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Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Congrats to Romney

No, you didn't misread the title and I didn't mistype it.  I mean it.

From my observations not only is Romney a pretty good guy who ran a pretty decent campaign (not flawless, but hey, nobody's perfect), he made this election a real and clear choice for the american people between ever increasing government "solutions" (spending) with reduced liberty (especially for the productive class) versus more limited government reach with more reliance on private sector and community based solutions.  For that, I believe Romney deserves a great deal of credit.

It was a clear choice and Americans clearly chose (though it was fairly close).

Now we know clearly what the game is and now we can optimize how we play the game given that we know what the rules are.  We can also guide our children (and descendants in general) to play the game as best possible.

Resilience and flexibility are the keys to surviving and thriving in any complex system and the political environment going forward is no exception.

36 comments:

Harry Eagar said...

You might be right about policy, but I disagree completely about character.

Romney started 6 years ago with a solid (though, as it turned out, undeserved) reputation. He finishes revealed as a con artist, an unprincipled coward who would stab anybody in the back. (Exhibit the last of many: refusing to take a FEMA question last week)

No other losing candidate I can think of ended up so besmirched. Even Stassen, pathetic as he was, finished his 8 campaigns as a man of integrity. And so fierce a partisan as Dole managed to leave with such a warm personal aura that he was paid to pitch sex cures to Democrats.

Can anybody imagine a company asking Romney to be its spokesman, other than maybe used cars or aluminum siding?

Jeff Shattuck said...

I agree, he this election felt like a clear choice between more government or less but not as clear as I would like. Why can't the Republicans see that their insistence that we all live by the Bible is against individual freedom and the total opposite of a less intrusive government? Drives me nuts. The only question now is: will the Republicans retreat further into their Dark Ages tendencies or finally the the evangelicals to go f--k themselves? I'd wager on the former.

Bret said...

Harry wrote: "[Romney] finishes revealed as a con artist..."

Con artist and politician/bureaucrat/government worker are synonyms.

Any competitive politician needs to lie continuously and Obama was an order of magnitude worse, in my opinion, than Romney. Of course you would prefer Stassen and Dole because they weren't competitive. If you don't have to do what it takes to win, it's easy to be honest. If you want to win, you have to lie and lie well.

Bret said...

Jeff Shattuck wrote: "Why can't the Republicans see that their insistence that we all live by the Bible is against individual freedom..."

Is it? You can "insist" anything you like as long as you don't use the power of the state to enforce it. I have no problem at all being cajoled to be more religious. I just smile and move on.

I don't find that evangelicals and most religious folk are planning constitutional amendments for this to be officially declared a Christian nation. Some fundamentalist groups yes, but they're a pretty small minority.

What is this dark ages you're referring to?

Harry Eagar said...

I said con artist and coward.

Even if I concede con artist to you, he was still a coward, and demonstrated it over and over.

Harry Eagar said...

I said con artist and coward.

Even if I concede con artist to you, he was still a coward, and demonstrated it over and over.

Bret said...

Well, other than bullying someone half-century ago in high school, I didn't observe any evidence of cowardice.

I have no idea what you're referring to when you wrote, "refusing to take a FEMA question" nor why that showed cowardice, so I guess I'm not in a position to agree with your cowardice accusation. No doubt, in the millions of words a political candidate puts forth during a campaign, a few instances of speech that might be interpreted as cowardice can be found, but it's not what I personally observed.

erp said...

I didn't like Romney at all at the beginning of the campaign, but as it went along, I began to see that he could run the country and as people's lives improved, he could convince them that socialism not only doesn't work in a positive way, it is the death star to peace and prosperity.

Now people will find that out the hard way.

Bret said...

erp wrote: "...it is the death star to peace and prosperity."

I think socialism is less than ideal in the long run, but to me, this is LOL hyperbole. A death star?

It'll take a century of this sort of socialism for everybody to learn the hard way that it's bad.

Heck, it's already been most of century since FDR instituted it!

erp said...

Yes, but it took a couple of the older generations who were fiercely independent to die off before people could be taught to think of handouts as entitlements and not something shameful.

Looks like lesson learned.

Let's return to the subject next year and see if you still think it's a laughing matter.

Bret said...

I don't think the current direction of the government is a laughing matter and I won't be laughing in a year either. But death star?

erp said...

Perhaps death star doesn't mean what I think it does. Isn't it something that kills everything in its path just like socialism does?

Bret said...

As in the starwars deathstar? Sure. But it would destroy the whole planet in a millisecond. I'm just saying that the ever increasing government thing won't come to a head quite that fast or spectacularly.

Harry Eagar said...

As Sandy approached landfall, reporters tried to ask Romney his current view of FEMA, considering that he had earlier said it was high on his list of unneeded agencies.

He ducked. 14 times.

And this is a guy we're supposed to think was going to stare doen Putin and the ayatollahs?

Bret said...

Interesting definition of cowardice but I guess what is cowardice to one person is wisdom to someone else since discretion is the better half of valor and it would obviously have been idiotic to answer those questions (truthfully at least) to the MSM at that point.

Harry Eagar said...

Possibly citizens who don't work for newspapers were curious about his thoughts as well.

Or, as i put it at RtO, he missed a great teaching moment.

erp said...

... the question isn't why he didn't answer snarky questions, but why anyone not of the the left would agree to appear on programs designed as ambushes by master propagandists.

The media better enjoy their last hurrah before they're tossed on the scrap heap by the islamic bros and their colleagues in the elitist billionaires club -- ditto gays, feminazis ...

Susan's Husband said...

I agree with erp. It wasn't asked for information, but purely as a trap for Romney who wisely avoided it. This is what erp means and why I laugh at the idea that Old Media is in any way about informing citizens. As Instapundit notes frequently, they're just Democratic Party operatives with bylines. Romney is correct to ignore them.

Susan's Husband said...

Old Media will ignore FEMA skipping out because of bad weather but would tenaciously attack Romney for any criticism of an agency that does that, or any comment that could be spun as such. I'm sure, though, this is somehow Romney's or conservatives in general's fault.

Not to mention, of course, that Romney's critique of FEMA is spot on - it should be disbanded.

erp said...

aog, I'm more incensed at RINO's than the media/leftoid coalition. I have no words powerful enough to describe the loathing I have for them.

Jeff Shattuck said...

Bret, I do think the Republicans have strong hopes to write laws based on ideas from the Bible, though I also believe Romney was never going to do such a thing. The Dark Ages I refer to are the literal ones, the years in which the power of the church was at its greatest and science was a death sentence.

Harry Eagar said...

If FEMA should be disbanded, then Romney should have had the balls to say so -- and at a moment when reasonable people might be having second thougts about that, to affirm his position and explain it to the voters.

Coward. Romney displayed less character than any man in national public life since Agnew. I was surprised by that.

As I think I noted at RtO, my sister-in-law, who worked with Ann Romney and knows Mitt because they were in the same stake, said early in the campaign that Romney was a man of honor.

We now have plenty of evidence that he isn't.

Susan's Husband said...

As I noted, he didn't have the option to explain it to voters because of Old Media who would have instantly distorted his statements as meanly and viciously as possible. It's not cowardly to not spit in to the wind, it's just smart.

erp said...

... worked with Ann Romney?

Weren't were we told by the media that the rich, rhymes with witch, never worked a day in her life?

Don't tell me the esteemed 4th estate was telling another of their patented whoppers?

Oh dear. How disheartening.

Susan's Husband said...

Archetypical example from the campaign - Old Media slams Romney for gathering food to donate and then, a few days later, reports storm victims begging for food. So Romney gets distorted bad press for doing exactly the right thing.

Bret said...

Harry Eagar wrote: "We now have plenty of evidence that [Romney] isn't [a man of honor]."

Perhaps so, but we're still waiting for you to provide it.

I know you're shy about actually providing links, but I went to RtO, searched for the relevant article, typed the paragraph you quoted into google and got to a Huffington Post link that points out that Romney physically "was collecting hurricane supplies" (water, etc.) while the "reporters" (I'd guess they were Obama operatives) supposedly asked him the FEMA questions. Perhaps the reporters shouldn't've been standing around asking snarky questions and should've been helping move supplies with Romney? Who's more honorable here?

So it wasn't a forum to be asking questions as Mitt was honorably working delivering supplies to victims.

Where's the cowardice?

erp said...

Big. government has an article -- as FEMA closes offices, citizens are helping each other. Sorry no link -- I don't know how to copy links on the iPad.

Harry Eagar said...

erp, they worked together in the stake ladies auxiliary. Neither one had to work for a paycheck.

I am used to erp's conspiracy theories but surprised to find Bret donning the tinfoil hat. I think that after 6 years on the campaign trail, Romney knows an accredited reporter when he sees one (despite another of his jokes that was taken seriously, about being surprised to learn they sat in coach.

That was the first time I ever heard romney make what I call the standard one=of=the=boys jokes.

This makes twice, at least, that Guy opined that Romney could not win by being forthright. I happen to agree but as a democrat I regard that as a feature not a bug.

Harry Eagar said...

erp, they worked together in the stake ladies auxiliary. Neither one had to work for a paycheck.

I am used to erp's conspiracy theories but surprised to find Bret donning the tinfoil hat. I think that after 6 years on the campaign trail, Romney knows an accredited reporter when he sees one (despite another of his jokes that was taken seriously, about being surprised to learn they sat in coach.

That was the first time I ever heard romney make what I call the standard one=of=the=boys jokes.

This makes twice, at least, that Guy opined that Romney could not win by being forthright. I happen to agree but as a democrat I regard that as a feature not a bug.

Bret said...

Harry,

I'm still waiting for you to tell me why you think ignoring distracting questions while hauling water for hurricane victims is cowardice.

There's a time and place for question and answer and that wasn't it.

Susan's Husband said...

Note carefully - Eagar considers it a feature that a candidate cannot accurately state his views, and we cannot have an honest public debate, because of Old Media mendacity. One wonders if this kind silencing through lies and intimidation meets his test of "McCarthyite". It is a step forward that he admits that Old Media is engaging in agitprop, not reporting.

erp said...

Harry, guess what?

I didn't work for a paycheck either until about age 50 when all my kids were out of college. Prior to that, I worked for the love of my husband, kids, home, community and country.

We were and are very middle, middle income and although I could have probably made a pretty good buck working out there, I chose to use my considerable abilities, brains and charm, not to mention stunning good looks, closer to home.

... what aog said about your, what must be a typo, statement that people can't win alections by being forthright.

erp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Harry Eagar said...

Don't put words in my mouth.

You said -- twice -- that Romney couldn't win by being forthright.

I said nothing about reporting. He could have taken out an ad and skipped reporters.

We'll never know, because being forthright was never observed in Romney

Harry Eagar said...

Don't put words in my mouth.

You said -- twice -- that Romney couldn't win by being forthright.

I said nothing about reporting. He could have taken out an ad and skipped reporters.

We'll never know, because being forthright was never observed in Romney

Susan's Husband said...

Don't remove words from my mouth - I said he couldn't win by being forthright because his forthright statement would be distorted and misrepresented by Old Media. If his statements were accurately reported and objectively presented then I think he would have done well to be forthright. It is entirely a problem with Old Media, not Romney. One need only look at the link I had above concerning the coverage of Romney packing supplies for the storm victims to see what I mean. He was right, he was good, and he was still punished by Old Media.

Heh. I will also note that you exemplify yourself - you feel free to distort and misrepresent my statements just as would have (and was) done to Romney. And yet you whine when you think it's been done to you. I just have to laugh.