Romney’s Conservative Conversion

Doug Wrenn

Many a casual observer and pundit alike were shocked that libertarian-leaning Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas won first place as the presidential candidate of choice at this year’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference). Actually, I’m still scratching my head as to why former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney came in second.

Actually, good old “RINO Romney,” the quintessential northeast “Republican,” won first place in the past few CPAC straw polls, since his alleged conservative Epiphany. But alas, just like another crafty creature of the wild, the leopard, the “RINO” is also not so fast to change its spots.

For the record, I attended CPAC in 2001 and 2003. I don’t recall seeing Mitt Romney there. (Nor George W. Bush for that matter, but that’s a subject for another day, perhaps.) I don’t even recall hearing of a Mitt sighting at CPAC before, or much after those years, up until roughly a year or so before the 2008 presidential campaign.

It was just around or shortly before that time as well that Mitt violated the cardinal rule of all northeast “Republi-crats”: he announced his sudden change of beliefs, now in favor of the pro-life agenda, an unforgivable taboo among liberals of both parties.

Now, post-Romney, Massachusetts could still easily be called its most infamous moniker: “Tax-achussetts.” Trying to obtain a permit to exercise your God-given Second Amendment rights for protection of self, loved ones and property has certainly gotten no easier there, and no matter what kind of pseudo-conservative spin his tepidly conservative lemming cheerleaders affix to it, Romney is still the Daddy of Socialized Healthcare in Massachusetts, and now well with its share of warts.

As former State Department official, UN Ambassador and Presidential candidate, Alan Keyes, has previously pointed out, gay marriage in Massachusetts can also now be attributed to Romney’s so-called conservative leadership. In 2003, The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional and ordered the state legislature (constitutionally known as “The General Court”) to update the law accordingly within 180 days. In response, the legislature played possum. Then an obviously bored and meddling Governor Romney, who apparently mistook his professional title as “Representative” or “Senator” Romney, began ordering municipal clerks across the commonwealth to begin issuing gay marriage licenses. To paraphrase the old adage referring to minds and the devil, apparently, an idle legislature, at least in The Socialist People’s Republic of Massachusetts, is the Governor’s workshop.

Yet despite all this right-wing flavored, sugar coated liberalism, Romney promotes himself as serious conservative contender, and just like the awe-inspired CPAC attendees, in the waning days of the 2008 GOP primary, many a conservative pundit, like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, were fawning all over Romney as if it were Election Eve and he was the newly arrived ghost of Reagan-Past, even amid allegations that this uptight, haughty, elitist, phony, Ken-doll look-alike, so-called conservative convert had illegal immigrants tending to his yard.

Speaking of Reagan, he was an early CPAC attendee, and in the mid-seventies, gave a famous speech defining what conservatism should look like, not an ideology of pastel colors (referring to the liberal, country club, “Big Tent” faction), but one of bold colors, unafraid and unabashedly and confidently proud to make its true core principles both known and understood. Yet in an early 2008 GOP presidential debate, when posed with the question of what do when notified of a possible pending missile attack upon the US, the clearly unequipped wannabe leader of the free world said he would consult his legal experts for an opinion, to which Ron Paul, citing common sense and the US Constitution, verbally slapped a blushing, blustering and bumbling Romney silly and rightfully then brought the house down with raucous applause. “Bold colors”? Memo to Mitt: the US of A is not your comfortable Havana North on the Charles, and exigent foreign policy when millions of lives are at risk requires quick and decisive leadership with little to no regard for the niceties and procedural harrumphs of legal discourse afterward. That means a true leader, not a litigator, or a “Mitt-igater.” Are we really sure you’re ready for that pay upgrade in the center spotlight on the very ominous and ever threatening world stage just yet there, Mittster?

Then Romney endorsed John McCain.

No, I don’t just mean his apparent back-room mutual back-scratch deal, made in the presidential election year of 2008, as the USS Romney started taking on water and the Rat-In Chief, posing as a cowardly Captain, was preparing to abandon ship and jump off first. I am referring to McCain’s current GOP primary race to hold on to his tenuous US Senate seat in Arizona, now challenged by the uber-conservative, former Congressman, J.D. Hayworth. Barring the possibility of a mutual back-scratch and seductive pillow-talk promise made in the darkness of a smoke-filled back room in 08, why, oh, why would our new found conservative best friend be so zealously jumping into bed with cantankerous, left-leaning McCain, when Romney has a true, red meat conservative to back in the race. For that matter, why is this Bay-Stater and recent CPAC sycophant even meddling in an Arizona election at all? Has the Arizona state legislature ignored some recent decision of the state’s Supreme Court that none of us are privy to?

Yes, I know, former Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin has also recently jumped aboard the Good-Ship Liberal Lollipop of the crusty old President-wannabe who couldn’t and still can’t figure out why. Obviously, that was a loyalty move, albeit highly questionable, given all the reputation smearing and overall grief Palin has received from the McCain camp since their electoral loss, a virtual tsunami of negative inside skinny that almost pales in comparison to the tabloid quality cess dredged up by the now gleeful and giddy soulless Democrats. (But that’s OK, they need a laugh to cheer them up these days.) Some are already predicting that the new GOP rising star may take a hit for her endorsement from the conservative base. However, given the power of forgiveness, the healing of time for all wounds, and the average short memory span of the typical voter, Palin’s taking of third place in the CPAC straw poll just might actually be more the true litmus test than the canary in the mine.

Then again, despite my love, support, respect and admiration for former US Senator, Rick Santorum, I shed no tears for the Keystone State conservative gone awry when he lost his last re-election bid, given that he previously endorsed his liberal Senate (chameleon) colleague, “Snarlin’” Arlen Specter, back in ‘04. Our then “compassionate conservative” President followed suit and pretty much sealed the deal when Specter barely beat his primary rival, a true, dye-in-the-wool conservative, former Congressman Pat Toomey. Ironically, Toomey, now a Senate candidate, seems to almost have Specter, now an officially registered Democrat (once again) on the ropes in that state’s current US Senate race. Cozying up to our new, trendy Neo-Marxist Messiah President may be about as helpful to the not-so-artfully-party-dodging Specter as lighting a match in a dark room to see if the cap is on the open gas can. The conservative wing’s latest alleged crony from Massachusetts might want to take some notes here, if George Santayana was right about the past, and Santorum’s misplaced loyalty is in fact a canary in a mine to learn from, lest Romney be (politically) doomed to repeat it.

In politics, loyalty, like geography, can sometimes be a hindrance, especially when used to stomp on principle. Romney also backed newly elected Republican US Senator Scott Brown, from the old sod (and then took ultra-credit for it in a recent edition of his PAC newsletter), but contrary to the misinterpretations of many, Brown is hardly a conservative and has already passively denounced his party and labeled himself an independent with much the same tone that John “McNut” and his remaining two or three fourth estate fans (A fleeting following, indeed!) calls himself a “maverick.” Again, while Romney certainly should not have backed the Democrat in the race for the allegedly famed and coveted coronated-Kennedy-dynasty seat, he did not have to back anybody, either. Whatever “Mitt-igating” circumstances Romney might have had with Brown (like he possibly had with McCain), he might want to take a lesson from the Swiss in World War II. Like ignorance, sometimes, neutrality is bliss.

Romney’s expertise is primarily business and fiscal matters, yet his conservatism-light arguably brought more band-aids to his beloved Bay State than bullion. Given our current and rapidly ongoing national financial demise, thanks to a clueless, lemming electorate that just had to be first in line to vote for a first black President, no matter how dangerous his statist agenda was, and no matter that he was as equally unqualified for the position as Sarah Palin was at that time, the love affair is now over, cold, harsh reality has not only slapped us in the face, but also kicked us in the backside, where our once full wallets occupied our pockets, and why we voted for this inept and woefully naïve Socialist is now about as unknown as his status of citizenship and location of his birth certificate. But we don’t care.

I look to an on-going GOP US Senate primary race in my home state of Connecticut, which could be aptly dubbed: “Dancing With The RINOS’. Nevertheless, all the attention in this three-way primary seems focused on a semi-career, left-leaning former state representative and US Congressman, a two-faced, two-party supporting and once failed business woman, from all places, the pure and pristine world of professional wrestling, while practically ignoring the only candidate among the three of them, a very successful capitalist, who not only survived, but thrived, when other businesses were going belly up and crying “uncle” (Sam), but predicted this mess several years ago and was laughed at it for it back then. But nary a word of support for the one candidate in that race who actually knows what he’s talking about, and has a history and resume to back it up. Our electorate still has not learned its lesson. We still seek glitz over a fix, which may explain the quixotic popularity of empty-suit, but well polished, back-slapping, baby-kissing charlatans like Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, thanks to the starry-eyed, drooling quislings in both parties, who can no better discern the forest from the trees as they can the almighty sports page from real news.

And conservatives gasp that a meaningless straw poll in an annual feel-good convention of like-minded conservatives only awarded “The Mighty Mitt-igator” the Silver in this year’s version of the conservative political Olympics. Be still, my conservative cardiac muscle!

Yeah, I know, Reagan was once pro-abortion, people can change their minds, yatta, yatta, yatta.

But two years have passed since the second great Republican debacle of ‘08. (The equally deserved one from ‘06 was Hall of Fame material, too!) So why is “Mr. Conservative Convert,” still rubbing elbows with the “All-About-Me-Maverick,” yet again under the auspices of the (not so) Great Big Tent, invented solely by their fellow liberal GOP moles?

Caution: The Surgeon General has determined, that despite how good it may feel, perpetual back scratching for two or more years can cause topical bleeding and possibly even political hemorrhaging.

And there are still two more years worth of back scratching before the 2012 presidential election. That must have been a heck of a promise over the brandy and stogies.

And by then, J. D. Hayworth might very well be a sitting US Senator from Arizona, the former occupant may be on the lecture tour in local small town VFW halls, and still greeting the attendees with his meaningless and overly used generic trademark opening address, “My friends…”, and the very ambitious “Mr. Brown Goes To Washington” just may decide that his britches are bigger than the tent, and that both only contain enough room for only one rising pseudo-conservative star, and that his former backer makes a crowd. Could that mean, “See ya’ later, “Great Mitt-igater”? (Attention, Romney PAC newsletter: STOP THE PRESSES!)

Something about Mitt Romney has always given me the sudden and burning urge to go take a long hot shower- with industrial strength lye and a steel wool pad. Romney’s ever-present and overly cheesy demeanor and smile could put a seasoned used car salesman to shame and it also reminds me of a scene from the made for TV movie, “Night Passage,” based on the Jesse Stone novel series, written by the (recently) late novelist, Robert B. Parker. Tom Selleck plays Jesse Stone, a former pro baseball player and fired Los Angeles Homicide detective, now a divorced alcoholic small town police chief of a quaint but fictional little hamlet appropriately called “Paradise,” (ironically) in Massachusetts. Stone is courting the very young and pretty town attorney and asks her what she thinks of their boss, a smiley but corrupt mayor and bank manager, secretly involved in a money laundering scheme with the mob. Stone’s colleague and paramour replies that her father always advised her never to trust men who smile all the time. The older, sage, and very wry Chief Stone nods and characteristically remarks that her father was a very wise man.

Certain conclusions can be drawn from all these supposedly “Mitt-igating” circumstances.

A quick perusal of Ron Paul’s ‘08 campaign historically record breaking finance records will easily show that he didn’t need any tea parties to get his message not only out, but embraced, especially considering that he was more often than not ignored by the mainstream media in much of the coverage and not considered a serious candidate by the self appointed experts of nothing.

It took a children’s fairy tale to disclose that in fact, the emperor really was wearing no clothes.

And almost last, actions, especially in politics, still speak louder than words.

And certainly not least, Mitt Romney is no conservative.

But he does have a helluva smile.

Doug Wren