
By Gary P Jackson
Just before the Christmas break the Boston Globe published a lengthy postmortem on Mitt Romney’s massive failure as a presidential candidate. Between this, and the constant hand-wringing by Geniuses of the GOP™, I think we have beaten this dead horse to a pulp, but there was one thing that came out of this article that has me as angry as I have ever been over a politician.
Before we get to that, let’s step back in time to 2008. Like 2012, the Republican Party didn’t exactly put forth an all-star field of candidates for voters to choose from. In the end it came down to Mitt Romney, Corupt-o-crat Mike Huckabee, and John McCain. With McCain in the lead, and on a bit of a winning streak, Romney did the right thing and bowed out. Huckabee hung on a little longer, for no particular reason. McCain became the nominee.
As you know, McCain had been running his campaign on a shoestring, at one point he was flying commercial and carrying his own bags. Obviously, the situation improved. But McCain was short of campaign staff, so here comes Mitt Romney and his people to the rescue. All well and good, so far. McCain still had problems and was down in the polls until he picked his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin. It was after Sarah was chosen that things picked up, considerably. Massive crowds started showing up, volunteers showed up to man local GOP offices, and money came pouring in. McCain’s choice of Governor Palin was brilliant.
Dishonest media hacks have tried to sell the lie that Governor Palin cost McCain the election, something many in the GOP, especially those loyal to Mitt Romney, have parroted non-stop for the past four years. The fact is, After McCain chose the Governor, he took the lead against Obama for the first time. Something he would hold on to until the major financial collapse. For polling analysis click here and here.
Of course the reason McCain lost the lead, and never got it back, was due to the fact he “suspended” his campaign and went back to Washington. Now Obama went back as well, but didn’t suspend his campaign. Instead Obama used all of this to do what he does best: Grandstand. It was at that moment McCain lost the lead, and never recovered. McCain looked weak and indecisive compared to Obama. This was just one more instance in a long line of poor advice from McCain’s campaign chief Steve Schmidt, quite possibly the worst campaign guy in all of human history. McCain’s mishandling of the financial crisis, running around like a chicken with his head cut off, cost him the election.
This is where things turned nasty within the McCain campaign. It’s been well documented that those in the McCain campaign who were loyal to Mitt Romney, seeing the writing on the wall, started a campaign to discredit Sarah Palin.
Evidently, knowing McCain was going to lose, the decision was made to start working towards 2012, before the 2008 election was over.
These Romney sycophants pushed every bogus story that came out about Governor Palin, and made up a few themselves.
We know why Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace spread such malicious lies about the Governor, they were trying to save their own worthless reputations. What the Romney people did was just as despicable. They were hoping to harm Governor Palin’s reputation to the point she wouldn’t be a viable candidate in the future. All to pave the way for Mitt.
After the election, the difference between Governor Palin and her supporters, and the Romney loyalists couldn’t be more drastic. Governor Palin has worked hard to advance Conservative principles, and elect Conservative leaders around the country. The mid-term elections of 2010 were a perfect example of how serious the Governor and her supporters are about bringing real change to politics. Here”s the thing though, while Sarah and the Tea Party were working hard to find and elect Common Sense Conservatives, Romney’s people were sitting on the sidelines sniping at both Palin and the Tea Party.
The liberal wing of the Republican Party cannot stand Conservatives. They have always hated Conservatives. They hated Reagan and fought against him too. Instead of coming together and rejoicing in the victories of 2010, and acknowledging Governor Palin as the leader she is, the Romney folks were more interested in making sure their boy Mitt was the nominee in 2012. They knew that if Sarah Palin ran, Mitt had no chance whatsoever. As we came up to 2012, there was a palpable hostility between the Romney camp and anyone who supported Governor Palin.
There were several factors that contributed to Governor Palin’s decision not to run for President in 2012, but there is no doubt that the damage done by Romney’s crew played a significant role. Even though the last poll taken during the primaries [that included Sarah] showed she was far above anyone actually in the race, especially Romney, it was too late and the damage was done.
We will always wonder how different things would have been, had the Romney wing of the Republican Party acted like adults who cared about the country, instead of doing everything possible to knock out anyone who would challenge Mitt in 2012. Had Mitt Romney and his group of losers actually embraced Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, it’s hard to believe we’d be looking at four more years of hell, otherwise known as the Obama regime.
That brings us back to the article in the Globe. Tagg Romney, Mitt’s son, dropped a bombshell when interviewed. It seems Mitt didn’t even WANT to be President!
“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” said Tagg, who worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”
Read more here.
“If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside.“ If this is true, what Romney and his people have done is downright immoral.
Look, we had what was arguably the worst field of candidates to choose from since the GOP was formed, no doubt making Romney look like a winner in comparison, but this latest revelation makes me crazy! If Romney didn’t want the job, why did he allow himself to be talked into running? Romney was already highly dislike by the party base, no one trusted him. Why face all of that if you really don’t want the job? Mitt Romney has always been a liberal, and you simply can’t run a liberal Republican against a liberal democrat and expect to win. Yet here we are.
Instead of following his own instinct, Romney gave in and ran for office. That’s aggravating, for sure. Worse, he ran a pathetic campaign, and totally alienated the base of the party. Romney didn’t just fail to reach out to the Tea Party [which has as many angry democrats as it does Republicans and independents] he and his supporters were openly hostile to both the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. This cost Romney the election. That and his incoherent campaign.
I find myself very angry. Had Romney’s people not spent the four years leading up to the 2012 election trashing Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, we might be looking at a very different political landscape right now. Governor Sarah Palin is superior to Mitt Romney in every way. She is a woman with strong core principles and convictions.
As we look at the fiscal cliff, and looming disaster, I’m reminded that Governor Palin is far superior to Governor Romney [and every other Governor who ran for President in 2012] on fiscal issues, as Whitney Pitcher shows us here. Governor Palin’s long list of accomplishments in office dwarfs Romney’s in both number and substance. She would have not only been a superior candidate, but would have had the drive to have beaten Barack Obama. More importantly though, she would have made a magnificent President. Her record in office proves this.
This is why I am so angry. Romney allowed his people to spend four years trashing Governor Palin and the Tea Party. Instead of telling these people to lay off, he stood by and allowed it. Many of the numerous lies told about Sarah Palin have now been etched into the public’s mind. The amount of work that must be done to undo the treachery from Team Romney is massive. Work that shouldn’t be needed, and wouldn’t be needed if those on Team Romney were honorable people.
Though I’ve never been a Romney supporter, I’ve always tried to give the man a fair shake [and caught plenty of hell for it] but this tears it for me. It’s not just Mitt, or his sycophants, though, it’s the entire Republican Establishment™. These people are more worried about their own power than the nation as a whole. They aren’t about to relinquish that power to an outsider, even though that’s exactly what must be done. These are the same sort who fought Ronald Reagan tooth and nail. The sort who attacked him and spread lies about him. It’s not just Romney who is the problem, it’s the entire Republican Party.
All I know for sure is Governor Sarah Palin was dragged through the mud for a candidate that didn’t even want the job. This is despicable and inexcusable. All of America now suffers thanks to those who pushed Romney to run, and trashed those who really wanted to see a better America.
I for one, will never forget this.
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