THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

Cancel 2012. No, not the movie that I have zero interest in seeing. Actually, cancel that too. Cancel the 2012 Republican primaries. Skip Iowa and those twelve people in Dix Hills Notch, New Hampshire. They are like Punxatawney Phil the Groundhog. When they see their shadow, they give themselves fifteen more minutes of self-importance.

Cancel the GOP nomination because the nominee has already been decided. It was decided in 2008. For those of you backing other candidates, you have no say. You don’t get to choose. The nominee is decided. Mitt Romney is the nominee.

Whether you like Mitt Romney or not, this doesn’t matter. He has been anointed.

Republicans preach conservatism, but when it comes to picking presidential nominees, we are the biggest bunch of socialists on the planet.

Democrats may be wrong on every issue, but at least they have real primaries. Obama is dreadful, but Hillary was not given her coronation. We Republicans are a hierarchy. We always pick the person who is next in line.

I am as thrilled as anybody that Ronald Reagan was given three chances, but this was an aberration. In real life if somebody keeps running for President and losing, and then is handed a nomination as a consolation prize, there is a chance they may lose again. We are not a charity. Just because liberals reward people like Arab sympathizer Helen Thomas for violating the law of averages does not mean we have to do the same.

The entire rational in 1996 for Bob Dole’s candidacy was that it was “his turn.” John McCain was handed the 2008 nomination because he lost in 2000. This is not Summer camp where the last place kid gets a prize. We would all be better off if the last place kid was told that he sucked, but that he may or may not be good at something else. Maybe if Simon Cowell was allowed to screen GOP nominees we could weed out the chaff.

I have nothing against Mitt Romney. He looks like a presidential nominee. He is tall, has good hair, and is inoffensive. That means Tim Pawlenty will be the vice presidential choice. He is tall, has good hair, and is so harmlessly inoffensive that he may be standing in your living room.

Mitt Romney is what we call “acceptable.” Rudy Giuliani was loved by the Neocons and other foreign policy conservatives. He was fine with the economic conservatives. The social conservatives were suspicious of him. Mike Huckabee is perfectly qualified to be King of Iowa, but Republicans do not get elected without support from the Wall Street Journal editorial pages and Sir Charles of Krauthammer.

None of the three legs of the Republican stool would be in a state of open revolt over Mitt Romney. 2008 was a year where we needed a sexy nominee on the ticket. We had to swing for the fences. After four years of Obama, people will have had all of the sexiness they can handle. Like a hot woman at a bar, sexiness left us broke. In 2012 the social, economic, and foreign policy conservatives look at Mitt Romney and think, “fine. He’s good enough.”

We have so many talented people in our party that never get mentioned. One person I love is Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Three people helped the GOP take back the congress in 1994. Newt Gingrich brought the strategy. Rush Limbaugh brought the media and the message. Haley Barbour brought the money and the bourbon. The bourbon was used in a late night meeting with Gingrich, which is how he got the money. After Hurricane Katrina, some Louisiana lady was crying that she was “so overwhelmed.” Haley Barbour was rolling up his sleeves, turning into the Rudy Giuliani of the South, and getting the job done. Never send a liberal to do an adult’s job.

Another great choice would be Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle. She is a Jewish Republican who got elected in a state with virtually no Jews and no Republicans. She simply vetoes everything. In one recent legislative session there were 33 bills, and she vetoed 27 of them. Of the six that became law, one was a children’s health care bill. After all, anything for the children has to be good. A few weeks later she did not like how the law was working, so she had it overturned.

I just want the GOP to have a real primary. The media creates tension. George Herbert Walker Bush defeated Reagan in Iowa. George W. Bush stumbled in New Hampshire. It doesn’t matter. Mitt Romney is next in line, and his opponents are running for the right to lose and be handed the nomination the next time around. If people want to prove me wrong, that would be fine. Otherwise, let’s cancel the primary and give the money back to Republican voters in the form of a tax cut.

eric

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 2:02 pm and is filed under POLITICS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.