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Being an unreliable conservative is not an accusation Romney should be making about others.

Being an unreliable conservative is not an accusation Romney should be making about others.

Mitt Romney was on Fox News Sunday this morning, and his interview went well overall.

But Romney is doubling down on his claims that Newt is an unreliable conservative because of Newt’s comments last spring about the Ryan Plan and “right wing social engineering,” and his couch video with Nancy Pelosi.

As I have pointed out before, Romney did not back Ryan at the time and said he would bring forward his own plan.  It turns out that Newt was right that the Ryan Plan as originally conceived was a plan too far, and even Ryan has walked back from it.

Romney this morning said that Newt was unreliable because he tried to cut the legs out from under the Ryan Plan at a critical juncture.

Talk about cutting the legs out from a conservative agenda at a critical time, what Newt did last spring was nothing compared to what Romney did in 1994 when he ran against the Contract with America and ran away from Reagan during his race for Senate.

It is what euphemistically is called Romney’s 1994 Problem.

Romney tried to undercut the greatest conservative achievement in a generation for his own political gain.

Being an unreliable conservative is not an accusation Romney should be making about others.

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Comments

Make this one a stick-y and leave it on top for a while! 😀

    gabilange in reply to janitor. | December 18, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    Definitely a sticky. Bob Dole endorsed Mitt. So did the Des Moines Libby Register. It’s hard for me to relate to these latter two endorsements.

      Estragon in reply to gabilange. | December 19, 2011 at 12:11 am

      It’s hard for me to reconcile someone as a conservative who consistently disparages Bob Dole, a wounded war hero who was the man Gerry Ford turned to to mend fences with conservatives after beating Reagan for the nomination in 1976. He was also the most conservative serious candidate in the field in 1980 and 1988, and had better social conservative credentials than either Gramm or Forbes in 1996. (It should be noted that Pat Buchanan was no longer a rational conservative).

      Serious people are supposed to understand that the congressional leadership isn’t about ideology, it’s about party unity, and all Speakers and Majority and Minority Leaders understand this. I hear people say Jim DeMint should be Majority Leader, and immediately understand they don’t have a clue what they are talking about.

I agree.
It is astonishing that we have reached the point where we simply do not believe what some, or many, candidates say during their campaigns. This is highlighted by Obama’s recent advertising that he ended the war just as he said he would do. Even if true, it is sad that a president keeping a promise would be newsworthy.
I have not heard or read a single argument that includes any fact to support a reasonable belief that Romney will feel obligated to keep any promise that he makes during his campaigning.

Spirit Crusher | December 18, 2011 at 1:53 pm

I’m not a Newt Gingrich primary supporter, although I will have no trouble vigorously supporting him if he is the nominee, but I strongly support the push back you’re doing against the deluge of anti-Gingrich stories and commentary. You’ve made it clear from day one that the integrity of conservative punditry and journalism requires that criticism/analysis be meted out evenly. However, the attacks on Gingrich’s motives, character, policies and past are so unrelenting and vicious that only the most partisan republican hacks could be unable to see what’s going on.

I’ve been cheered to see people such as yourself, Andy McCarthy and Mark Levin attempt to put the breaks on these types of campaign assaults. I don’t believe Romney has any integrity and will go viciously negative on any opponent that stands in his way to the nomination. Thanks for providing a little oasis of sanity on the web.

Thanks, Professor. We need that plastered all over. You know he’s used to lying when he has the audacity to accuse Newt of not being a reliable Conservative. One thing we know for sure, Romney’s a reliable liar.

“I don’t like winners and losers in Washington” ??? No wonder the Left wants to see this RINO as the “R” nominee.

    janitor in reply to Kitty. | December 18, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    Everyone and every idea equally deserving. Similar to Obama on foreign affairs and individual enterprise. The faux maturity, the fake high road “above-the fray”. Except, of course, when it’s personal to them. (Never mind the irony that the only one calling for and substantially maintaining a positive team-approach in his campaign is Gingrich.)

Putting the question of reliability aside, (and slightly OT), one of the big differences between Mitt and Newt (surey not their first names) is style, much to Newt’s advantage, I believe, in a match up against Obama.

Mitt is smooth and polished. He looks well-rehearsed. That’s good. But merely good.

But Newt becomes almost poetic in his articulation in debates, and his seemingly off-the-cuff, yet beautifully crafted answers are often inspiring compared to Romney’s merely nicely competent answers.

In a debate with Obama, who will not be able to run on his record, and for whom class warfare is failing to gain the expected traction, Obama will likely have to go with his supposed eloquence and magic as the greatest orator ever to be president.

Next to Newt, that fairy tale will shatter once and for all. With no teleprompter … and Newt giving lessons in history and oratory with a grasp of the English language Obama couldn’t pull off with a telepromptered cable feed straight into his brain, all the king’s media men won’t be able to put Hope and Change Obama back together again.

When things go live, in real time, that’s when Toto pulls back the curtain on the Wizard … revealing him to be an average human being. Very average. Totally overrated. Standing next to someone who really is a gifted orator.

It would be shocking.

Romney has been. in some cases, admirably consistent. He has, for example, never backed away from RomneyCare or doubted Global Warming.

I liked the Ryan plan, from what I heard of it.
One thing in particular was that, in general it was the Federal Employees plan applied across the board.

I’d like to latch on to the URL of the download of the ‘original’ Ryan plan, the ‘new revised’ Ryan plan, And any Romney, Gingrich, or ‘other’ GOP contender, present, future, or past.

If we picture the situation we have today as a 2011 Gordian Knot, we need a very Gordian Knot solution. By that I mean a solution substantially beyond untangling the surface layer. Congress in July seemed to be mostly ‘working around the margins’.

You’re a must read, professor!

I’m no fan of Romney, but I think Romney is being smart about this. Everybody already knows Romney isn’t a consistent conservative Romney’s supporters are liberal/moderates, so it won’t hurt him if it boomerangs back that Romney isn’t a conservative.

On the other hand, Gingrich is perceived as a true conservative, and if conservatives begin to doubt Gingrich’s conservatism, that will hurt him a great deal.

    This is a great commentary on where we are in America. Taken a step further, if Romney calls others liars it is OK because we all know he is a liar in any event.

      Astroman in reply to Rick. | December 18, 2011 at 10:24 pm

      The really sad part is that Republicans & conservatives consider someone who was pro-healthcare mandate, pro-amnesty, and cashed in with Freddie Mac to be a conservative.

      Sad times indeed.

Indeed, most everyone knows Romney is no conservative. The problem is that Romney insists that he is, and that absolutely does hurt him. This is why he cannot break above the 20-25% of the GOP that is moderate no matter how many years he runs and how much money he spends. He’s topped out.

“Movement conservatives” don’t get the Republican nomination because there aren’t enough of us to elect a President. Besides Reagan, who was accepted by the moderate-conservatives because of his strong support for Ford after losing in 1976, sort of the “next in line” position, who won the nomination as a movement conservative since Goldwater?

As Nixon observed, “You can’t win the {GOP} nomination without the conservatives, but you can’t win the election with only the conservatives.”

Fully 20% of the electorate makes up their minds in the last 30 days before an election. These people don’t have strong ideological beliefs, but shy away from anyone they regard as too far one way or another. Obama was sold as a “post-partisan” playa, not the most liberal Senator, or he wouldn’t have won.

The point is moot, because neither Gingrich nor Romney is a movement conservative. Both have strayed on a number of issues – and we are foolish to worry so much about health care, where there is already a national consensus for repeal, instead of their dalliances with cap and trade and carbon emissions regulations.