Remember when Romney opposed a brokered convention?

Way way back in 2012, Romney didn't want a brokered convention.So for the sake of consistency , I am sure he will opposed a brokered convention this year.  Ya, that's gonna happen.

Mitt Romney's secret agenda.

Hey Mitt, no one cares.

The man who many conservatives felt they had to hold their nose to vote for because he wasn't really a conservative, Mitt Romney, doesn't want people to consider doing the same for Donald Trump.  This is the same man who touted a Trump endorsement in 2012, and then subsequently lost a winnable election against Barack Obama.

Let me be clear - I do not believe Trump is the best nominee in the Republican field. By far.  Although I do believe he'd be a far better president than Clinton or Sanders even though that's a low bar to clear.

But let me also be clear - Mitt's words would carry more weight if he had actually won something at the federal level.  Maybe Mitt was just figuring he could influence the voters in the state he ran as governor - Massachusetts - in this year's primary.  Oops  - Donald Trump already won the primary there earlier this week.

What Mitt said today does the same thing that Mexican statements about the wall do for Trump - it validates that he's onto something.  In the case of Mitt Romney its about an establishment Republican attacking an outsider yet again.  It helps cement the idea that Trump is really an outsider running against all of Washington.

Secret agenda?

Then again, maybe the GOP secretly have calculated they can pin that outsider label on Trump by 'opposing' him.  Disaffected voters might flock to a candidate in the general election if they believe establishment leaders in neither party can stomach him.  If the GOP were so clever as to use the tactic of distancing themselves from Trump in order to get him elected, I'd actually be impressed. They'd be using the antipathy and apathy towards Mitt Romney (and others) as a lever to improve the odds for Trump winning the nomination and the general election. 

It makes sense in the context of who is staying in the race besides Trump: 2 establishment candidates and two outsiders to split the votes of non-Trump voters.  With both Kasich and Rubio sticking around no other establishment candidate can win enough.  With Cruz and Carson in the race, the outsider vote is split three ways (mostly towards Trump), but it keeps the possibility of no anti-Trump candidate to coalesce votes. Maybe Trump is the establishment's guy.

If that's the case, and the establishment is secretly behind Trump by being against him, I'm impressed.  Not that I'd like the idea, but it would be a smart move.

Romney's right, but don't run Mitt.

Is Mitt Romney thinking of running in 2016, or is this just trying to help the Republican party take down Hillary Clinton, whom almost everyone on the right feels would be a disastrous follow-up to an Obama presidency?  It could be either, but it's just good to see him out there making this point.

Romney, asked about President Barack Obama's foreign policy towards Russia, pivoted to mock Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state, for presenting a literal "reset button" to Russia's foreign minister in 2009. Relations between the U.S. and Russia have since sharply deteriorated.

"I worry about the country," Romney said. "The president got those things wrong. Unfortunately he underestimated Russia. This whole 'reset policy' with Hillary Clinton — smiling ear from ear, pressing a red reset button — I think is one of the most embarrassing incidents in American foreign policy."

In July, Clinton defended the "reset" policy, insisting it worked at the time.

"The reset worked," Clinton said, according to CNN. "It was an effort to try to obtain Russian cooperation on some key objectives while Medvedev was president."

Hillary's simply dead wrong on her assessment and even she probably realizes it.  Kudos to Romney for calling it out.

I don't know that Mitt Romney would have made a good president but America right now needs a CEO type president - one who can make things happen.  Romney certainly would have handled things far better than Obama has done, but that's a low bar.  It's good on him for calling out things like this.  But I think Romney's opportunity is passed.  His effectiveness as a CEO is in question because he's not adapting to new circumstances the way a good CEO does.  It was proved when he lost to Obama by not leveraging the power of analytics in his campaign.  Had he done so, he would be the one facing down Putin and ISIS now.

Perhaps he'd make a good Secretary of something under a different Republican president.

Romney was right, Palin was right even earlier

If you are one of those Democrats who spent 2008 and 2009 being derisive of Sarah Palin as a dumb bumpkin, just remember, she saw the consequences of Obama's inaction on the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008.  She saw what that sort of vacillation and non-action would embolden Putin.

Obama, your genius president, did not.

Rove, Romney and Ridiculousness

Go here, read this if you are interested in why Romney lost and why the GOP are still on track to repeat their mistakes.  It seems many of us know the problem but some of the "right" people still don't.  Know the problem before you try to solve it or else you will fail.

Here's an excerpt from King Shamus.  He definitely gets it, but he's not in Karl Rove:

This should be an iron-clad rule in politics: If your ideological positions are not helping you, they will be used by your opponent to hurt you. This is especially true when it comes to abortion, which is far more emotional and polarizing then an issue like energy independence or entitlement reform. Mitt and his team forgot this law of partisan warfare and it cost them dearly.

I’ll admit that this post is a lot of gussied-up Monday morning quarterbacking. On the other hand, the Republican Party consultant class gets paid to figure this out before the election and they still don’t know how to play the game. If you listen to Karl Rove and his ilk, they still think the GOP’s problems are caused by being too right-wing. They’ve had just as much time as I’ve had to do a post-game analysis of the November debacle. Their strongest recommendations involve letting Obama get his way on everything, then lather-rinse-repeat until 2016.

Succinct Summary of 2012

In short, 2012 sucked from a conservative perspective.  America re-elected the wrong guy.  If all you want to read is the headline, you can stop there.  But slightly less succinct is the following summary.

There were some horrible shootings in Connecticut and Colorado.   While this part is not news, liberal Democrats blamed the guns rather than the shooters. 

Republicans nominated a weak nominee in one Mitt Romney.  While this part was completely predictable, many conservatives thought on the strength of one VP selection, one conservative speech and one good debate soundly defeating Obama, he was suddenly a cinch to win the White House.

Not Mayans, it's Democrats' debt that flood America.

Despite massive unemployment and crushing new Obama-induced debt, President Obama won the White House, proving many polls correct and many polls wrong.  What happened to the polls?  Predictably Republicans were left scratching their heads.

Meanwhile Republicans maintained control of the Congress and Democrats kept the Senate.   America, foolishly voted for the status quo.  Foolishly? Yes, because...

Finally, the fiscal cliff on the Bush Tax rates and government spending cap and the sequester mandated cuts to the military and social programs looms with only days left to reach an agreement.  President Obama seems to be fine with the cliff diving.  He has tactical reasons to be okay with it.  Meanwhile Republicans will not come out of this looking good.  They look disorganized, they're still being unfairly portrayed as the party looking out for the rich rather than for everyone, and they are going to get caught seemingly reactive to new plans from the president.

Meanwhile in foreign affairs, the world became a much less safe place because president Nobel Peace Prize,  Captain Capitulate & Apologize just doesn't get it.  Everything else, from the Mayan Apocalypse to Whitney Houston is not that relevant. 

Lesson 1: Compensating for an enthusiasm gap

One of the lessons to be learned from the re-election of president Obama is the fact that an uninspired vote counts as much as a vote from someone who would crawl across broken glass to cast a vote for their candidate. If the vote is cast, it counts, period.

That should come as no surprise. If this was a base turnout election, the Republican candidate relied on enthusiasm to drive voters to the polls. The enthusiasm was there. The problem for Republicans is that even though the Democrats enthusiasm curve may now have peaked at 'meh' rather than tingles up the leg, they still turned out.

Is it nail biting time?

With less than 24 hours until the polls open, it's nail-biting time for conservatives.  Despite the knowledge that the polls are oversampling Democrats and our heads telling us that the left will be the ones in shock tomorrow night, we still can't bring ourselves to believe that Romney should win.  The left meanwhile is walking around in a self-deluded cloudy air of confidence that they have it in the bag.  Romney is toast.

Frankly, I'd rather be biting my nails than be that deluded.  I'm biting my nails (figuratively only) because I worry that on the right, maybe we are the ones who are deluded.  Maybe all those skewed polls are right.  That ultimately I think works in our favor for getting those on the fence intensity voters out for Romney.  Obama voters if they swallow that team Obama bravado may feel less a sense of urgency to vote.

While I think in my head, Romney should win big, my doubt is keeping me nervous.

Here are a few quick thoughts on possible outcomes from the election.

-if Romney wins the popular vote and Obama wins the electoral college, I WILL NOT demand a removal of the electoral college.  It was put in place for a reason by the founders and it's not about "electors" it's about the notion of the contests in 50 states having 50 meaningful races.

-if Obama loses we'll see everything from racism to Hurricane Sandy blamed.  It won't be Obama's fault in any way shape or form - according to the left.

-if Obama wins, a lot of people on the right will be tempted to give up and look for another country to be the champion of freedom and opportunity.  Don't.  No such beast exists.

-if Romney loses, conservative voters will have a lot of work to do, not least of which is figuring out a better way to select an electable candidate.  Reagans don't come along often, we can't wait for one to magically appear.  That's a recipe for more failure.

Red Rocks - both a place, and a political truth

Saw this on Barracuda Brigade just now, and thought sharing it might help in some small way.  

And if it doesn't help Mitt Romney, it might help Kid Rock.

Red Rocks has hosted a lot of concerts over the years.  In political parlance, red does indeed rock.  Blue states can...well, never mind.

Predicting the Election Outcome

This is really a weird year in terms of convergence of views on the outcome of the presidential election.  Polls are all over the place - from the differences between sample skews to the differences between the state polls and national polls, the lack of consistency points to a wide range of potential outcomes.  I've never looked at an election with as much optimism and trepidation at the same time.

Politicizing Sandy

There has been some discussion today about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the election. I actually have to give president Obama credit for saying he was worried about people being impacted and that the election would sort itself out.  But pundits have talked about it impacting early voter turnout.  That's not the real issue.  The election is a week away.  Those who were going to vote early can still vote on election day even if it is an inconvenience for them. If high turnout helps Obama, and some of those people who would turn out for Obama need to vote early, then there is some sort of problem for the Obama campaign.

The Obama Plan

As the Mitt Romney campaign points out, here are 5 reasons America can't afford 4 more years of Obama's 'plan'.

Debate #2 - Moderator takes center stage

Last night's second presidential debate probably helped Obama a little bit.  Was it enough to change the Mitt Romney momentum?  Not likely enough to reverse it, but maybe enough to slow or halt Romney's ascent.  But Romney did well as well.  He didn't put the election away, but he didn't hurt himself.  It was about as close to a draw as a debate could be, especially since both participants were pretty lively.

Wait, did I say both participants?  I forgot about the Candy Crowley favoritism.  She was lively too.  Obama got far fewer interruptions than Romney and 3 more minutes of talk time.   And then there was this:

Is that what passes for a moderator?  She hopped in and offered observations on behalf of the president and then had to backtrack by mentioning Romney was fundamentally right, but chose the wrong word.

Here's the list of issues with that:

(1) Defending what Obama said is Obama's job, NOT hers.  If Obama wasn't going to do it, she should have let it stand.

(2) Her self-correction that Romney was fundamentally right was far less audible, and she did not balance it out properly.  Since she interjected herself, she should have had a proper exit strategy that included some level of clearing up the issue cleanly and clearly.

(3) She say Romney chose the wrong word.  Is this a Grade 6 grammar class? Is it her responsibility to superimpose her opinion on that point?  No.  That's not a moderator, that's a pundit.

The biggest issue in that debate was Crowley.  Obama and Romney both did passable jobs from a debate and influencing perspective.  I don't think this changes much of anything, other than hopefully some people's perception of the media's vested interests and inability in the main to be impartial and serve as moderators.

Walking Dead Obama Ad

The season premier of The Walking Dead on AMC tonight is likely going to be a record setter in terms of AMC shows if not cable shows in general.  It would not seem unreasonable to run an ad during the episode. Indeed, president Obama ran an anti-Romney ad during the episode.  The ad questions whether you can trust Mitt Romney in the White House if you couldn't trust him during the presidential debate - where he cleaned Obama's clock.

The obvious irony that president Obama's chances of re-election are starting to resemble the walking dead, is not likely to be lost on a lot of viewers.  But what is most striking is that the president and his campaign seem even more desperate because of this move.  Running an ad that people are likely to not notice, despite the venue, because of the juxtaposition, doesn't radiate strength.  It comes across as a cry for attention.

It's made worse by the fact that the ad tries to peddle the fact that the only reason Mitt Romney won was because he was dishonest.  But if you recall the debate, Romney refuted Obama's claims not with one fact per claim, but often two or three.  He was prepared, e knew his stuff.  Obama claiming after the fact that Romney cheated seems quite desperate.  That's especially true in light of the fact that people know the debate they saw, and Obama lost, and the polling shows it.  

The president seems desperate, and that's certainly a sign of the walking dead.  If the president wants to turn things around, he has to win the next debate.  A well-placed ad that's weak on substance isn't going to do it.

Quick thoughts on tonight's VP debate

Just under an hour to go until Ryan versus Biden.  Here's what I expect.

Over/under on Biden gaffes: 1.  Why only one?  The Obama campaign is gun shy from getting stung by Romney on the opening debate.  You'd better believe they've coached the BFDs right out of Biden.  He knows he's not to wander off the script.  But this is Biden we are talking about here.  As much as he tries to stick to the script, under a Ryan counter-point there's a 50/50 chance he'll slip up and offer up some goofball gaffe.

Chance the mainstream media will declare a Biden victory: 45%.  They'll be looking for a reason for a Biden victory, any indication they can cling to, because they want to start the rebound meme. They're worried They can't do it if Biden reverts to form (see gaffes above). But they have an opening.  Biden doesn't need to be the conquering hero, they probably would prefer that Obama does that himself.

Chance Biden makes some outlandishly incorrect claim about Romney or Ryan: 95%.  Ryan, if prepared as much as Romney will be well equipped to refute it.

Chance Biden goes after Romney's flip-flopping: 99.9%.   

Chances the media fact checks every Ryan breath: 100%

Chances the media fact checks 10% of Biden's claims: 0.1%

Over/Under on Biden funny quips: 0.5 (about the same for Ryan)

Chance Ryan wins (excluding media spin): 99.999%

UPDATE:

Over/under on viewers - 23 million

Battle of the intellectual super powers

You heard it here first - the effort by the liberal mainstream media to pump up Mitt Romney's first debate victory is deliberate, and it's being done with the intent to aggrandize president Obama.  I know, you're reading that and thinking I'm about as bright a bulb as Joe Biden in this clip.

But hear me out. 

Mitt Romney foreign policy speech

October 8th, Mitt Romney speaking at VMI - Virginia Military Institute.

Obama shifts strategy, again

A bunch of ill-conceived and disjointed attacks on Romney from the Obama campaign (and liberal pundits invested in his re-election effort) over the course of the year, have proven that the Obama campaign doesn't have a consistent message for voters other than "please ignore the economy, foreign policy and everything else, and focus on the fact that Romney is a bad guy. 

The messages they've put forward are incongruous: Mitt Romney - flip-flopper.  Mitt Romney - right of Attila the Hun.  Mitt Romney - not a serious contender.  Mitt Romney - flip-flopper.  Mitt Romney - right of Attila the Hun.  Yeah, let's go with that one this week.

Important happenings

Coming into the home stretch of the 2012 election cycle, and hopefully the Obama presidency, I've suddenly  but not unexpectedly, gotten pretty busy with a tense work situation.  Consequently I've had far less time over the past week or so to blog about some pretty important events and situations than I'd really hoped to be able to discuss.  Nevertheless it's important to point out for the less informed among the American electorate, so I'm still striving to do my part.  That's true even though readers here are typically very well informed and the uninformed voters don't know this blog exists among the 150 million other blogs on the planet, a third of which I'm sure are probably odes to Justin Beiber.

Here are the recent critical events that I'm talking about, squeezed into one post.

Debate observations

There's so much to say about the debate last night and I don't have much free time today. Here are some high level thoughts:

Romney clearly won. Flash polls confirmed that the perception of voters watching was exactly that. Romney won by a wide margin - both the debate and the polling.

Romney won because he did what McCain would not do in 2008 - he went after Obama. He was not afraid to go on the offensive. He also backed up everything with facts and he didn't allow himself to be put on defense. He was dynamic. He had 4 minutes less than Obama of speaking time and yet liberal commentators complained he ran all over the moderator Jim Lehrer. He was just more engaging when he spoke.

Obama the media is spinning, looked like he didn't want to be there. Of course he didn't want to be there - he was getting his butt handed to him. Obama was not distracted - he was flustered, and frustrated and way out of his element on defense. Look for him to come out firing at Romney, guns blazing, at the next debate. He won't hold back. He can't afford a repeat of that first performance.

The post debate bounce for Romney may be blunted by polling sampling ratios but it will be undeniable. This will bring the race back to a dead heat over the next week. Which, means that Romney will in reality be ahead. Buut he won't stay there for long if his second debate performance is not close to his first in quality. He has set himself a high bar. The media will spin anything less as Romney reverting to form and Obama as doing the same.

Liberal pundits, who have elevated Obama to a mythical status seemed apoplectic last night. They can't believe their guy lost. They can't believe he isn't infallible. Today they will be recomposing themselves and readying for the next rouund.

Romney should, and will, be doing the same.