John, a national level blogger and the owner of RightWingNews and Linkest, has been a good friend of the ‘Grok since we opened the doors back in 2005, so I go to those sites daily (though I have to admit, I’m not thrilled with his latest site changes at RWN – John! Put it back!)
Anyways, not just a blogger, he’s an activist and takes politics really seriously. So, I was not surprised to see him making his non-pick known:
I don’t like Mitt Romney.
I never have and I probably never will.
You see, politicians like Mitt Romney have a history of screwing over movement conservatives.
You know the type.
Lincoln Chafee. Arlen Specter. Charlie Crist.
You might say, “No way! Romney’s more conservative than those guys!”
Is he really? What gives you that impression? Is it because he’s telling you what you want to hear right now, when he needs your vote?
Well, if Romney gets elected, which Romney will be President?
- Romney 1.0: The left-of-center Republican who was adamantly pro-choice and wasn’t a fan of Reagan or the Contract with America during his run at Ted Kennedy’s seat?
- Romney 2.0: The moderate, center-right governor of Massachusetts who left after one term because he would have lost if he ran again in 2006?
- Romney 3.0: The fire breathing “conservative alternative” to John McCain who pretended like he was the reincarnation of Reagan?
- Romney 4.0: The guy who’s running now, who believes whatever you believe, no matter what you believe?
Remember how Nancy Pelosi said we need to pass Obamacare “so you can find out what’s in it?” Well, is it any different with Mitt Romney? Does anybody really have the slightest idea what he’d do as President? Nobody can even reasonably predict where the guy will be on any issue six months from now, much less what he’ll do if he becomes the leader of the free world.
And some more points:
- What’s the positive argument for Romney supposed to be?
- That he’s not a “career politician?”
- Is Romney’s strength supposed to be his “electability?” What makes anyone think he’s particularly electable? Even most conservatives don’t like Mitt; so what makes people think independents will love him?
That’s why we want to speak out, too, John, as if someone doesn’t like what we say, let them start their own blog!
- … or aren’t in a position where they can risk making the potential Republican nominee for the presidency angry. Well, we can speak out on their behalf and we think that after the Tea Party helped deliver the strongest performance for the Republican Party in 50 years, it’s a mistake to go backwards and select a guy like Mitt Romney as our nominee.
- Do grassroots conservatives really want to spend a year defending a flip-flopping hack that we don’t even like?
- In 2008, conservatives let the GOP establishment and the mainstream media select our candidate for us. How did that work out?
- I do think most of us can agree that our nominee should be Not Mitt Romney.
Heck, I think we agree with him! It’s not that Mitt is a bad guy, but we have no idea which Mitt would show up in morning.