Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts

Friday, February 17, 2012

Democratic Party: Mitt Romney- 'The Story of Two Men Trapped in One Body'

Source:Democratic Party- the question for 2012: who is Mitt Romney? Not sure even Mitt knows.

"Mitt v. Mitt, The story of two men trapped in one body.   Learn more at:Mitt TV Mitt." 

From the Democratic Party 

The question I believe not just a lot of American voters, but perhaps especially Republican voters want answered in 2012 is: "Who is Mitt Romney?" 

When Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts, he was basically a Center-Right, Northeastern Republican. People who would've been called Progressive Republicans in the 1950s and 1960s. Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller, Prescott Bush, Dwight Eisenhower, Tom Dewey, and many others. Center-Right Progressives used to be a large part of the Republican Party coalition up until the 1980s or so. And Mitt was this type of Republican in 1994 when he ran for U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy. Mitt doesn't get elected Governor of Massachusetts in perhaps the bluest of Democratic states (at least east of California, running as Bible Belt, Christian-Populist or Conservative Libertarian. 

But now go up almost 20 years from 1994 and Mitt wakes up one day and realizes that he not only wants to be President of the United States, but wants to run in a party where he and his fellow Progressive Republicans are no longer welcomed. A party that's now dominated by Christian-Populists and has a growing conservative-libertarian base in it. And he simply can't win the Republican nomination for President, with his Northeastern, Progressive record as Governor of Massachusetts. So he feels the need to try to get people to forget about his past and try to tell people: "This is who Mitt Romney is now. You should forget about the old Mitt."

To put it simply: Mitt Romney is whoever he feels he needs to at any given time and any given place, to tun for any particular office. 

If Mitt were running statewide in Mississippi (even though he was born and raised in Michigan) he would try to convince Mississippi voters that he's the biggest redneck, fundamentalist populist, on Jesus's Green Earth. 

If Mitt were running statewide in California, he would try to convince California voters that he's the hippiest of hippie lefty's, who thinks men are pigs and most Caucasian-Americans are bigots, capitalism is racist and only socialism can save us. 

We don't know who Mitt Romney is, because the one person who should know who is, doesn't know himself real well. 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

CNN: Vice President Joe Biden- 'Not Your Father's GOP'

Source:Google- Vice President Joe Biden: campaigning for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in Reno, Nevada. 
"Vice President Joe Biden stumps for Sen. Harry Reid in Reno, NV."

From CNN

Vice President Biden has a habit of telling the truth and what he really believes to a fault and in that sense he beats back almost every stereotype of a typical politician.  This habit often gets him into trouble, but today was an example of where the Vice President, whom I supported for Vice President of the United States in 2008, was dead on and telling it the way it helps him, the Democratic Party,and his administration, where he serves as the 2nd Ranking Officer. 

Vice President Biden was dead right: "this is not our fathers' Republican Party," and in my case my father's GOP would be the Republican Party of Dwight Eisenhower, Everett Dirkson, Barry Goldwater, Gerry Ford, and Ron Reagan, Bill Buckley, etc., the party of Classical Conservatism, the party that wants Government out of our wallets and bedrooms and off our backs. Today's Republican Party, the party run by the Tea Party or under its inspiration, is the Christian Right of the 1990s with an economic libertarian theme.

All the evidence you need to believe that is to look at some of their candidates, for example, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware or Sharron Angle in Nevada.  They've put up candidates who have been shown to be ignorant of the U.S. Constitution when they come out for amending it. Similar to the Christian Right of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, the Republican Party has moved away from the Culture War because they've either realized they were fighting a lost war or are regrouping.

At least at their leadership level, they've realized that Americans, at least outside the Bible Belt, are Liberal to Libertarian on social issues and that they're not comfortable fighting on this field even though you still see some Culture Warriors pop up from time to time on issues such as homosexuality, gay marriage, Islam, immigration, and lately with Sen Jim Demint calling for making adultery illegal. But for the most part Republicans, at least in the Tea Party, have pulled back from the Culture War battles and focused on fiscal policy.

I'll give the Tea Party credit for putting deficit and debt reduction back on the national agenda where it should be, but I fault them for not coming up with credible solutions to fixing our financial problems.  As much as the Tea Party/Christian Right rails against Big Government, they believe in what they are railing against.  No, they don't believe in the social democratic form of Big Government that's commonplace in Europe, but they believe in a far-right authoritarian conservative form of Big Government that's commonplace in Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China, with limited social freedom. 

As I've said before as a Liberal, if the Tea Party were really a libertarian movement as the mainstream media has described them, and not just an economic libertarian movement, I would have respect for them, because we share things in common, such as actually believing in a true form of limited government.  But they're now the Christian Right of the 90's with an economic libertarian message, so I can't respect them. But I give them credit for putting national debt and deficit reduction back on the national agenda, where it should be. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

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