Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalWill Romney
become the representative of the GOP Tea Party or will the GOP Tea Party end up representing HIM in the upcoming election?
IMHO one of the things that the Obama re-election campaign must do (and do VERY WELL) is to make sure that anybody considering voting for Romney for POTUS fully understands, especially if they are voting Republicans for Congress as well, that by voting for him they are voting for the extremist GOP Tea Party agenda and everything else that comes with it.
There should be no quarter given by the Obama campaign to attempts by Romney to shake that Etch-a-Sketch and try to make everybody think that he will be able to govern as a centrist or as "Massachusetts Moderate Mitt" because he won't. Knowing that his re-election prospects will be at stake, he will, at the behest of Grover Norquist, sign any and all pieces of extremist GOP Tea Party legislation that a House and/or Senate GOP majority sends to him for signature. Even if he somehow ends up POTUS with a Democratic majority in Congress, he will STILL be unable to govern as a "centrist".
So, if you have any family or friends thinking of voting for Romney, remind them that, even if he may *seem* ideologically close to that "sweet spot" in the center/center-right of American politics that they claim to love, it's fundamentally going to be a package deal with the extremist GOP Tea Party- or more likely it's going to be the GOP Tea Party calling the shots, NOT Romney! They need to go into that voting booth with their eyes open.
Mixed news IMHO
It's good that most of them are leaning towards Obama but it's also worrisome that they identify more (ideologically) with Romney, which suggests that his "Etch-A-Sketch" strategy could actually help him in the GE. I hope, however, those swing independent voters realize that however close to the center Mitt appears to be, if elected, he will NOT be the one calling the shots and that he will have to govern as a "severe conservative", particularly if the Republicans hold the House and take the Senate. For the record, I don't believe that, at his core, Romney is a "severe conservative" and that most of the extreme stands he has taken during the primary have been to placate the substantially more reactionary and regressive GOP Tea Party "base". Now that the primary seems to be coming to a close and Romney is emerging as the presumptive nominee, it will be interesting to see if he will be able to hold the "base" in the GE or if they might revolt against him once he shakes that Etch-A-Sketch and reinvents himself as "Moderate Mitt" for the GE.
I wonder
what DOES he call what the Republicans are doing in Congress and in statehouses all over the country? They're certainly not treating women as intelligent, thinking, PEOPLE being able to decide for themselves what is in their best interests and those of their family. What's even richer is how the same group of people railing against "Obamacare" for getting government in between people and their doctors (even though it actually doesn't 
) are......um........getting government in between people, specifically WOMEN, and their doctors.
I think that the WH and President Obama WERE a bit genuinely gobsmacked at the RW post-election
Given the dire circumstances we were in at the time, I think that they counted on, albeit naively, that the Republicans would roll up their sleeves and get down to the business of helping clean up the absolute clusterf**k that Bush/Cheney left in their departure. I myself had thought- or perhaps hoped- that there was still some semblance of pragmatism and/or moderation left within the GOP or at least that they would recognize the need of putting aside petty disputes to deal with the unfolding economic disaster. It became pretty clear to me that, towards the end of that first year, however, the party had decided to go en masse with Limbaugh's policy of "want Obama to fail and do what they can to make it happen" and had created the so-called "Tea Party" to serve as its new foot soldiers to keep the moderate and potentially treasonous GOPers (the ones most likely to, you know, actually do their job and whom didn't believe in their scorched earth policies) in line, slow and/or stop the advance of President Obama and Democrats' agenda, and set the stage for the 2010 midterm elections and, they hoped, the 2012 Presidential Election.
Isn't this pretty old news
They've been a Republican-oriented/anti-Dem political organization for as long as I can remember- ever since around the time Clinton was elected. Interesting how you only really seem to hear from them the most is whenever the Dems are in charge..............
To add:
Mitt is the PERFECT "Tabula Rasa" for Republican Party power-brokers and ideologues as he is willing to say or do anything to get elected POTUS and that won't change if he gets elected.
This is one of ALEC's "model laws"
I believe?
BTW I just thought of something. Republicans hate federal laws b/c they believe that states should have the freedom to enact their own solutions to things but then ALEC- which is inextricably tied to Republican legislators- tries to blanket the country with their so-called "Model Laws" so that as many of the states as possible are passing their horrible pro-business anti-99% laws, not to mention dangerous laws like this. I don't know if it was ALEC-related or not but Indiana recently passed and got signed into law the right of homeowners to fight back against police if they feel the police are acting unlawfully.
What a sad, sick world we are creating for ourselves.......
I guess
they are just into the "corporate" type of slavery, not the "government" type? Different strokes for different folks?
You posit an EXCELLENT question BTW. What also cracks me up is that the kinds of things they usually rail about government doing do NOTHING to make us (individually) less free.
+1
I've been feeling this for a long time. Unfortunately, it seems like most people (or at least a lot) haven't figured out that this is the basic Republican M.O. By this time, most of us should really know better to what to expect (in general) under Republicans and what to expect under Democrats. I believe that if people paid just a little more attention to what is going on in politics and demand more scrutiny of our candidates for public office, we'd be able to keep people like Walker and Republicans in general out of office more often than not and refusing to elect people whom run against the government they are running to be a part of should be a no-brainer IMHO. They say that we should practice "preventative care" in regards to our health. We also need to practice a little "preventative voting" in regards to electing our leaders IMHO.
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,437
