Scripted Elections

Jay Tea sums up the media playbook for Romney’s Presidential run:

The narrative has been written for us — it will be a tough struggle, but eventually the moderates and “reasonable” Republicans will prevail, the conservatives will grudgingly accept reality, and Romney will win the nomination — only to lose honorably to Obama. Every bit of dirt gathered or fabricated on Romney (and his running mate) will be hurled and leave its mark, but Romney — being the decent, stand-up guy he is, will take the high road to defeat.

I disagree with Jay Tea on one point: I think, given the economy and the ongoing Fast and Furious train wreck, Obama may well lose.  But if Romney wins, the outcome for the country will not be significantly better in the long term.  Consider:

Mitt Romney neutralizes every Obama criticism. TARP? Both for it. Gun control? Both for it. Stimulus? Both for it. Obamacare? Romney’s staff helped Obama’s staff to craft the legislation based on the Massachusetts model. How, pray tell, is Mitt Romney, silver-tongued as he is, going to debate Barack Obama and not sound completely inauthentic. Remember the flaccid McCain responses to Obama? Expect those.

Romney may have been the most conservative governor that Massachusetts could have elected, but the rest of the country is not as liberal as Massachusetts.  His whole career has been center-left.

The establishment GOP is the slow boat to a European style social democracy, i.e. Socialism Lite, with an ultimate trajectory of economic default, like Greece.  Continued rule by the Democratic party puts us on the express train to the same destination.  Either way the GOP establishment will cooperate because they would rather work with Democrats than conservatives.  They want to manage the growth of government, not reduce it.  John McCain was a far better fit in his Gang of 14 than he was in trying to appeal to conservatives after making a career toadying up to the media by criticizing us.  The establishment GOP brought us Michael Steele, who typically answered charges of GOP racism with a “Yes, but…” instead of a reality check that it was the Democrats who established the Klan and Democrats who bitterly fought against civil rights legislation.  The establishment GOP is represented by Lindsey Graham, who told La Raza that he was going to tell conservative “bigots” to “shut up.”  There are myriad examples of establishment GOPers siding with liberals and against conservatives.

All a third party effort will do is set us back. We need genuine reform in the GOP.  If we can’t accomplish that, as Dan Riehl put it, “it’s game over, man. One way, or the other, that will be what’s left behind by the current generation of would be conservatives as its defining legacy for future generations.”

In the end, I’ll vote for Romney if I have to because the slow boat is better than the express train.  But it’s high time that we acknowledge that our choices are consciously being limited.