Why do I get the feeling that, could we see Karl Rove’s private whiteboard today, it would look something like this:
1. Get Romney the nomination by wiping out the conservatives, painting the small government message as extreme and fringe, and by manufacturing a sense of inevitability in his candidacy*
2. ??
3. Profit!
4. Snack cakes! x3!
Best of all, Mitt Romney gets to pick his VP running mate, setting the scene for America’s next next in line! Lisa Murkowski!
With Karl, it’s always about the profit. He’s probably got trillions stashed away in some Caymans accounts.
Insty wastes little time falling in line for Romney, ‘wondering’ why all his good deeds have gone unnoticed to date.
Maybe because Romney’s PACs were too busy spending millions destroying any and all opposition from the right…
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/140646/
Mark Levin has said he’ll go the same route, ThomasD. I understand it: fight during the nominating period, but then get behind the opposition to Obama.
I understand it, and I can respect it. Let’s see if they respect my decision to do nothing at all to help get Romney elected, because like Obama, he doesn’t represent my interests, either, and I don’t owe the GOP a goddamn thing.
Insty wastes little time falling in line for Romney, ‘wondering’ why all his good deeds have gone unnoticed to date.
Grab some popcorn, because watching pundits who have heretofore had nothing nice to say about Romney suddenly have to defend every utterance coming from this man’s mouth for the next 7 months is going to prove entertaining. And we might as well be entertained as we watch the republic crumble.
because watching pundits who have heretofore had nothing nice to say about Romney suddenly have to defend every utterance coming from this man’s mouth
Beck’s crew started off the morning (mock) declaring that they’d been for Romney all along (they’ve actually shilled hard for Santorum), and then put Glenn’s right shoe up as a candidate.
Great platform. Hasn’t lost its sole. Won’t get tongue-tied. And anyone who insists it was made in Italy is a manufacturer-er.
Also, I was on board with you, Jeff, until item 4.
I can be lured into the very maw of hell by any pastry with frosting on it. Lord Rove has won another soul.
You’ll notice that actually getting Romney into the Oval Office isn’t part of the plan.
Romney 2012: Just Wait Until Jeb in ’16!
Is he more severely conservative than Romney?
What I’m going to take away from this primary is that with all of his advantages Mitt barely pulled it out, and he wouldn’t have had he not carpet bombed his opponents. How close was Santorum to winning Michigan and then Ohio? And how big would it have been if he had won both, or even just Ohio (thanks Newt)? This thing could have turned out very differently, very easily.
Better than Biden 2016, ya gotta admit…
Grab some popcorn, because watching pundits who have heretofore had nothing nice to say about Romney suddenly have to defend every utterance coming from this man’s mouth for the next 7 months is going to prove entertaining.
You mean it gets better than Ann Coulter writing “Three Cheers for Romneycare?”
You’ll notice that actually getting Romney into the Oval Office isn’t part of the plan.
Certainly not at the cost of calling Obama a socialist.
Especially since when Obama gets re-elected, in 2016 president Biden will be installed by the new forth branch of government, Premier for life Obama, which will oversee the lesser three branches.
You mean it gets better than Ann Coulter writing “Three Cheers for Romneycare?”
Coulter’s November 7 column blaming Romney’s defeat on conservatives is really gonna be a blast.
Incidentally, Romney — the “toughest” of all the candidates on illegal immigration — was backed by Jeb Bush and John McCain, among others.
What does that suggest? That they didn’t believe a word of it. Or had special knowledge that he had no intention of doing anything about the southern border. In fact, I expect that his positions from the primaries will all begin to “evolve” now.
And that’s what happens: to move left is to evolve. And we should celebrate that.
WHY DO YOU HOBBITS HATE PERSONAL GROWTH?
Of course Obama will position himself to the right of Reagan. No one will really believe it, but lots will want to. [Looking at you Althouse]
I don’t have much a problem with Insty licking the center because Glenn Reynolds has long portrayed himself as a floppy libertarian prig with a few unfortunate conservative sympathiesand a huppy streak rather than a staunch (severe) conservative. He’s doing what he’s pretty much always done.
Law is over crowded as a field. Law Schools aren’t all that great and not worth going into debt for. Education is good but self actualization is far better. The government usually fails at what it attempts and does so very expensively and it doubles down on failure and resists change. Men are legally treated like shit in this country and are collapsing financially and many are regressing yet they are treated by their enemies as like they are supremely powerful because of 40 years ago. Technology is awesome and screw the singularity losers. Etc. That’s the gruel/nutri-slurry that Glen serves up with a bit less cruel snark than most sites. And he identifies what he is linking to unlike hot -air who thinks that their joke headline links are all like wonderful surprise for the busy reader. “Dude What?” is NOT a good link title, especially when it leads to some guest writer at Bloggette or whatever complaining about the lack of selection in dildos at Walmart.
My only problem with Glen is that he was pounding Bush on everything but foreign policy for eight years so embracing Romney now seems kind of dumb since he seems to be for a lot of the same enlightened expensive compassionate big government stuff that Glen formerly complained about. However Glen was usually pretty open and respectful to anybody who wanted to read his blog including the left and that’s something you don’t see much in the “big tent for me but not for thee, 2010 never happened” type blogs.
I do wonder how long we have until Lileks starts hating on the squirming horror of the not-Romney’s (and their vile cohorts and unsightly ilk).
The party, she is splitting, so the blogs must split too.
Rush was on again about his pet theory: That for the GOP establishment, every election is 1964 all over again. I’m not so sure. I think they’re at least as afraid of 1980 as they are of 1964. Especially if, this time, a conservative President were to have conservative majorities in Congress.
Mission Accomplished, Bushies.
Jeff, wrong thread, but I’d pay good money to see Ann Coulter doing the ping-pong ball thing for Romney.
Cooter – what a vagnificent word, though a southern female friend used to describe OBGYN vists as “going to the tewkie doctor.”
Beck’s crew started off the morning (mock) declaring that they’d been for Romney all along (they’ve actually shilled hard for Santorum), and then put Glenn’s right shoe up as a candidate.
So they identified it as the *right* shoe eventually. I missed that part. No doubt Romney’s PAC will try to intimate that it is really a left shoe, your lying eyes be damned.
The riffing on the difference between Romneycare and Obamacare was really funny, too.
Especially if, this time, a conservative President were to have conservative majorities in Congress.
Mission Accomplished, Bushies.
Nah, the mindset certainly pre-dated either Bush presidency. Despite Astute Ann’s shrieky protests to the contrary, the Rockefeller wing is alive and well. They don’t get elected to office much, but they are embedded in the party structure.
Which tacit endorsement prefaces Romney America going way more Romney and way less America. Heard it from both AM talkers I tuned into this morning, complete with Prager — whose views I already dislike for the odd, blinkered, incomplete, and heavily branded “conservatism” they hew to — going all NPR by discussing how to elect the guy rather than whether to elect the guy.
So the die is cast: The road to the White house has just been reset. Now it’s about the projected conservative against the projected Messiah, and that in the land where because of the wholesale ruin of the productive class by bad social policy and bad money, millions and millions already sit on couches all day collecting checks printed on borrowed Chinese funds by a benevolent government. Put that way I don’t like the odds.
This was hopeful. Also, without a miracle of real classically liberal pushback over the next seven months — which means the kind of reform that only comes from acute need in the midst of crisis — entirely retractable.
I suppose Mitt’s job is to oil those waters and the “right” is about to see to it. To do precisely the opposite of what must be done to restore a nation. In an orgy of socialism and theft, we’ve decimated ourselves for fifty years while competitors grow strong and ascendent. Without reform, this cannot possibly end well. Romney is not a reformer.
You mean it gets better than Ann Coulter writing “Three Cheers for Romneycare?”
Coulter’s November 7 column blaming Romney’s defeat on conservatives is really gonna be a blast.
A-yep. Running concurrently with the Romney campaign will be Plan 1-B, preparing for scapegoating in the wake of a Romney defeat. You see it already in the fretting over the mean conservatives making poor Mitt run too far to the right.
“Jettison the SoCons II–Get Mittier” is in pre-production as we speak.
What does that suggest? That they didn’t believe a word of it.
Or they just know whose coattails are the most profitable to ride, with no regard whatsoever to policies one way or the other.
Dale, the old Rockefeller Wing is the present Bush wing.
Barbara is the head of it.
” Coulter’s November 7 column blaming Romney’s defeat on conservatives is really gonna be a blast.”
Who’s gonna read it? The left hates her and pretty much wants her to be kept in an oubliette for years and then strung up and burned by an international court in San Francisco. The middle thinks she’s creepy and embarrassing and she throws donuts (sugary arguments with holes in them) to dumb people. The right thinks she’s just fucking gone nuts or else was totally insincere about what she said before some “flip n’ pay’ check cleared, probably sent by the Romney camp. Most of the Tea Party probably doesn’t know who the hell she is. The Paulites think she’s just another mask for the ‘globalist man-bank coalition for the promotion of super-neo-facism’.
So if/when she writes it, who’s gonna read it?
A question just crossed my mind that I haven’t heard anyone ask before, if the Supremes toss out Obamacare because the individual mandate is unconstitutional, will that affect Romneycare?
No, because Romney cares. OK? He. CARES.
No, Lee. The state has that power. The Fed doesn’t, per the 10th.
A question just crossed my mind that I haven’t heard anyone ask before, if the Supremes toss out Obamacare because the individual mandate is unconstitutional, will that affect Romneycare?
I can’t see how it could. States have a general police power with respect to regulating activity within their borders. Thus, a state-level mandate to purchase health insurance does not implicate the federal constitution.
It’s a profoundly bad idea detrimental to personal liberty, not to mention fiscally unsustainable, but it is not unconstitutional.
Shouldn’t. I wonder if it’s been challenged under the state’s Constitution, though.
Dale, the old Rockefeller Wing is the present Bush wing.
Barbara is the head of it.
Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap there.
Only if the commerce clause has been incorporated, and probably not even then.
Except altering a state constitution or law is easier than doing it nationally especially if the law goes bad in a public way. Unless you are in California. I haven’t figured California out.
California can’t seem to stop hitting itself.
Except altering a state constitution or law is easier than doing it nationally especially if the law goes bad in a public way.
Massachusetts’ constitutional amendment procedures are positively Byzantine.
No, wait–that’s not fair to that great, lost empire, which did a lot for Western civilization.
MA’s constitutional amendment procedures are positively Tammanine–you have to get it past their asinine one-party legislature, and good luck with that.
I’m still a little hazy, I mean a state can’t outlaw private citizens from having a gun, because it’s unconstitutional. If it’s ruled unconstitutional to require a citizen to enter into a private contract, wouldn’t that ruling apply to all citizens?
No, the model will be Alabama, 1966, Lurleen and First Gentleman George.
I’m still a little hazy, I mean a state can’t outlaw private citizens from having a gun, because it’s unconstitutional. If it’s ruled unconstitutional to require a citizen to enter into a private contract, wouldn’t that ruling apply to all citizens?
You’re getting tripped up by the incorporation effect of the 14th Amendment, and the interaction between the 10th Amendment and the Commerce Clause.
Long story short, most (but not all) of the provisions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be incorporated–i.e., protected from abridgement by the States–under the 14th Amendment.
No such finding applies to the Commerce Clause. And, given the 10th Amendment, I don’t see how it ever could be.
Then again, Anthony Kennedy.
I’m trying to picture what incorporation would entail and I’m full of fail.
Thanks Dale.
Glad to help!
I bet they never dreamed they would need to add the part I inserted in bold…
Incidentally, Romney — the “toughest” of all the candidates on illegal immigration — was backed by Jeb Bush and John McCain, among others.
What does that suggest? That they didn’t believe a word of it.
Look, Mitt has lots of stories about how he is a nice guy who looks for lost puppies in the forest and is charitable to a fault. I’m reminded of Blake’s monologue in “Glengarry Glenross.” He’s certainly a nice man who loves his family and tithes to the poor.
We’re not hiring Hugh Beaumont in Father Knows Best. I don’t fucking care about his private life. Like Jeb and McCain, I don’t believe Romney. Unlike them I would like to see him be tough on immigration or any conservative position, but… I don’t believe him. And in the few places I do it is alarming. Mitt might very well start a trade and tariff war with China.
Still, better than Obama. But don’t ask me to sell him because unless you already believe a ham sandwich is better than Barrykins, I have nothing to sell.
Hugh Beaumont was in Leave it to Beaver. Father Knows Best is Robert Young.
Mitt will now spend $3million in targeted pw ads to expose your hideous folly.
Beat me to it, Jeff. I wasn’t the only one watching reruns instead of doing homework.
OMFG is my memory shot. Still, I would take Eddie Haskell over Obama.
You can tell that Mitt Romney is not a conservative because he already has a conservative doppelganger. Chuck Woolery is the conservative equivalent to Mit Romney. Therefore Romney ain’t conservative. It’s pure reason mother fuckers. Ain’t nothin’ it can’t do!
I await my inevitable firing from National Review and the inevitable assault from an outraged undead Aristotle who will probably beat me with Greek scrolls that I can’t read.
Obama is Eddie Haskell.
Obama is Eddie Haskell.
Well, he is mighty white. Half of him, that is.
Hey, I can see John Derbyshire in the distance!
Actually, Mitt is more like Todd, Bill Murray’s nerdy character on the old SNL (ya know, when it was funny).
“That’s a stunning housecoat, Mrs. Ludner.”
“That’s a stunning housecoat, Mrs. Ludner.”
So who is Mitt’s Lisa? For the veep noogies.
Why, Lisa Murkowski. Of course.
“Gawd, Mitt. Yer so immature!
Romney/Murkowski 2012.
I dunno. A presidential ticket shouldn’t sound like the name of the breakout supporting character in a two-season ’80s sitcom.
This fall, on a Very Special Election: the candidates have a big argument, and then realize that they’re really not that different. Group hug!
I was about to say Romney is Eddie Haskell. Hmmm…
Rob-Stacey McCain is laying down some inpleasant* truths for the honorable Pods of inevitability that are blessed to dwell beneath the dome of prudent respectability.
http://theothermccain.com/2012/04/11/memo-from-the-national-affairs-desk-foreboding-gloom-pervades-vanuatu/#more-67727
*
* ‘Inpleasant’ is much like the archaic, unhelpful, dangerous, visigothy word ‘unpleasant’ only it has a far richer woodier sound and not horribly tinny and common. ‘Inpleasant’ is a highly nuanced and sophisticated term more suited to the elevated sensibilities of helpful, pragmatic, sane, tactical, independent voter-magnet, centrist, fis-con, alpha republicans who we all desperately need to keep around to tell us when things are ‘inevitable’ or ‘indefensible’.
There was this tweet flitting through my tl that should give pause. T’wit:
“Sigh. Romney 2012. Because Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder just, sucks”.
somewhat off-topic, but now that the GOP primary is settled and we have a candidate who is subject to being very effectively demagogued by Obama, and who is not temperamentelly inclined to respond in kind, how about lighting a fire under the GOPers in congress? I like this idea:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/04/how-should-republicans-respond-to-the-buffett-ploy.php
“Sigh. Romney 2012. Because Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder just, sucks”.
Gah! A message that needs repeating.
Someone over at the RNC is on the ball.
http://tinyurl.com/crpu6tp
http://tinyurl.com/bv43w27
Fight demagoguery with better demagoguery. Not necessarily as principled as responding to the substance of the matter, such as there is any. But more fun.