Jonathan Martin reports that Mitt Romney, in an
effort to woo senior citizen voters in Florida, has launched
robo-calls declaring, "John McCain voted against the AARP-backed
Medicare prescription drug program."
This is an abomination for several reasons.
First, McCain should be praised by all conservatives for being
one of the few Republican Senators to oppose the multi-trillion
dollar boondoggle, which has become the poster child for the
party's betrayal of small government principles.
Second, in last Thursday's debate, Romney correctly noted that,
"the earmarks and the pork barrel spending and the bridge to
nowhere, that's an easy one to take a shot at. But the big one is
entitlements and reining in entitlement costs. And that's where the
big dollars are." Yet just days after Romney made that statement,
we find out that his campaign is attacking McCain for opposing
legislation that, by some estimates, added $16.2
trillion to our long-term entitlements deficit.
Third, one of the biggest obstacles to entitlement reform is the
AARP, which uses scare tactics to convince senior citizens that
Republicans want to throw elderly people out on the streets. Were
it not for the fear-mongering of that organization, we may very
well have had a chance to achieve true reform such as personal
accounts for Social Security, or indexing benefits to inflation.
We've heard a lot of talk in the past week about how McCain allies
himself with liberals and is disloyal to his own party, but now
Romney is the one favorably citing the AARP and using that group's
style of smear tactics against a fellow Republican who took a stand
for fiscal conservatism.
Recently, the conservative intelligentsia seems to have decided
that McCain must be stopped, and Romney is the man to do it. I
understand why economic conservatives are distrustful of McCain,
but Romney has given conservatives a lot of reasons to be
suspicious of his views of the role of government. Romney still
proudly defends his use of individual mandates in his Massachusetts
health care plan, even though the idea of coercing individuals into
purchasing health insurance by threatening them with fines
contradicts basic conservative principles regarding individual
liberty.
If the tables were turned, and it were McCain who was attacking
Romney for opposing "the AARP-backed Medicare prescription drug
program" I'd immediately receive a press release from the Club for
Growth condemning McCain, and the anti-McCain cottage industry of
pundits, bloggers, and talk radio hosts would kick into high gear
declaring this another example of the disloyal McCain showing his
true inner liberalism. If the conservative movement, so desperate
to rally around Romney, gives him a free pass on this scurrilous
attack on fiscal conservatism, it would be an utter disgrace.
topics:
Health Care, John McCain, Entitlements, Earmarks, Social Security, NATO, Conservatism, Medicare
