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Jan 12
So, how do we keep PETE (McCain) from becoming REPEAT (Romney) in 2012? Conservatives must fundamentally think differently and have the courage to act differently. The conventional thinking is that the conservative candidates must battle each other eliminating one after another until there is one left to go head-to-head against Romney. This is a losing strategy. By the time the conservatives get through fighting each other until one is left, they will be broke and demoralized and Romney will have won. Romney and his millionaire crony backers will be laughing just as McCain did about outwitting the right wing of the party.
How about a different approach? Why don’t the conservative candidates take on Romney both in the debates and ads, until he is eliminated? Who then is left? The conservatives. And the voters can then decide which of the ones left should be our nominee.
One clear lesson from the 2008 primary is that when you have one predominantly moderate establishment candidate and several conservatives, the conservative vote is split several ways and the moderate wins. In 2008 Fred Thompson was the conservative who I believe provided McCain with the help he needed to win South Carolina and put him on a glide path to the nomination. Thompson, a close friend of McCain, entered the race rather late and didn’t do a lot of campaigning until South Carolina. Thompson was a very appealing candidate –articulate, TV star, former senator, conservative record. Though it was pretty obvious he was not going to win, he stayed in and enough people voted for him (67,897 votes) who otherwise likely would have voted for another conservative. This was enough to easily provide McCain the victory. Someone else may well have defeated Obama and how different would the world be today! Sadly, I must confess that I was one of those who voted for Thompson (my guy), but am determined not to REPEAT that again this year.
So, where are we today? In my view, there are only two conservatives with any realistic chance to win—Gingrich and Santorum. Perry, though a conservative, has demonstrated a clear and continuing inability to communicate in an effective manner. What would have become of Reagan’s great ideas if he had been unable to clearly and consistently articulate them? In kindness to Perry, I will omit the list already on the record of his shortcomings in this area. Ron Paul is a half and half candidate, conservative on financial and domestic issues, but to the left of President Obama on foreign policy and national security. From a strategic standpoint voting for either of these is a delight for Romney. In fact, Romney and Paul seem almost to be working together. Notice how they almost never criticize each other in debates, but go nuclear attacking Gingrich and to a lesser extent, Santorum. If candidates like Perry won’t get out of the race for the good of stopping Romney, then his supporters need to be smart rather than emotional and vote for the top conservative.
Conservatives need to make a sign that says, “These are the people who said we must vote McCain to win against Obama.” Conservatives should then tape it to the bottom of the TV because the news media, reporters and pundits (including Fox News), will be in full throated cry that Romney is the man and we must shut up and get in line. We need to be reminded daily how wrong these people were in 2008.
I believe that Newt Gingrich is the conservative who is our best chance to stop Romney and also to beat Obama. In out next posting, I will try to make the case as to why it should be Newt. SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
Written by Keith Tripp, member, Laurens County Tea Party