There is a reason why Saturday’s debate was dominated by an inordinate about of “culture questions” by the biased panelists. They know that those sort of red meat issues are a turn off to the electorate and right on cue the candidates start talking abut constitutional amendments for this and that social issue i.e gay marriage, school prayer, abortion, etc.
by Melanie Phillips
What is the one question the successful Republican candidate for the US Presidency has to answer?
It is whether this person will beat Barack Obama.
What is the one thing that, squinting at the US political scene from a long way away, I have learned from the Iowa caucus?
It is that, unless a large light-bulb goes on somewhere in the Republican cerebellum pretty damn quick, President Obama will win a second term.
The Republicans are split between culture warriors, Cameroon crawlers and crazies. The culture warriors are deemed to be way too scary and will put off the only folk who matter, the floating voters. The crazies are, well, crazy. The received wisdom is that the only candidate who can win against Obama must be a Cameroon Crawler because he inhabits the safe and very unscary centre ground.
Well, in the UK that was the theory behind David Cameron’s march to the left and look where it got him: he failed to win a general election he could not lose against an incumbent Prime Minister who had brought the country to ruin. Why? Because people could see he was a temporiser, a flip-flopper, an opportunist devoid of principle and vision and interested solely in winning for winning’s sake. In other words, you wouldn’t choose to go into the jungle with him.
Would Americans go into the jungle with Romney? I don’t think so. Nor, it would seem, do all those Iowans who voted for Rick Santorum who, as if from nowhere, came within a hair’s breadth of snatching Iowa from under Romney’s nose. ‘Anyone but Romney’ does not exactly correspond to the big mo that a winner needs to propel him into the White House.
Ah, but Iowa is Iowa, say the savants; and Santorum, who is very extreme (i.e. he is unbendingly moral and tells the truth about the world), will terrify voters out of their wits in New Hampshire and other similarly sensible places where the middle ground means – well, you know, going with the flow of cultural change.
Well, maybe. For sure, we are living in one mighty confused society here in the west. But once those negative campaigns against Romney get going, I guess Mitt ain’t gonna look quite such a safe bet. After all, if you are a floater then by definition you don’t have a terribly strong animus against Obama.
[......]
That’s the problem with the centre ground – you tend to get run over if you stand there. But the real issue is that it is not actually the centre ground at all: it’s Mount Unprincipled. Obama v Romney would be Bill Ayers v. a blancmange. And Romney will be as able to mount a savage counter-attack as would a dead sheep (to mix my metaphors by borrowing a particularly pungent one from Britain’s own internecine conservative wars in the Thatcher years, a war from which the Conservative party has never recovered).
To repeat: in this contest, there is no perfect or ideal candidate. These are extraordinary times — it’s a terrifying jungle out there, and we’re being sucked into the very heart of darkness — and extraordinary times require an extraordinary and larger than life character. The question is not whether candidate X presses all the right buttons – it’s whether the one button he does press is so big and crucial that voters need to set aside all his ‘baggage’ because the other guys have no button at all.
Republicans! Are you leaders or lemmings? Is there really no-one in the whole damn country who has what it takes to lead the free world away from disaster – and persuade the American public to follow ?
Read the rest - Into the jungle with…. a blancmange?
Tags: Melanie Phillips
“LEMMINGS!!!” shouts the GOP.
Bumr50 wrote:
Shouted in a thunderous way.
@ Speranza:
With pride and authority…
The Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism
@ Guggi:
Yeah the world will follow it.
Speranza wrote:
At least they do something.
I am not going to bash this group of candidates as being anything less than worthy of running. I will not vote for Paul, but at least he had the stones to take the risk and to put himself out there for public scrutiny. Running for President is a gamble, financially, emotionally, and professionally, and each of these men and woman took that risk on. That alone makes them all, (not sure about RP,) a damn sight better than Barack Hussein Obama. They may not be perfect, but good luck waiting around for the ghost of Ronald Reagan to run.
@ Flyovercountry:
Criticizing a party is a far cry from criticizing the individuals running for that party’s nomination.
@ Flyovercountry:
.
And that’s the point, the Gipper is not coming back.
This group of candidates is like a buffet table missing
your favorite items.
But the alternative is a soup sandwich (Obama).
@ RIX:
FTFY
@ Bumr50:
Agreed, but those distinctions for which you criticize the party should probably be on political or position considerations rather than on the star power of who their candidates are. My point is that these people have shown themselves to be leaders by virtue of the risk that they have taken on.
We have been listening to this crap since the day after we elected Obama. The GOP does not have any stars to run against the Messiah that Obama was perceived to be. Well, I say baloney. If God forbid, Mitt Romney should be the Republican nominee, you can rest assured that I will be one of his most passionate advocates right up until early November of 2012.
Flyovercountry wrote:
Luap Nor will take any publicity good or bad that he can get.
@ Flyovercountry:
If Romney’s the nominee, we must djinn up much angst in order to hold his feet to the fire once in office.
I guess I’m a little lazy in that I don’t want to have to monitor the guy I just voted for, and therefore would prefer to have to do as little of that as possible and concentrate on other important things such as local races.
I’m not thrilled with any of them, but I’ll vote for the eventual nominee for what it’s worth. Here in the Peoples republic of Oregon with all mail in balloting, I’m sure my votes will be equal to a couple of sheets of toilet paper. Sad too, outside Portland and Eugene, it’s pretty red.
/lurk
Mike C. wrote:
More to the actual point.
@ Mike C.:
15 TRILLION UPDINGS!
Wasserman and Schumer defining the scale will get you agreeing with Melanie Phillips
@ waldensianspirit:
Anybody but Obama, but I don’;t think Romney, for all his perported electibility, can win. Look how he is handling Gingrich’s attack on Bain. That’s not fair! he whines and stamps his little foot. That will get you jack shit when you come up against the Obama Machine, and Romney surely knows that. He will lose gracefully, just like Bob Dole and John McCain.
@ Iron Fist:
This piece should allay your fears better than any other story which I could have illustrated.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/10/poll-americans-2-1-fear-obamas-reelection/
@ Flyovercountry:
Yes, but will they get out and vote? That is the question for all the money. If they do, Obama is toast. I think his internal numbers must be abyssmal. That is why Bill Daley bugged out. He doesn’t want to be associated with a catastrophe. But who turns out will be critical in this election. Obama will have the people wh o want to ensure that the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT gets re-elected in his corner. We’ll have people like me. But the squishy middle may say a pox on both their houses and stay home, and if the GOP base does the same, Obama is a two-term President. And the country is fucked.
Speranza wrote:
I am going to take another angle on that.
In my own tinfoil opinion, Paul is a plant. I see too much of him in Westboro, and vice versa. Guilt by association.
The recent Front Page piece on him, and the panel he comprised of expalins quite a bit.
My firs instinct when I read Guggi’s post, is the image of Paul meeting with this group lends legitimacy. The one thing Obama has managed to do without any outside help, is diminish the Jewish vote that has been solidly Democrat for decades.
I think this is an attempt to tarnish the Republican brand. I’m sure the Dems could care less if the Jewish vote does not vote for them. Moreso, the do not want them casting for their opponents, so staying home is the best scenario they could hope for.
@ Guggi:
This is starting to gain traction in Canada. If we can successfully (and accurately, may I add) depict the eco-loons as evil foreign agents, we can marginalize them. Canadians are fiercely patriotic, just not quite as conspicuously so as Americans.
Read this for an idea of just how much $oros dollars goes into anti-energy campaigns.
@ Iron Fist:
I don’t see those ifs as happening. I don’t see the number of people who want a Black man to win reelection at the expense of economic suicide as being that huge. I don’t see the same number of people who vote by not voting as being the same number also. Unfortunately, those of us who saw this coming with an Obama Presidency were not a great a number as we would have liked. That being said, people are sure aware of what an Obama Presidency means now. Very few surprises left in the bag.
Many are now saying what we all believe, which is I can’t wait for these people to be gone!
Drudge is linking Obama outraised Romney at his own firm.
The reason the country is in economic decline and screaming deficits is the country is too immoral
@ waldensianspirit:
You’ll never sell that to the masses. They are enjoying their immorality…
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
Nice.
@ Iron Fist:
Exactly!
That’s why if it is Romney/Obama I’m turning into an ‘internationalist’ for me and mine
@ Alberta Oil Peon:
Thanks for the link.
@ waldensianspirit:
Oh, I’ll vote for Romney out of a sense of Patriotism. I’ll try and get the motherfucker elected, then I’ll try and hold his feet to the fire. He really has no core beliefs or principles. That is how he flip-flops so readily on so many issues. He can be persuaded to do what is in the best interests of the country. I am under no illusion that Obama could ever be so persuaded. And it really is about saving the country, though I believe Romney will only slow, not reverse, our decline.
@ Moe Katz:
Is that a real animal in your avatar?!
waldensianspirit wrote:
I don’t think you’re “turning into” anything. Rather, I think you’re making the best of a bad choice.
@ Bumr50:
Yes, it’s a black crested Macaque. It’s the one that was in some wire stories about having gotten hold of a tourist’s camera and snapping a bunch of pictures, including of itself.
@ Bumr50:
Here’s the story
Flyovercountry wrote:
I wouldn’t bet my retirement on that if I were you. Most American’s are so brainwashed both into Marxism and the idea that it can’t happen here, that no matter who tells them Obama is going to do this or that, they are stunned when he does.
@ Moe Katz:
It looks like one of my old bar buddies!!
@ Moe Katz:
That’s awesome!!
@ Bumr50:
She has a pretty smile, doesn’t she?
Moe Katz wrote:
She was posing for her eHarmoney page…
I’m not working with Little Boy Ass-Odd…
Iron Fist wrote:
I’d sue the LASlimes for defamation if I were you…
A man thought to be an Islamic extremist is believed to have shot the windows out of at least two businesses in Alabama City early Sunday to lure police officers to the area and engage them in a shootout.
I have been paying attention to islam for quite awhile now. The more I learn about it, the more I recognize it for the evil it is and engenders in those its thrall.
@ doriangrey:
With their circulation, they couldn’t afford my lawyer…
@ citizen_q:
It is the Religion of
PeaceSlavery and Murder™[/TRUTH]
Iron Fist wrote:
True… Even the famous fish mongers of Long Beach won’t wrap their ware’s in the Slimes…
@ Iron Fist:
Pot meet kettle
Not sure who loses with the muzzies at each others throats, but its a win for civilization.
Iron Fist wrote:
Oh come on… It is the Religion of Pieces…. A piece of you here, a piece of you there, a piece of you stuck to the bell in the church steeple…
@ citizen_q:
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!
@ Iron Fist:
With the muzz from FL the other day, this guy today. Are we getting some kind of muzzie attack or foiled attach once or twice a month?
Some bright person might start wondering about cause and effect, eventually.
@ citizen_q:
It has been going on at more or less that rate all over the world for 1400 years. People are slow…
Read the rest…
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/01/west-must-wake-islamic-threat/2077546
Michelle Malkin on Bain Capital/Mitt Romney, including a Wall Street Journal analysis of the company track record
Darn I killed the thread.
@ Lily:
Naw, you posted an interesting article. For my part, I am busy at work.
@ citizen_q:
Another slow day. Yeah the Islamist’s are getting bold.
Sorry about the missed post y’all! I was away all day.
New thread!
With out Rodan the threads are dead.
@ Speranza:
I try to put up stuff…I just think everyone is busy.
Lily wrote:
pediatrics rotation started monday…i’m scarce now most m-f. i am shocked that i am home so early today
Ok, it is clear Limbaugh is fully supporting Romney.
In other news sharia got a big boost today and is on the march to a court room near you
@ coldwarrior:
I hear you the New Year has everyone back to work and business!
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