Romney’s spokesperson puts his foot in Romney’s mouth
Sometimes a presidential candidate’s spokespersons can say a mouthful with a few words as New Hampshire State Sen. Gary Lambert did for Mitt Romney this week. Unfortunately for Romney, Lambert’s words told a very troubling story: do you ignore your personal values and vote for someone purely on the national media’s measure of electability? Is it more important to vote for someone because you think they have the best chance of beating Barack Obama regardless as to whether that candidate shares your views?
If you’re a Conservative your opposition to Barack Obama isn’t based on his electability but rather the gap between his policies, views and beliefs and your own. Mitt Romney’s surrogate said this week that it’s evident Romney will be the Republican presidential nominee and that “beliefs and principles” should not be the deciding factor for voters. Mr. Lambert’s statement is tantamount to saying, “Romney is no Conservative, but he can beat Obama.”
Gary Lambert said the most important thing is to nominate somebody who can defeat President Obama. Who is Lambert to say who can or cannot beat Obama? If you accept the president’s collapsing polls and the national right-track/wrong-track numbers anyone outside the walls of a prison would have a fair chance of beating Obama.
“I don’t get it. This is not about picking a favorite, it’s not about picking someone you like,” Lambert said. “It’s not about picking someone even with your own beliefs and principles. This is about picking a person who can beat Barack Obama, period.”
Romney has already won, but we’re too stupid to know it
If you accept Lambert’s point-of-view you have to ask why we’re having a primary season at all. Why not anoint Mitt Romney now? Unfortunately Mr. Lambert doesn’t understand that voters care about a person’s views and don’t want someone that opposes their values in the White House. Conservatives have that now in Mr. Obama.
Lambert said it’s in Republicans’ interest to close ranks behind Romney, considering his fundraising and polling edge, and conserve resources for the general election battle in November. We’ve not even had a single primary yet, but Mr. Lambert thinks that less than 30,000 people in Iowa have decided for the rest of us.
“I’d like to get right to the point. … Look, we know how this movie is going to end. Mitt Romney’s gonna be the nominee,” Lambert said. “Forgive me and with all due respect to all my friends out there — so that’s gonna happen. The way I look at it, the sooner we get it over, the better. We can save the money because in the end, guess who we’re after? We’re after Barack Obama.”
Are we after Barack Obama personally? Sure most Conservatives would say anyone is better than Obama, but it’s not Obama himself but his policies which stem from his views and values. Why would anyone look to replace Barack Obama with someone else who doesn’t share their values either?
Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have strongly suggested that Mitt Romney is far from conservative and willing to take any view he believes is politically beneficial, but his performance in office has shown he’s quite moderate.
If beating Obama is more important than whom he’s replaced with, than a simple national poll of electability versus Obama should suffice. More troubling is that Romney’s choice of Lambert for a surrogate says far more about the Governor’s judgment than about the current nomination process.
Hillary Clinton was the inevitable nominee of the Democrats in 2008. How well did that work out? At this point in 1992 more than 80 percent of the voting public had no idea who Bill Clinton was. No one was calling for Hillary to drop out after Obama won in Iowa in 2008, nor did they suggest she leave the race before all primaries were concluded.
So Mr. Lambert, if Mitt Romney isn’t afraid of facing 1 Democrat why are you afraid of him facing 3 or 4 Republicans? If Mr. Romney needs his fellow Republican hopefuls to drop out of the race we’ve got a big problem, cause Mr. Obama won’t do the same.
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