perry has never hid the fact he was a Democrat in 1988 who supported Gore in the primary and became a Republican to run for Agriculture Commissioner in 1990.  Yet Romney doesn't want anyone to focus on his background in politics going back to the early 90's when he attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser or even more important in the early 80's when he became an Independent because of Reagan/Bush and defended it when he ran for Senate against Ted Kennedy in 1994.  In research for his comment on Reagan/Bush we discovered his pro-gun control stance as well:

Romney took positions favorable to gun control in previous races in Massachusetts, a state with strict gun control laws. 

In 1994, Romney ran for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Ted Kennedy. During that campaign, Romney supported two gun control measures: the Brady Bill, which required background checks for gun purchases, and a ban on certain types of assault weapons. 

In 2002, Romney ran for governor, successfully beating Shannon P. O'Brien. During that campaign Romney said, "We have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them." The McCain ad accurately quotes Romney on this point. 

Also during the 1994 race, Kennedy attacked Romney as a conservative similar to Ronald Reagan. (He didn't mean it as a compliment.) That's when Romney responded, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush."

This paragraph from George Will hits the nail on the head about Romney.

A straddle is not a political philosophy; it is what you do when you do not have one. It is what Romney did when he said that using Troubled Assets Relief Program funds for the General Motors and Chrysler bailouts “was the wrong source for that funding.” Oh, so the source was the bailouts’ defect.

The more you read about Romney, the more you realize he has no core values but wants everyone to believe he is the best candidate.  When I hear he would be the best against Obama, I am reminded of the saying "don't throw me into the briar patch" which is exactly what Democrats want us to believe about Romney is the  one most likely to beat Obama.  Democrat strategists have to be salivating at getting Mitt Romney as Obama's opponent.  Know I would be if I were in their shoes!

Romney, supposedly the Republican most electable next November, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable; he might damage GOP chances of capturing the Senate. Republican successes down the ticket will depend on the energies of the Tea Party and other conservatives, who will be deflated by a nominee whose blurry profile in caution communicates only calculated trimming. 

Why would conservatives vote for a liberal posing as a conservative when you have no idea where he stands.  He tried to hide the fact his advisers helped write Obamacare so what else is he hiding?  He could get elected and become the most liberal Republican President of all time.  George Will is not the only person I have heard say that Romney running could cost Republicans the Senate as it has been coming out more and more when you talk to people from from around the Country.

George Will has summed up what so many of us have been feeling about Mitt Romney going back to 2008 when he first ran for President.  Sick and tired of Romney being pushed by the establishment because it is his turn.  It is never going to be his turn to be President if conservatives have any say.  Establishment Republicans may control most of the media but they do not control who we vote for in the voting booth!  If you are not a conservative Mormon then your chances of supporting Romney are almost nil because you will be supporting a moderate to liberal posing as a conservative if you vote for Romney.

George F. Will:  Mitt Romney, the pretzel candidate
By George F. Will, Published: October 28 

The Republican presidential dynamic — various candidates rise and recede; Mitt Romney remains at about 25 percent support — is peculiar because conservatives correctly believe that it is important to defeat Barack Obama but unimportant that Romney be president. This is not cognitive dissonance.

Obama, a floundering naif who thinks ATMs aggravate unemployment, is bewildered by a national tragedy of shattered dreams, decaying workforce skills and forgone wealth creation. Romney cannot enunciate a defensible, or even decipherable, ethanol policy.  

Life poses difficult choices, but not about ethanol. Government subsidizes ethanol production, imposes tariffs to protect manufacturers of it and mandates the use of it — and it injures the nation’s and the world’s economic, environmental, and social (it raises food prices) well-being.
In May, in corn-growing Iowa, Romney said, “I support” — present tense — “the subsidy of ethanol.” And: “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” But in October he told Iowans he is “a business guy,” so as president he would review this bipartisan — the last Republican president was an ethanol enthusiast — folly. Romney said that he once favored (past tense) subsidies to get the ethanol industry “on its feet.” (In the 19th century, 

Republican “business guys” justified high tariffs for protecting “infant industries”). But Romney added, “I’ve indicated I didn’t think the subsidy had to go on forever.” Ethanol subsidies expire in December, but “I might have looked at more of a decline over time” because of “the importance of ethanol as a domestic fuel.” Besides, “ethanol is part of national security.” However, “I don’t want to say” I will propose new subsidies. Still, ethanol has “become an important source of amplifying our energy capacity.” Anyway, ethanol should “continue to have prospects of growing its share of” transportation fuels. Got it? 

Every day, 10,000 baby boomers become eligible for Social Security and Medicare, from which they will receive, on average, $1 million of benefits ($550,000 from the former, $450,000 from the latter). Who expects difficult reforms from Romney, whose twists on ethanol make a policy pretzel? 

(snip) 

Last week in Ohio, Romney straddled the issue of the ballot initiative by which liberals and unions hope to repeal the law that Republican Gov. John Kasich got enacted to limit public employees’ collective bargaining rights. Kasich, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, is under siege. Romney was asked, at a Republican phone bank rallying support for Kasich’s measure, to oppose repeal of it and to endorse another measure exempting Ohioans from Obamacare’s insurance mandate (a cousin of Romneycare’s Massachusetts mandate). He refused. 

His campaign called his refusal principled: “Citizens of states should be able to make decisions . . . on their own.” Got it? People cannot make “their own” decisions if Romney expresses an opinion. His flinch from leadership looks ludicrous after his endorsement three months ago of a right-to-work bill that the New Hampshire legislature was considering. So, the rule in New England expires across the Appalachian Mountains? 

A day after refusing to oppose repeal of Kasich’s measure, Romney waffled about his straddle, saying he opposed repeal “110 percent.” He did not, however, endorse the anti-mandate measure, remaining semi-faithful to the trans-Appalachian codicil pertaining to principles, thereby seeming to lack the courage of his absence of convictions. 

(snip)

Source:  News OK 

If you read this site, you know I support Rick Perry 100% and have since 1990 when I first voted for him.  Does he make mistakes?  Sure he does just like any other person but he is a different politician because he owns up to his mistakes and flaws like not being the best debater which is rare with so many of today's politicians who blame all their gaffes on the media for the gotcha questions.  You know where Rick Perry stands as he doesn't put a finger in the wind as he is a conservative.

As I was doing this post and the one before it on the flip flopper Romney, I was thinking where would I list Romney on my choice for the Republican nominee for President.  Have to admit he is at the bottom.closely followed by Bachmann and Cain.  Cannot see myself going out of my way to support those three for President.  So where does that leave the others?  Here are my choices for the Republican nominee who appeared on stage at the last debate:

1.  Rick Perry (conservative)
2.  Rick Santorum (conservative)
3.  Newt Gingrich (conservative sometimes but not on global warming and healthcare)
4.  Ron Paul (libertarian)
5.  Hermain Cain (Koch Brothers, empowerment zones are liberal, cannot define prolife)
6.  Michelle Bachmann (too far right and too laser beamed)
7.  Mitt Romney (liberal, moderate, conservative -- toss a dart depending on the day)

Shocked at my putting Ron Paul at #4?  At least with Ron Paul you know where he stands because he has his core beliefs.  Don't agree with most of what he advocates but I consider him more honest than I do Cain, Bachmann, or Romney who have trouble with the facts.  I shudder to think what could happen to Republicans if they follow the establishment, Fox News, the Koch Brothers, and other self serving pundits and pollsters pushing Romney or Cain who knows little about how Government works.

Time will tell how much influence the outside forces has on conservatives when they go vote.  Right now most polls are garbage but that doesn't stop Fox News from pushing the liberal slanted polls who also want to choose our nominee.  Conservatives need to stand tall this election cycle and not be influenced by the media or the flip flopping polls!

Gates Signals Afghanistan Withdrawal Date Could Move

President Obama never ceases to shock us. Obama is now disputing Secretary of Defense Gates on the timetable and basically saying it it etched in stone when we withdraw. Talk about telegraphing your plans -- Obama just gave a perfect example.

UPDATE: McChrystal: The 2011 timetable isn’t set in stone; Obama: Actually, it is Hot Air
December 2, 2009
Allahpundit

"The 18-month timeline … is not absolute. It’s not an 18 months: everybody leaves. The president has expressed on numerous occasions a long-term strategic partnership with Afghanistan, and that includes all manners of assistance,” McChrystal said…

Just as I’m writing this, CBS is reporting that The One responded tonight to Gates’s ambivalence at this morning’s Senate hearing by declaring that 2011 is “locked in” as the starting date for withdrawal. Er, does McChrystal know that?

Looks to us like Obama should have vetted his Afghanistan speech he gave at the Military Academy before giving it to the cadets. Senator McCain nailed this Administration with his question of which is more important -- timeline or withdrawal.

This is beginning to look more and more like Vietnam where the LBJ White House controlled what happened on the ground, and we all know how that ended. Huge mistake to elect anyone with no experience and then to get someone like Obama who surrounds himself with the same type people. Even Bill Clinton put a finger in the wind to see which way it was blowing before making a decision which is a step up from Obama.

Gates Signals Afghanistan Withdrawal Date Could Move
FoxNews
December 02, 2009

The Pentagon will "evaluate" next year whether the military can meet its goal of starting to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by July 2011, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday under tough questioning, signaling that the withdrawal date could move back if violence spirals out of control.

President Obama said in announcing the timeline Tuesday night that the withdrawal would be based on conditions on the ground. But Sen. John McCain pressed Gates on Capitol Hill, calling the scenario "logically incoherent" and saying the national security team needs to choose which is more important: sticking to the timeline or providing security.

Gates said U.S. forces should be able to move out of "uncontested areas" by the summer of 2011 but that the United States would not transfer security responsibility to the Afghans in any province until they can stand up on their own. He said the security team would review the situation at the end of 2010 to see whether the military "can meet that objective" with regard to the timeline.

"If it appears that the strategy's not working and that we are...

Excerpt: Read more at foxnews.com

What Ted Kennedy Wants (Flip Flopper)

The Wall Street Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
AUGUST 21, 2009

What Ted Kennedy Wants

He's trying to change election rules—again.


Senator Ted Kennedy, who is gravely ill with brain cancer, has sent a letter to Massachusetts lawmakers requesting a change in the state law that determines how his Senate seat would be filled if it became vacant before his eighth full term ends in 2012. Current law mandates that a special election be held at least 145 days after the seat becomes available. Mr. Kennedy is concerned that such a delay could leave his fellow Democrats in the Senate one vote short of a filibuster-proof majority for months while a special election takes place. (Excerpt)

"I therefore am writing to urge you to work together to amend the law through the normal legislative process to provide for a temporary gubernatorial appointment until the special election occurs," writes the Senator.

What Mr. Kennedy doesn't volunteer is that he orchestrated the 2004 succession law revision that now requires a special election, and for similarly partisan reasons. John Kerry, the other Senator from the state, was running for President in 2004, and Mr. Kennedy wanted the law changed so the Republican Governor at the time, Mitt Romney, could not name Mr. Kerry's replacement. (excerpt)

Beacon Hill has long sported heavy Democratic majorities, so the state legislature has the votes to grant Mr. Kennedy's wish. But does it have the chutzpah? An election is the more democratic option. After witnessing recent attempts by incompetent Governors in Illinois and New York to fill Senate vacancies, Massachusetts voters may have soured on such appointments. Especially when Mr. Kennedy's motivation for changing the law is so obviously born of partisan interest, not principle.

Excerpt Click here for Full Article

NOTE: Rule of Law being tossed out by a Democrat Senator once again after he wanted the original change. Democrats in the House and Senate seem to want everything both ways. American public is finally waking up to their scams they have been pulling on electorate and are not happy. Now Obama wants the Senate to do the nuclear option on OBAMACARE since Kennedy cannot be there for the vote when the Democrats were all for the 60 votes mandatory to pass legislation like this when Republicans were in charge, but now they want to flip flop and change the rules to suit Obama.

Obama's Craftiness

American Thinker
August 04, 2008
Ed Lasky

Barack Obama is one crafty fellow, reaping political success out of career that got precious little done. He has accomplished very little legislatively in his entire career; his vaunted accomplishments in the Illinois Senate were more the result of the handicraft of his political ally and mentor State Democratic head Emil Jones (who tacked Obama's name on legislation to bolster his career) than his own work on the issues .

Obama has done virtually nothing at the Senate level -- he has not even seen fit to call a meeting of the Committee he heads, the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs. Despite its name, Obama's subcommittee has some oversight over Afghanistan. While he now says on the campaign trail that Afghanistan requires more focus and attention , he overlooked his own jurisdictional responsibilities in that theatre for the entire time he has served in the US Senate. He refuses to take time off his victory tour to call his subcommittee to order to provide such oversight.

Even worse, Obama has a record of taking credit often for work he has not done -- one of the last refuges of a poseur. During his campaign against Hillary, even his fellow Democrats swatted down the presumptuousness of his ploy to gain credit for the work of others. Once he claimed credit for an immigration bill when a camera team was in the vicinity .

Now that Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee, his gall often is overlooked when he claims credit for the work of others, or when he claims to have played a role in the actions of, and membership on, the Senate Banking Committee.

Obama is skilled in certain types of legislative maneuvering though. He learned in Illinois statehouse politics how to place poison pill amendments in legislation, or how to sneak regulatory requirements in otherwise innocuous-seeming legislation. While still serving in the Illinois State Senate, he proposed federal legislation that would cripple people's ability to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Obama wanted to see a federal law against licensed firearm dealers operating within five miles of a school or state park. Experts have wonder if this proposal, given the numerous parks and schools that dot our landscape, would all but foreclose the ability of gun dealers to operate, except in the most remote locations.

As a presidential candidate, however, he now claims to believe in the Second Amendment. Constitutional law lecturer or not, he certainly got the law wrong when it came to the Washington, D.C. handgun ban. And he has supported a wide variety of proposals that would all but eviscerate the practical exercise of that right . He might say he supports the right of Americans to own guns, but he has supported actions that would all but deny them that right.

Barack Obama has also proclaimed his support for nuclear energy (his campaign manager David Axelrod has had one very important client besides Obama: Exelon, a major nuclear power utility player. Axelrod planned and executed an Astroturf maneuver -- a fake, corporate sponsored ostensibly "grassroots" campaign, in this case, to compel Illinois to grant the utility the power to raise rates.

Obama has touted his environmental credentials. With global warming scare, nuclear power has become one of the formerly verboten energy sources some environmentalists have warmed to. Yet he has worked to kill the chances of nuclear power becoming an important power source for Americans. Along with the Majority Leader, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, Obama has supported all foreclosing the possibility of using Yucca Mountain (located far away from any people) as a nuclear waste repository. He even advocated the abandonment of the entire project. This despite the fact that billions have been spent developing this critically needed site. This opposition comes despite the fact that America is running out of places to store nuclear waste (right now it is done on-site). This opposition despite studies that show Yucca to be a safe way to store the relatively small amount of nuclear waste generated by our power plants.

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline caught Obama in another legislative sleight of hand . The candidate has long opposed off-shore drilling, following the views of many other liberal interest groups. Obama has now flip-flopped again and made a feint towards supporting offshore drilling. Yet Obama, according to Mirengoff, "has also led a one-man crusade to keep the American people ignorant about what is at stake in the debate over off-shore drilling".

In 2005, he voted to kill legislation that would have measured our offshore reserves. That effort failed and a preliminary inventory report was produced in February 2006. But Mirengoff writes:

Obama, though, did not give up in his efforts to keep the public ignorant. In January 2007, he proposed legislation to eliminate the authorization to conduct the inventory, as established in the 2005 law. Obama's bill is S. 115. The key provision is section 101(a)(5). It provides that "Section 357 (42 U.S.C. 15912) (relating to comprehensive inventory of OCS oil and natural gas resources)" is "repealed as of the date of enactment of this act." It's my understanding that Obama is the only sponsor of this legislation.

Ironically, Obama called his legislation "The Oil SENSE Act." How audacious a label for an act that would deprive the public of key information relevant to deciding whether off-shore drilling makes sense. As far as I know, Obama's legislation is still pending.

His effort is understandable, politically, if not in terms of the national interest. Barack Obama would face even more political problems if the vastness of our offshore energy resources became more widely known. Because there is no way to produce oil, nobody has bothered to explore the extent of the oil which might be found using modern technology. We have been pumping oil in the Gulf of Mexico for many years. California is our fourth largest oil producing state and we know that it has vast oil reserves offshore because it was producing great amounts of oil offshore until political pressure from the Santa Barbara oil spill all but killed offshore prospects. Our oil and gas technology has vastly improved since then, though Democrats prefer to remain oblivious when it comes to oil and gas technological strides. It is getting downright embarrassing that Cuba has granted offshore drilling rights to Chinese companies that abut Florida's offshore boundaries. Barack Obama knows we cannot have a serious informed debate over offshore oil reserves until we have the facts in hand, and he has worked to make these facts unavailable to fellow Americans. Barack Obama would rather keep us in the dark -- figuratively now, and perhaps literally in the years to come.

What else has he kept us in the dark about? Well, he has not been touting his "Global Poverty Act" lately (S.2433)-though earlier he promised to make passage of this bill a "priority" -- This pleasant sounding bill has provisions buried within its language that would impose many billions of dollars of foreign aid obligations on America (up to $845 billion in the next 13 years over and above what we already give in foreign aid). Some believe that this would grant the United Nations the power to bind America in a wide variety of other areas, as well. Barack Obama is a global citizen, after all.

Barack Obama's pattern of legislative behavior should concern all Americans. He has tried to have his cake and eat it, too. He may broadly "support" a wide variety of politically popular causes (the right to bear arms, nuclear power, and now offshore oil drilling) but engage in legislative sleight of hand to foreclose the chances of these goals ever being achieved. This is merely the legislative version of the double-dealing that Barack Obama has displayed over the years.

On the campaign trail, he can talk a good game about post-racial politics, but for twenty years he was an acolyte of a man who preached the absolute opposite. He can claim he supports bipartisanship but has the most liberal record in the Senate. He can pander in front of one audience and then change his position the very next day ("Undivided Jerusalem"). Outside the halls of Congress, he can support this or that proposal, but then try to kill it through smoke and mirrors within the halls of Congress.

For a man who promotes transparency, he sure has a funny way of showing it. His political principle, such as it is, may be "Do As I Say, Not as I Do". It may not sound as pleasant as "Change you can believe in," but it has a track record you can believe in.

Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/obamas_craftiness.html