Why I won't vote for Romney
Because I want to defeat Obama.
The Romney argument from day one has been 'you have to vote for Romney because he's the only one that can beat Obama'. I won't vote for Romney precisely because I know he will lose to Obama. A few examples as to why he'll lose:
Romney's positive approval rating has been 20 points below even McCain and Dole's who both ended up losing. It will probably start to rise with the end of the primary, however this is before the Obama Nasties open fire with both barrels, and Romney is a very target rich environment.
McCain lost to Obama by five million votes. The retort is 'yes but the luster is off Obama this time', true, but the luster has never been and never will be on Romney. The apathy on the right is every bit as apathetic as the apathy on the left. However in addition to apathy there is almost a disdain on the right for Romney and the GOP. Romney will lose three types of voters. 1. Unmotivated voters who won't bother to turn off 'Dancing with the Stars' to go vote. 2. Voters like myself that know Romney is a liberal and are disgusted with the dishonest corrupt campaign he and the GOP have run. 3. Voters that hate Romney so much that as soon as the word 'Romney' leaves your mouth the conversation is over. So from where is Romney going to get his votes?
Romney is so stiff that it makes it almost too painful to watch. Part of his historically low 30 percent approval rating is simply that he is not a likeable candidate. It just seems as if he doesn't quite know how to relate to humans. The following video (cookiegate) of Romney talking to supporters is a perfect illustration of Romney's legendary awkwardness. If this were an isolated event it could be overlooked, but it's more the rule than the exception. http://thehill.com/video/campaign/222467-romneys-cookie-joke-prompts-cookie-gate-attack
Both Romney and Obama are desperate to avoid their records, causing them to run a vapid, mud slinging campaign with both candidates trying to bring the other down, rather than building himself up. Perhaps this is why we spent the last few weeks arguing about the value of stay-at-home-moms, roof carriers for dogs and yes dog meat. However this kind of campaign will not help Romney, on the contrary, this type of campaign is tailor-made for the democrats. Democrat voters are the quintessential mind-dead-voter. All David Axelrod has to say is: are you really going to fire the first black president? (Chris Matthews is already promoting this) and 'hope and change', or the 2012 equivalent.
If Obama wins the world will end
If Obama wins the earth will fly off it's axis, spin out of control and explode. In addition to the dishonest and corrupt campaign, the GOP has been forcing Romney down our throats since the primary began. As Americans we are genetically predispositioned to raise our middle finger whenever someone tells us we HAVE TO do something. The main argument for Romney is that we can't afford another four more years of Obama. The question is never raised, can we afford eight years of a liberal republican? I would argue, muddling through four more years of Obama is preferable to eight years of a directionless liberal Romney. Does anyone anywhere really think Mitt is going to bring a backbone to the table. On the budget battles Boehner and McConnell have caved every single time to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham even pleaded with the republican leadership, 'don't shut down the government or we'll get blamed'. Coulter might have an adam's apple but she has no cojones. Is Romney really going to stand up to Ann Coulter?
If Obama wins, the next two Supreme Court justices will alter the makeup of the court. Nonsense. Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts aren't going anywhere. Kennedy probably isn't either. If he does, his replacement still has to be confirmed by the Senate. You simply don't confirm anyone less conservative than Kennedy, next problem.
We need someone with a spine. The only republicans in the last thirty years with guts were Reagan and Gingrich. Both shut down the government several times and Newt even forced Clinton to say “the era of big government is over”. Will Romney ever shut down the government, will he ever stand up to the liberals when they cry about draconian cuts? He's not going to fight the liberals because in truth he is a liberal and we all know that the democrats will keep spending until we become Greece. Just like the liberals in Greece kept spending until it became so bad people started committing suicide. We are on the exact same path and a liberal republican is barely going to slow us down on our inevitable run off the cliff.
Going on offense.
I started to write a section about forcing a brokered convention, but the more I wrote the more I realized, any candidate coming out of the GOP convention this year will still have to be GOP approved. In other words we'd still end up with a total bucket of mush, like Jeb Bush or Mitch Daniels, better, but not good enough for the mess we're in today.
Don't get me wrong I still think we need to flip off the GOP every chance we get. Such as:
Voting for Ron Paul in the remaining primaries as a protest vote.
Changing party affiliation to independent and telling the GOP why you're switching.
Stop sending money to RNC.
Throw your remote at the T.V. whenever Karl Rove shows up.
No, this time I think we need to go big. We need to enlist a true conservative as our third party nominee. We don't need a third party, at least not at this point. We just need a true conservative to represent us as a third party candidate in the presidential election. We'd still vote for the best republican in each race for congress. Many say this is a suicide mission, but I disagree. Rather I would argue that voting for Romney in this environment is the true suicide mission. Yes I've heard the argument over and over that Ross Perot is the reason we ended up with Bill Clinton, but had Ross Perot been a better candidate he could have actually won. He was shooting up like a rocket until he pulled out of the race, only to come back later and he still got 20 percent of the vote. Ross Perot was not a good candidate but we have time to find a truly great conservative candidate to represent us.
Not only was Ross Perot a poor candidate but H.W. Bush was not a horrible candidate either. But this time Romney is a horrible candidate. Also Clinton does not even come close to Barak Obama on the socialist meter, so things are very different this time. Can you imagine a true conservative debating these two liberal Bozos, with their socialist medicine legislation hanging around their necks?
As for the question, can a third party candidate really win? I'd point to Murkowski in Alaska who beat her republican rival with a write-in campaign and she wasn't even on the ballot. Granted our candidate will be underfunded but so were Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum and they still won states where they were outspent 10 to 1. On the other hand our third party candidate will start with a huge base of disenfranchised conservative voters in which to build on. The contrast between the conservative and the two liberals will suck voters from Romney until he's no longer viable. This happened recently in the Colorado Governor's race where the conservative independent destroyed the republican candidate making him into a non factor. Once Romney is made a non factor voters will turn to replacing the worst president in U.S. history.
In summary
If we don't stand up to the GOP this election we'll be be facing another thirty years of Doles and McCains and Romneys. We won't last thirty years with more Doles and McCains and Romneys. If Obama wins we muddle through for another four, but have another shot in four years for a true conservative. If Romney wins, the dramatic 'change of course' needed to save this country will not occur for at least the next eight years.
Comments
Nothing you said in your post Johnny,et.al changes the fact that splitting the GOP votes/voters now is NOT a good idea. Romeny is not Obama. He's not my first or second choice but it is what it is and by all accounts he will have the nomination. I am no more concerned with Rommey/Obama debates then I would have been with ANY other of the potential candidates save Gingrich. In my view he was the ONLY one that I would have felt comfortable with against Obama's debating style. You can dissect any and all of the potentials and find fault. None of them are an ideal probably because most of us as individuals have a different a different ideal. You are certainly welcome to your resistance to Romney. As for myself. at the very least he could slow down the steamroller that is mashing this country and get us some time.
Valerie, et.al. Romney does NOT have this GOP nomination wrapped up. Romney is problematic for the core of the GOP, and as it appears he should be disqualified for RNC breaking Rule 11 and joining forces and showing presumptive favoritism, now is the time for the conservative Reagan core of the GOP, i.e., Tea Party, to stand up and be counted, and push back the liberals trying to take over the GOP. Obama will make toast out of him in debqates, for, as Obama made a statement of his personal opinion regarding same sex marriage, Obama can look Romney and the debate cameras in the eye, and point out that while he did express his opinion in words, Mitt Romney expressed his opinion as Governor of Massachusetts in both word and deed when he singlehandedly legalized same sex marriage by Executive Order, ignoring the legislative and judicial branches as well as the voters, and never ran for re-election in Massachusetts to have to answer for it. In addition, Romney strengthened abortion rights via Romneycare, along with dealing financial blows to Massachusetts, and there is no way Romney comes out ahead versus Obama in that debate either. Romney criticized efforts being made to go get Osama Bin Laden, revealing poor judgment in going after America's enemies that masterminded and directed killings of nearly 3,000 on 9/11 and thousands since.
No, Mitt is not a good idea, and No, we do not need Romney to "buy time" to regroup and turn things around when we have it in our power this very moment to stop him and set our party on a better track to success. 4 years of Mitt Romney is 4 more years for LIBERALS to regroup, and chances are good that Democrats would capitalize on the failed policies and we would then have at least another 4 years of Liberal policies. Until we GOP conservatives understand and are willing to stand for the principles of governing and economics that we say we believe in, we are never going to effect change. What if our Founding Fathers had grown weary in the fight, and had told General George Washington that it was time to unite with the powerful British loyalists ? We remeber them because they stood for their principles until they parted with their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.
Who are we today, but all too often a bunch of wimps. We stand for Tea Party principles, repealing Obamacare and Romneycare, its grandfather, and then turn around after awhile(as Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain did) and start pandering and endorsing those whom espouse those liberal,socialist, big government, tax and spend principles under the false notion that we must give up principle for the good of our party. HOGWASH !! How about the liberal minority elite establishment giving up THEIR principles for the good of the party because WE THE PEOPLE of the GOP stood up to them and demanded a common sense conservative platform and a Tea Party candidate for real change. Come On, folks. The LEFT has already split the GOP ticket, that is the LEFT from within the GOP that needs to shape up or ship out !! Asking us to ACCEPT things the way they want them to be when truth is that we do not have to, but have every expectation to DISQUALIFY Romney due to rule violations and collusion, demand Rince Preibus and others step down, and then take back our party. It belongs to the Majority of US, NOT the Minority of THEM.
I think Ron Paul is very sucessful in what he actually wants to do but I am not sure that is sit in the White House as president. He is paving a wonderful path for Rand, his son. I think the hit pieces on Romney are just that. ... hit pieces. I think the Left would like nothing better then to split the GOP ticket. Makes things easier for them. I hope they do NOT suceed in doing that. We need the time that a Romney presidency could provide to start regrouping and putting this country back on track.
You are RIGHT ON. At the moment, I can think of only one whom has the potential financial backing to pull this off, and that is Newt, with the blessing of the Adelson's, and the millions of disenfranchised conservatives. Ron Paul could be, and should be involved, as he has an energized base, but many conservatives are still having trouble accepting him since he was brought in from Libertarian Party. His platform as presented on his websites, however, is overall excellent. Romney made overtures early in campaign to say that he would guarantee Paul a place at convention, and would consider Ron's son, Rand Paul, for VP, but there have been many wounding experiences inflicted upon Paul and his supporters throughout this campaign, and I dont think we have a loving relationship going on at the moment. Your points are all well taken.