The American Spectator

ncatty| 6.24.09 @ 3:03PM

I am ready to give Romney another look.

Tim| 6.24.09 @ 3:07PM

If it wasn't for bad luck the GOP wouldn't have any luck at all.

Tripp| 6.24.09 @ 3:21PM

NR said Romney by elimination. I disagree- we've still got Jindal or Mitch Daniels. I leave out Sarah Palin because, well, i leave out Sarah Palin.

daboss| 6.24.09 @ 3:51PM

The next candidate HAS to come from the governors rank. No Republican in DC will be taken seriously because of the all spending that has happened under Bush/Obama.

I like Romney … or how about this ticket: Palin-Petraeus 2012?

BJC| 6.24.09 @ 3:53PM

Ah, I'm now savoring the remembrance of swapping a couple of e-mails with Quin Hillyer over McCain's veep pick possibilities before the choice was made -- and I remarked that I didn't know much about Sanford. Turns out nobody seems to have known enough about him.

I was never sold on Mitt Romney ... and still am not. I know the NR folks have been ... well, s-Mitt-en, for lo these many months -- kinda like the state-controlled media have gone drooling dotty over BHO. But Republicans really ought to swallow hard and think twice before settling on Romney. First thing, is that none of the other contenders running for the GOP presidential nomination liked Mitt; they liked Mitt's family a lot but not the head guy. And that was genuine dislike, not competitive resentment. Second, in order for a Republican presidential contender to have a fair chance to defeat Obama, that person is going to have to be almost entirely different from Obama. One characteristic I think will be necessary for waxing Obama is that the contender will have to be the opposite of Obama in NOT looking down on the American people, NOT hovering over them with elitist disdain while pretending to be solicitous of their well-being and faking it as a man (or woman) of the people. Romney would have to reinvent himself yet again, with political image rebranding in a major way, to become that candidate. (Romney this past election cycle has already reinvented himself as being positioned on the side of conservatism in moral issues, by walking back from the Leftist moral stances of being pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality in public matters. Another reinvention might not be believable, and given his pampered, privileged background could he even do it to understand the travails the common citizen of having to get by with not much money or power?)

With all that said, Romney would also have to directly and explicitly repudiate his own participation in creating the Massachusetts health insurance mandate and state-controlled insurance policy exchange. That was a political elite project, getting "experts" together to "create" a state-run "market" that was supposed to benefit Bay State residents. It's been disastrous, but that was predictable to anyone with even a modicum of comprehension about the nature of truly free markets. Has Mitt Romney gotten over himself yet, to realize that he isn't the "smart guy" who actually can broker an agreement among the "stakeholders" for a top-down centrally planned market that will actually work? And even if he has, does he possess the political courage to admit the gargantuan error he made? Let's stay tuned -- long time to go until the 2012 cycle kicks off in earnest.

Tim| 6.24.09 @ 4:05PM

For me, pondering the state of the GOP in mid 2009 is akin to Charleton Heston's final scene in Planet of The Apes:
we finally really did it. [screaming] YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! (camera pans to reveal the half-destroyed Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand)

L. Ross| 6.24.09 @ 4:35PM

My dream ticket? Palin/Prejean. Those hotties have got my vote!

Sean| 6.24.09 @ 4:48PM

Not liberal Republicans like Dole, Bush, McCain or Romney please.

Spicy Joker| 6.24.09 @ 5:53PM

The only guy left standing will be that RINO Mittwit Romney.

Angel| 6.25.09 @ 1:23AM

I used to like Romney--not so much anymore.

james23| 6.25.09 @ 9:23AM

big NO on Mitt Romneycare. After 4 years of Obama socialism, if any Republican is still in the mood for another big government RINO, he ought to rethink his political affiliation.

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