Do Conservatives Really Want the GOP Nominee to Lead?

Written on by V2A, Filed under
2012 Election, Culture, Ethics, Government, Law, Media, Politics
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Puzzling over why Mitt Romney isn’t connecting with conservative voters, John Fund offers a hypothesis in National Review. “Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to realize he is campaigning for two jobs, not one,” he writes. “He is doing quite well in the race to become the Republican nominee for president, and must still be considered the strong favorite. But ever since Barry Goldwater captured the GOP nomination in 1964, the Republican nominee has been more or less the titular head of the conservative movement, the most important single component of the Republican party.”

This attitude is shared by Tea Partiers to whom I’ve spoken. They want in the Republican nominee a Ronald Reagan figure who’ll unite the right and govern as an unapologetic conservative. Understandably so. What they perhaps don’t appreciate — even correcting for the gulf that separates the Reagan of their imagination from the actual man — is how singular a figure Reagan was, and that treating GOP presidents as titular heads of movement conservatism more often ends in disaster.

The recent example is George W. Bush, whose name and tenure go unmentioned in the race for the Republican nomination, so thoroughly did he discredit himself (assisted by self-described conservatives who put partisan loyalty before principle). Nor was it the first time that the Republican Party and its leader set back the several causes of movement conservatism.

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  • Diogenes

    To most Paul supporters, it doesn't matter who gets elected if it's not Ron Paul. The difference between one of the RINOs and Obama is a matter of a few months to a year difference in the timing of the collapse of the dollar and the end of our way of life. So we have to write him in if we have even the tiniest chance of getting him in. We have to take whatever shot we have to save the country.

  • Richard Wm. Faith

    This is the predicament we're in: obama is the worst and most destructive president ever, bar none, and by an astronomical margin over all others. On the other hand, the GOP consistently devotes its primary loyalty to its biggest financial supporters, many of whom serve the interests of the Global Union (the absolute ANTITHESIS of American sovereignty!). Of course, the SAME miscreants own the DNC OUTRIGHT. The only PRAYER we have of undoing this mess is to PREVAIL EN MASSE upon the RNC to STOP running GLOBALISTS, PERIOD. Not one stinking one. EVER. We must NEVER let the RNC even FLIRT with the idea of running anyone who has anything whatsoever to do with: Bilderberg Group, CFR, Trilateral Commission, North American Union, UN, SO-CALLED "Federal Reserve" (which is NEITHER of the two!), International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Court, Nobel Commission (financiers to some of the world's most egregious criminals, including obama), Center for American Progress, Open Society Institute, Tides Foundation, Skull and Bones, Illuminati, soros, Henry Kissinger or David Rockefeller. ALL ENEMIES OF AMERICA, ALL.

  • Richard Wm. Faith

    soros (lower case intentional) recently said that Romney and obama (YES, lower case again) are "the same". Is he bluffing, or is it true? Probing more deeply, Did he CAUSE IT TO BE TRUE? If he DID, then he "KNOWS" it to be a fact. Now, should I SERIOUSLY trust Romney?

    Gingrich talks a good line, and speaks up against Agenda 21, as indeed he should. But, is he sincere about this? Is it even POSSIBLE for him to be, considering that he's a CFR member, and thus right in the MIDDLE of GLOBALISM?

    The only viable alternative we have to obama IS the RNC, but then the globalists have NEUTERED the RNC! Those of us who CARE, are BROKE; therefore, we can't BUY the (so-called) "loyalty" of the RNC! "What Now, My Love?" Our last hope against the permanent and irrecoverable loss of OUR COUNTRY is to BEAT UP ON THE RNC until they have NO CHOICE but to deliver up their support to a STRONG ANTI-GLOBALIST CANDIDATE.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/GaryMallast Gary Mallast

    What results in disaster is nominating a "moderate–i.e. flammong liberal–like Richard Nison, Jerry Ford, the two Bushes, Bob Dole, or John McCain. Either he loses to the Democrat or he makes such a muck of the job of President–as with the two Bushes–that in the next election the Republican doesn't have a chance.

    • Richard Wm. Faith

      Interesting you mention NiKson: he's the one who started our trade relationship with Red China, the same Red China that our ENEMIES WITHIN have been SELLING OUT TO, and the same Red China that currently threatens us with economic blackmail! We would have been INFINITELY BETTER OFF WITHOUT this "trade relationship".

  • Maxine

    Why you people dont want Ron Paul you dont read up on him but yet you put him down all you can say is he is to old well look at the old ones in are goverment now some are in wheel chairs and have had stokes but you think that is ok Ron Paul is in better shape then alot of are politchens so stop running him down if that is all you can find wrong with him then you are sick

    • Richard Wm. Faith

      The same hypocrites you speak of probably WORSHIPPED Ted Kennedy. I see your point!

  • Ultor

    SANTORUM VOTING RECORD: CONSERATIVE? YOU DECIDE!
    *** Padding his own wallet as a corporate lobbyist at the expense of taxpayers;
    *** Voting to RAISE the debt ceiling five times;
    *** Voting to DOUBLE the federal Department of Education;
    *** Voting with liberals like Ted Kennedy on multiple occasions in support of Big Labor's radical agenda;
    *** Urging more federal involvement in housing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;
    *** Voting to create a brand new, unfunded entitlement, Medicare Part D, the largest expansion of entitlement spending since President Lyndon Johnson – creating $16 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities;
    *** Endorsing liberal Big Government RINOs like Arlen Specter over conservatives. Of course, Specter later became a Democrat and worked hand-in-glove with President Obama to pass his radical agenda;
    *** Voting for Sarbanes-Oxley, which imposed dramatic new job-killing accounting regulations on businesses;
    *** Supporting raising taxes on oil companies, which directly costs Americans more money out of their pockets at the gas pump;
    *** Voting for gun control;
    *** Voting to give Social Security benefits to illegal aliens, while voting against an additional 1,000 border patrol agents;
    *** Voting to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea;
    *** Voting to send hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood – the nation's largest provider of abortion – and to hand out hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid to enemies of Israel
    But unlike the other establishment candidate, Willard Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum isn't even trying to sweep his Big Government record under the rug.
    I VOTE NEWT IN 2012—THE ONLY CANDIDATE THAT DID WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD!

  • Charles Bill L.

    tHE POWERS THAT BE WANT Romney regardless of what the people want.Remember Mccain was about to give it up and was on his way out when sudenly he surged in the polls and was declared the nominee and got his butt kicked running against Obama.The same thing holds true today with Romney.A vote for Romney is a vote for Obama.

  • Lynne

    Rick Santorum for President. Please really pay attention because he is the only one that is consistent and really does not have any baggage even if they try and lie about him. Give him a chance.

  • mattzweck

    i still don't know who i'm going to vote for. but rick santorum sounds like a leader when ever i hear him speak on TV. like he could lead a country. and win a war too. and get the economy up running again. i'm not saying he would be a good president but sounds like he could be a good leader for a country.

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