The Stupid Party Miscalculates Again

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting article up at National Review Online entitled Romney's Authenticity Problem. The article makes the point that the "Establishment Republicans" have been pushing Romney as the only one who can beat Obama. But now, they are having second thoughts:

The most persuasive case for Romney has always been that if he’s the nominee, the election will be a referendum on Obama. But that calculation always assumed that rank-and-file Republicans will vote for their nominee in huge numbers no matter what. That may well still be the case, but it feels less guaranteed every day.

We've been trying to tell you for some time. Unless you cough up a true blue, honest to goodness Conservative, a lot of your conservative base is going to sit out the election.  The reasons why should be obvious if you think about them.  We know we embarrass you.  Our insistence on our Second Amendment rights, our professed belief in God and his great gift of grace, Jesus Christ, our sense of being rugged individualists, all seem to strike you as distasteful.  We must seem like a bunch of rubes, hicks, and hayseeds crashing your masquerade ball.  But ever since 1972, the conservatives have had only one place to go.  So we have accepted your abuse, hoping that someday you would see us as a valuable partner in setting the agenda of this great nation.  Yet here we are again, with a liberal, possibly progressive, masquerading as a conservative.

Anthony Martin, the Conservative Examiner explains some of our problems with Mr. Romney in a piece entitled Reality Check: Why Romney is the Likely Nominee. Mr. Martin:

But first it is important to understand Romney from a purely traditional conservative point of view. He is no real conservative in the traditional sense but a Republican from the old eastern liberal establishment cabal in the tradition of Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, and Henry Kissinger. This is in stark contrast to Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and modern conservatives such as Jim DeMint.

After explaining that choosing such candidates has usually cost the Republicans the White House, he goes on to point out that:

Conservatives have warned essentially since the last Presidential election that if they choose another nominee from the liberal establishment, it will spell disaster in the general election. But so far, Republicans have not heeded the warning. They are poised yet again to make a major mistake by choosing a candidate in the Rockefeller tradition.

So, why would "The Establishment" do that? I have heard theories that, for instance, what they really want is the Senate. But, even if the House stays Republican, and the Senate goes Republican, the chances of making any significant policy changes are next to nil if the Presidency remains in the hands of Barack Obama. There will be no repeal of ObamaCare as long as Obama is in the White House. If it is not repealed soon, it will never be repealed, and the United States will continue its leftward slide into third world irrelevance. So, again, why?

A conversation led by Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business Network the other evening provides the answer. Cavuto had 3 guests on his show to talk about Obama's decline and Romney's rise. Someone mentioned, perhaps Cavuto himself, that as Wall Street has had the opportunity to evaluate Obama from an investment/economic perspective, the financiers have dropped him like a hot potato. They are putting their money on Romney, according to Cavuto, who has significant contact with the movers and shakers among the Wall Street fat cats.

Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying (and I am paraphrasing here) that conservative ideas work every time they are tried. He also says that leftist ideas have failed in every country they have been tried. Don't you think it is time we tried a winning formula for a change?