Mitt Romney as the Nominee: Conservatism Dies and Barack Obama Wins | RedState

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Mitt Romney as the Nominee: Conservatism Dies and Barack Obama Wins

Posted by Erick Erickson (Diary)

Tuesday, November 8th at 4:45AM EST

48 Comments

Mit Romney will not go on Special Report with Brett Baier to answer the tough questions as the other candidates have done. No worries. Conservatives will bitch and moan for a few days and Romney will claim it was a scheduling issue, he’d always meant to go on, and he will go on.

Should Mitt Romney win the Presidency, conservatives will find this pattern play out repeated. Romney will head in a direction conservatives do not like and they will bitch and moan repeatedly and maybe, just maybe, he’ll part his hair in their direction.

We’ve seen this play out over and over. Jon Huntsman comes up with the best economic plan of all the candidates, Herman Cain follows up with 999, Perry comes out with a flat tax, and Romney refuses to do anything. Until he does something.

Mitt Romney is not the George W. Bush of 2012 — he is the Harriet Miers of 2012, only conservative because a few conservative grand pooh-bahs tell us Mitt Romney is conservative and for no other reason.

That is precisely why Mitt Romney will not win in 2012. But no worry, once he loses, Republican establishment types will blame conservatives for not doing enough for Mitt Romney, never mind that Mitt Romney has never been able to sell himself to more than 25% of the GOP voters. It’s not his fault though, it is the 75%’s fault.

Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. And his general election campaign will be an utter disaster for conservatives as he takes the GOP down with him and burns up what it means to be a conservative in the process.

Why Romney Will Be The Nominee

Mitt Romney will be the nominee because the other candidates, right now, are a pretty pathetic lot.

The base will not forgive Rick Perry his immigration sins. In fact, that has hurt him far more than his debate performances, but his debate performances have hurt him badly. Perry, who came out principled and fiery with a record others could only envy, has left others with the impression that he’s a poor man’s version of the village idiot, which in the SEC we call “Aggies”. Maybe he can turn it around.

Newt Gingrich will not be the nominee because, despite his daughter’s rebuttals to the horror stories of how Gingrich divorced his first of three wives, Jackie Gingrich told theWashington Post on January 3, 1985, “He walked out in the spring of 1980 and I returned to Georgia. By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said Daddy is downstairs and could he come up? When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from the surgery.”

Gingrich went on to cheat on the second wife with the third. Regardless of the actual facts or even the spin, he won’t win women.

Herman Cain won’t be the nominee because he can’t win women either. Regardless of what you think of the Politico story, Cain’s handling of the story has been an epic disaster. He’s down at least 10 points with women in Iowa. He’s falling even further and doesn’t even realize it. He’s largely been emboldened by a conservative media that is so used to standing by its men that too few are telling Herman that he is now at the point where he must actually sit and answer questions whether he wants to or not and whether he feels maligned or not and whether I think he should have to or not. If he loses women by as big as he is starting to lose the women, he cannot win.

So Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Conservatives will not rally together with the least of the bad alternatives and Romney, like John McCain before him, will run up the middle to the nomination. But, just like McCain, Romney will not beat Barack Obama.

Why Mitt Romney Will Not Beat Barack Obama

You’d think that given the economy, jobs, and the present angst about the direction of the country that the GOP would have an easy path to victory. You would be wrong.

You forget the electoral college. The vote is coming down to a handful of states and Barack Obama still maintains the advantage of incumbency and not terribly terrible polling in those swing states.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a man devoid of any principles other than getting himself elected. As much as the American public does not like Barack Obama, they loath a man so fueled with ambition that he will say or do anything to get himself elected. Mitt Romney is that man.

I’ve been reading the 200 pages of single spaced opposition research from the John McCain campaign on Mitt Romney. There is no issue I can find on which Mitt Romney has not taken both sides. He is neither liberal nor conservative. He is simply unprincipled. The man has no core beliefs other than in himself. You want him to be tough? He’ll be tough. You want him to be sensitive? He’ll be sensitive. You want him to be for killing the unborn? He’ll go all in on abortion rights until he wants to run for an office where it is not in his advantage.

Along the way, he’ll drop lots of coin to grease the skids for himself. Mitt Romney is the silly putty of politicians — press on him real hard and he’ll take on whatever image you press into him until the next group starts pressing.

Republican billionaires have a fantastic track record of getting Republican opinion leaders to support them and an even better track record at losing elections. Mitt Romney will be no different.

To beat Barack Obama, a candidate must paint a bold contrast with the Democrats on their policies. When Mitt Romney tries, Barack Obama will be able to show that just the other day Mitt Romney held exactly the opposite position as the one he holds today.

Voters may not like Barack Obama, but by the time Obama is done with Romney they will not trust Mitt Romney. And voters would rather the guy they don’t like than they guy they don’t trust.

Why Conservatism Will Die

Conservatism is already dying. Republicans on Capitol Hill are about to raise taxes on the American people with this Super Committee, but they’ll say they are just “raising revenue,” not taxes. Conservatives will give them a pass as they have on virtually every other major issue. Conservatives keep giving passes to people who shouldn’t be given passes because conservative in Washington have been there so long, they’d much rather get invited to the cocktail parties and avoid awkward encounters.

Washington, D.C. conservatives will also rally around Mitt Romney, just as they kept doing over and over and over with George W. Bush even after steel tariffs in Pennsylvania, No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, the GM Bailout, and TARP. At some point the public will cease taking conservatives seriously when the most prominent conservatives — those in Washington who pose as the faces, voices, and writers of the conservative movement at large, keep throwing their lot in with a guy who keeps selling out the very principles conservatives claim to hold dear.

Some conservatives, of course, will not go all in for Romney. These conservatives will be blamed by major Republican and “conservative” mouth pieces for not doing enough to help Mitt Romney. They will be alienated, blamed, and made the scapegoat for the failures of the establishment GOP.

But there is something else too — Mitt Romney is winning the nomination without conservative help. The only time he pays conservatives any attention is when they cry loud enough that the media takes notice and Romney decides the story needs to go away. Once he is the nominee, it will be all about wooing the independents.

Hell, he can give the base Marco Rubio as the veep nominee, just like McCain did with Palin — a token for the base. But don’t delude yourself into thinking he will seriously take conservatives seriously. He got the nomination without them and he’ll only use them when it is opportunistically convenient for him.

Conservatism itself will not really die. But it might as well be dead as even conservatives in the heartland of the country stop taking Washington conservatives seriously.

The Contrast To Be Drawn

It is striking to me that in 2012 there is broad based popular angst against Wall Street and Washington and the Republican Party is on the verge of nominating a multi-millionaire scion of the Rockefeller Wing of the Republican Party whose closest encounters with the common man are accidentally touching one of the many hired hands in one of the many rooms of one of his many mansions. But then many of the DC-NYC Republican “conservatives” who support Romney are the same, only coming into contact with regular people when they are served their breakfast by a steward in the first class car on the Acela Express.

Neither Romney nor the Washington GOP crowd who loves him have very much at all in common with fly over country conservatives who see the GOP and Democrats both as out to lunch tools of K-Street and Wall Street. The party that could lead a conservative, populist campaign against Wall Street and Barack Obama, the former getting fat off the latter, will instead nominate a guy more at home on Wall Street than Main Street.

And enough conservatives will be cheerleaders and rally around him that by November of 2012 the ideological underpinnings of the modern American conservative movement will be coming apart.

I’m starting to think I need to walk it back on my rejection of Jon Huntsman. Because I’m starting to think even he would be more faithful in his conservative convictions than Mitt Romney.

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Can't Handle The Truth: Limbaugh Insults Caller For Being Right On Economy http://mediamatters.org/research/201111070019 Rush Limbaugh referred to a caller as a "tool" and a "mind-numbed robot" after the caller accurately stated facts about President Obama's jobs bill and the economic recovery. Limbaugh also drastically overstated the level of infrastructure spending in the original stimulus legislation. Limbaugh Falsely Claims Entire Stimulus Law Was Spent On Infrastructure Limbaugh: "We Spent $787 Billion In 2009 For Roads, Bridges" And "Schools. And Now We Need Another $60 Billion?" From the November 7 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: CALLER: I am just sick of the irrelevance of Washington, the obstruction going on of the jobs bill. Everybody needs jobs. We need our roads and our schools fixed. They're falling apart. And the Republicans only care about protecting their millionaire campaign donors from a half-percentage-point tax increase instead of helping their own constituents. It doesn't make any sense at all. Why can't they just put politics down and do what's right for once? LIMBAUGH: Well, because that's not how jobs are created. If it were, we wouldn't have unemployment. We spent $787 billion in 2009 for roads, bridges, whatever else you said there, schools. And now we need another 60 billion for it? You gotta wake up. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/7/11] In Fact, Only About One-Eighth Of The Original Stimulus Was Devoted To Infrastructure Spending. According to ProPublica, which broke down stimulus spending by category and agency shortly after the bill was signed into law, just over $98 billion was devoted to "Transportation and Infrastructure." [ProPublica.org, 2/13/09] Limbaugh Says Federal Spending "Is Not How Jobs Are Created" Limbaugh Says It's "Impossible" For Federal Spending To Create Jobs: "That's Not How Jobs Are Created." From the show: LIMBAUGH: Well, because that's not how jobs are created. If it were, we wouldn't have unemployment. We spent $787 billion in 2009 for roads, bridges, whatever else you said there, schools. And now we need another 60 billion? You gotta wake up. This is not how jobs are created. The Republicans are not standing in the way of the creation of jobs. Republicans are standing in the way of bloated government. They're standing in the way of more government growing, which takes away money from the private sector, which is where jobs are created. CALLER: Rush, if there were any bills that were in Congress -- say George Bush wrote a jobs bill, and it happened to increase taxes on millionaires a half-percentage point to create 450,000 jobs, would you support that bill? LIMBAUGH: No. Because there's no -- it's impossible. There's no federal spending that can create private-sector jobs. The only thing that can happen is public-sector union workers to be hired, DMV types and all that. People that work at the FDA. There is no way that government spending is going to increase hiring at any private-sector firms. It isn't possible. You cannot take money out of the private sector -- you just can't do -- and have people hired. It just doesn't work that way. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/7/11] Economists Say Jobs Act Would Be A "Significant Boost" To Employment Bloomberg: Economists Conclude Jobs Act Would "Help Avoid A Return To Recession." Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News concluded that the jobs plan "would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year." From Bloomberg: President Barack Obama's $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The legislation, submitted to Congress this month, would increase gross domestic product by 0.6 percent next year and add or keep 275,000 workers on payrolls, the median estimates in the survey of 34 economists showed. The program would also lower the jobless rate by 0.2 percentage point in 2012, economists said. [Bloomberg, 9/28/10] Zandi: American Jobs Act Would Add Nearly 2 Million Jobs. UPI reported:  President Barack Obama's $447 billion job-creation plan would likely add 1.9 million payroll jobs and grow the U.S. economy 2 percent, a leading economist said.  The plan, which Obama outlined before a joint session of Congress Thursday, would likely cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point, Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said as Obama prepared to tout the plan at Virginia's University of Richmond. [United Press International, 9/9/11]  Macroeconomic Advisers: American Jobs Act Would Be "A Significant Boost To GDP And Employment." From the blog of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC: We estimate that the American Jobs Act (AJA), if enacted, would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term. The various tax cuts aimed at raising workers' after-tax income and encouraging hiring and investing, combined with the spending increases aimed at maintaining state & local employment and funding infrastructure modernization, would: Boost the level of GDP by 1.3% by the end of 2012, and by 0.2% by the end of 2013. Raise nonfarm establishment employment by 1.3 million by the end of 2012 and 0.8 million by the end of 2013, relative to the baseline. The program works directly to raise employment through tax incentives and support to state & local governments for increasing hiring; it works indirectly through the positive boost to aggregate demand (and hence hiring) stimulated by the direct spending and the increase in household income resulting from lower employee payroll taxes and increased employment. [Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, 9/8/11] EPI: American Jobs Act Would "Increase Employment By About 4.3 Million Jobs." Economic Policy Institute research and policy director John Irons provided a "preliminary breakdown of the package and a first pass look at the job impact" of Obama's jobs plan: Overall the package would increase employment by about 4.3 million jobs over the next couple of years. The new initiatives would boost employment by about 2.6 million jobs, while the continuation of the two temporary provisions (EUI and the payroll tax holiday) would prevent a backslide of over 1.6 million jobs. There's still a big hole left to fill, but every step matters. Irons included the following graphic in his post: [Economic Policy Institute, 9/8/11] IHS Global Insight: American Jobs Act Could Grow GDP By 1.4 Percentage Points, Create 900,000 Jobs. From IHS Global Insight chief U.S. economist Nigel Gault's estimate of the American Jobs Act's impact: Adding the different elements of the programme would generate a 2012 (calendar-year) impact on GDP growth--compared to our baseline--of about 0.8 percentage point. Passing none of the programme would cut about 0.6 percentage point off our projected growth rate. Thus, the overall swing in growth between not passing any of it and passing the whole thing would be about 1.4 percentage points. The corresponding swing for employment (also calendar-year average) would be around 900,000 (from down 400,000 to up 500,000). We will watch the debate over the proposals carefully, to see what parts of it the Republicans might go along with. Our expectation at this point is that not much beyond the extension of the existing payroll tax cut and the extension of emergency unemployment insurance benefits will be passed. For now, we have no plans to adjust our 2012 forecast based on the president's proposal. [IHS Global Insight, 9/12/11] Ameriprise Financial Services Senior Economist: Obama Jobs Plan Could Add Up To 1.2 Million Jobs. CNNMoney reported: Economists gave generally positive reviews to President Obama's jobs plan Friday, with some estimating that at least 1 million jobs could be added in the next year if Congress passes the package. The payroll tax holiday for workers and small businesses was cited specifically for having a relatively good "bang for the buck." And that part of the plan may have the most bipartisan support. "This additional spending capacity in the hands of consumers should continue to foster improvements in aggregate domestic demand. And ultimately, it is demand and demand alone that will lead to more business hiring," said Russell Price, senior economist for Ameriprise Financial Services. Price estimates the increased payroll tax holiday for workers by itself is likely to add between 750,000 to 1 million jobs, and that the new break on payroll taxes for employers could add an additional 100,000 to 200,000 jobs. He added that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, could get a 1.5 percentage point boost as well. [CNNMoney.com, 9/9/11] Nuveen Asset Management Chief Economist: American Jobs Act Could Add A Million Jobs. CNNMoney further reported: Economists say one big problem with assessing the program is figuring out its chance of passage in the face of Republican criticism. Keith Hembre, chief economist for Nuveen Asset Management, said he thinks the package could lift GDP by 1.5 percentage points and add 1 million jobs, but doubts Congress will approve Obama's proposal. "It seems much more like a wish list than anything that is likely become law," he said. [CNNMoney.com, 9/9/11] Limbaugh Tells Caller He Should Be "Embarrassed" After Accurately Describing Public- And Private-Sector Job Growth Since July 2009, When Stimulus Began To Take Effect, Private-Sector Jobs Have Grown By Over 1.5 Million While Public Sector Jobs Have Fallen By Over 500,000. From PoliticalCorrection.org, a project of Media Matters Action Network: [Click to enlarge] [PoliticalCorrection.org, Media Matters Action Network, 11/4/11] Presented With This Fact, Limbaugh Tells Caller "You're Just Flat-Out Wrong." From the show: CALLER: Well, actually, the last few jobs reports, Rush, the private sector has created jobs in line with what's expected in an economic recovery. The real jobs losses have been in the public sector because of crushing budget cuts. LIMBAUGH: You know -- CALLER: And all this bill is trying to do is to relieve some of that. LIMBAUGH: If I were you, I would be embarrassed. You are such a tool. You are a mind-numbed robot programmed to spew a bunch of absolute garbage. Illogical garbage. You're just flat-out wrong -- embarrassingly so. Reading from a script. Incapable of critical thinking on your own. You're a sponge. And you're soaking up stuff from the wrong side. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/7/11] Contact: The Rush Limbaugh Show 1-800-282-2882 rush@eibnet.com fax: 212-563-9166 The Rush Limbaugh Show 1270 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Contact: Rush Limbaugh ElRushbo@eibnet.com http://twitter.com/Limbaugh Contact: Premiere Radio Networks Premiere Radio Networks Premiere Radio Networks, Inc. 15260 Ventura Blvd. 5th Floor Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 Main: (818)377-5300 Fax: (818)377-5333 Toll Free: (800)533-8686

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Michael Jackson's Doctor Guilty - Yahoo!

Michael Jackson's Doctor Guilty - Yahoo!:

Michael Jackson's Doctor Guilty

By JIM AVILA and CHRISTINA NG | Good Morning America – 4 minutes 56 seconds ago

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Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

The prosecution triumphed after six weeks of impassioned arguments and witness testimonies.

Murray did not flinch and showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

The Jackson family arrived at the courthouse an hour before the reading of the verdict, led by parents Joe and Katherine Jackson. Randy, LaToya, Rebbie, Jermaine and Jermaine's wife were all in court. Family friends Rick and Kathy Hilton were also in attendance.

Today was the second day of deliberations. The jury deliberated for about six hours on Friday and for less than three hours today before reaching a decision.

If convicted, Murray could be sentenced to as much as four years in prison and lose his medical license.

Murray was accused of causing the singer's death by administering the powerful anesthetic propofol and not properly supervising his patients or taking proper steps after Jackson stopped breathing.

Murray has contended that Jackson gave himself the fatal dose while the doctor was out of the room.

The six week long trial offered a window into Jackson's bizarre and eccentric lifestyle, peeks rarely allowed during the highly-private pop star's life.

The trial began with a shocking photo of Jackson's dead body in a hospital gurney and a photo of his naked body from his autopsy.

It featured a slurred audio recording of Jackson made on Murray's phone in which Jackson is so drugged that he can barely be understood.

The case revolved around Jackson's inability to sleep without the powerful anesthetic propofol, a hospital grade drug, and a battery of other drugs as he was preparing for his "This Is It" concert tour.

Prosecutors contended that Murray was willing to give Jackson propofol, which Jackson affectionately referred to as "milk," in return for a $150,000 a month paycheck. Murray told police that for two months leading up to Jackson's death, he had aministered propofol to Jackson in his bedroom almost nightly.

Murray argued that he was trying wean the king of pop off of the drug.

Jackson's chronic inability to sleep was one of many odd details of his life to emerge from the trial, along with such mundane things like his food preferences to strange medical decisions.

Jackson's chef, Kai Chase, told the court that the notoriously thin star had penchants for beet juice and almond milk. He insisted on healthy food for himself and his three children and wanted lunch served at 12:30 p.m. every day.

Through evidence and testimonies, it was also revealed that Jackson received injections of Botox in his armpits and groin and wore a urninary catheter while sleeping.

Jurors listened to 49 witnesses over 22 days of testimony. Murray did not testify. Back in the jury room, jurors had more than 300 exhibits to look over.

The singer's famous family made regular appearances in court and sat in the gallery, including parents Joe and Katherine Jackson and siblings Janet, Randy, LaToya, Jermaine and Rebbie. LaToya Jackson hugged prosecutor David Walgren in the hallway after his powerful closing arguments.