Newt Torches Romney: It's Not Good Enough To Nominate "Obama-Lite"

Pungent.

It isn’t good enough for the Republican party to nominate Obama-lite. Now, let me tell you what the difference is. If you’re a genuine conservative, first of all you don’t say that you don’t care about the poor. If you’re a genuine conservative, you believe that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And we think it is the left which has abandoned and betrayed the poor because its safety net is actually a spiderweb and it traps people in dependency.
My goal – the exact opposite of Governor Romney. My goal is not to ignore or forget the poor. My goal is to turn the safety net into a trampoline to allow the poor to rise and be like the rest of us and have a job and buy a house.

He goes on to call Obama Big Food Stamp (racist) and Romney Little Food Stamp (not racist).

Video at the link.

By the way, earlier in the week I wondered why Romney didn't seem to even get what was bubbling on the Conservative stove -- why not make a major speech about Fast and Furious?

Neo-Neocon corrects me, noting he has spoken about it.

Yes, but. Yes, he said something about that.

But.

What I'm talking about is this: Conservatives have the sense that Romney isn't one of them. That he intentionally, consciously distances himself from them.

To some extent that can be excused as a general election tactic. To some extent. But even to that extent, it's worrisome for conservatives.

What I am suggesting is that Romney could at least pick a few issues in which conservatives are palpably correct -- is anyone arguing that arming up Mexican drug cartels is a good thing? -- and really channel the conservative sense of anger over these issues.

I'm not suggesting he do it with all issues. It's not in him.

I'm suggesting that in a few areas where he feels he's on the sturdiest ground, where conservative opinion is right and generally acknowledged as such by even the moderates whose votes he hopes to garner -- Fast and Furious, debt, wasted stimulus, economic mismanagement, Obama's attack on religious freedom, Obama's attack on economic freedom -- that he deliver a major speech not "for the moderates" but, for once, the conservatives.

Romney cannot forever worry about the mush-minded moderates in the middle. In case he hasn't noticed, 40% of the country identifies as conservative. And 90% of those in the Republican Primary.

I know he can't rouse himself to be a passionate, fire-breathing conservative on every issue.

How about 1-3 of them?

Is freedom not worth arguing for? Or would that, in his estimation, be impolitic?

What I don't understand is this: If the central justification for his election is "competency," can he at least get passionate when talking about competency?

Is Fast and Furious not Incompetency with a Bodycount? (If not more.)

He can't even gin up some ire about 300 murders?

If he doesn't believe that Obama is incompetent himself -- if he doesn't believe that enough to make a stink about it -- then 1, why should anyone choose Romney over Obama, whom Romney implicitly blesses as borderline competent, and 2, what does that say about Romney's own instincts about competency?

posted by Ace at 04:43 PM

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