Okay. It is now officially crunch-time for conservative voters. Time for them to grow-up, stand on principle, admit there is not a perfect candidate, cast aside the pretenders, flip-floppers, and flakes, and unite behind the most genuine traditional values espousing candidate in the field. That being Texas governor Rick Perry.
The entrenched, compromised, and un-tethered to character Republican establishment has done all in its power to deliver this election to Mitt Romney. Why?
Principled conservatives do know that Romney is not worthy of their vote. That said, they are on the verge of spray-painting -- and wasting -- their votes all over Iowa as they caucus for Michele Bachman, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich. While these three have some solid conservative credentials, they simply don’t equal Perry’s.
Is Perry perfect? No. Can he debate? Not if you built him a Lincoln-Douglas debating machine. Is he the most conservative of the bunch? Absolutely. Can he beat Barack Obama in November? Like a drum-set at a Genesis comeback concert.
Mr. Romney and the GOP establishment are counting on conservatives splitting their votes. When more than seventy-five percent of the primary voters still can’t stand the thought of Romney as the standard-bearer for the party, that’s really the only credible strategy they have left.
Unfortunately, the only ones who can make that pathetic scheme a reality are conservative voters. If they split their vote on multiple candidates, they give the architect of Obama-care a clear path to the nomination.
Highly-respected conservative columnists such as Erick Erickson, Ben Shapiro, and John Hawkins, have all recently and effectively articulated how Romney could lose to Obama in November.
Shapiro compared Romney to Harold Hill. The con-man from the movie The Music Man who tries to scam the good people of Iowa. In his column titled “No On Mitt Romney,” Shapiro spells out all that is wrong with the former governor of Massachusetts. Says Shapiro: “Romney rammed through Romneycare. At a time when his state was going bankrupt, he decided — like President Obama — that the most important problem was lack of affordable private sector healthcare…and with the support of Teddy Kennedy, made it happen. Predictably enough, the cure was worse than the disease — Massachusetts has nearly bankrupted itself in order to pay for Romneycare and made itself even more dependent on the federal government…on social issues, Romney was about as strong a social conservative as RuPaul would have been. In May 2004, he told town officials across Massachusetts to start issuing marriage licenses for two men or two women. He also signed into law one of the most restrictive anti-gun measures in state history…”
Last week, Townhall and RealClearPolitics ran a widely read column by John Hawkins titled, “Why Romney’s Electability Is A Myth.” Hawkins lists seven reasons. They are: “People just don’t like Mitt, He’s a proven political loser, Running weak in southern states, His advantages disappear in a general election, Bain Capital, The Mormon factor, and He’s a flip-flopper.” Hawkins then goes into great detail on each reason in a very convincing fashion.
Seven weeks ago, Erick Erickson of RedState really fired up this subject with his column titled, “Mitt Romney as the Nominee: Conservatism Dies and Barack Obama Wins.” In the body of his column, Erickson forcefully stated, “Mitt Romney is not the George W. Bush of 2012 — he is the Harriet Miers of 2012, only conservative because a few conservative grand pooh-bahs tell us Mitt Romney is conservative and for no other reason. That is precisely why Mitt Romney will not win in 2012…To beat Barack Obama, a candidate must paint a bold contrast with the Democrats on their policies. When Mitt Romney tries, Barack Obama will be able to show that just the other day Mitt Romney held exactly the opposite position as the one he holds today. Voters may not like Barack Obama, but by the time Obama is done with Romney they will not trust Mitt Romney. And voters would rather the guy they don’t like than they guy they don’t trust…”
Bingo. Erickson is spot-on with his point that to beat Obama, a candidate must be able to demonstrate a clear contrast to the voters. Romney can’t do that. Perry can.
He ain’t perfect, but he’s a good man, a good husband, a veteran, and a true conservative.
Look up the 1980 contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
History can repeat itself if conservative voters nominate the candidate with that clearest contrast to Obama.
Tuesday, the voters of Iowa will have that power.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member