The 75% of Republican voters who are less than thrilled about the prospects of having Mitt Romney at the top of the GOP ticket now have a web site dedicated to the idea that the party (and the country) will be better off without Romney as the nominee. The site is called Not Mitt Romney and one of its founders is John Hawkins from Right Wing News. In a post at that site he explains why:
Is Romney’s strength supposed to be his “electability?” What makes anyone think he’s particularly electable? Even most conservatives don’t like Mitt; so what makes people think independents will love him? Slick, moderate northerners like Mitt usually run weak in the South; so he’s more likely than the other top tier candidates to lose North Carolina and Virginia. He also brings no new states to the table and is even guaranteed to lose his own home state of Massachusetts. While it’s genuinely great that Mitt has business experience, it certainly didn’t make him into an effective governor in Massachusetts where his signature issue, Romneycare, was a disastrous failure.
So, what’s left? Inevitability? It’s funny because that’s what was said about Harriet Miers. Remember? She’s been selected, Bush isn’t going to withdraw her nomination; so you might as well give up on getting a real conservative like Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court. How about the McCain/Kennedy amnesty bill? We were told it was a done deal and that it was a waste of time to even fight. Yet, when conservatives said “no” and stuck to our guns, we turned the tide and stopped amnesty. We can do it again and in reality, it’s easier to stop Romney. Today, if it were just a three way race between Romney and any combination of Cain, Gingrich, and Perry, Romney would be in third place each time because the overwhelming majority of conservatives don’t want him as the nominee.
That’s why we want to speak out.
A lot of conservatives think exactly the way that we do, but they don’t want to take any flack for hammering Romney, think Romney is inevitable, or aren’t in a position where they can risk making the potential Republican nominee for the presidency angry. Well, we can speak out on their behalf and we think that after the Tea Party helped deliver the strongest performance for the Republican Party in 50 years, it’s a mistake to go backwards and select a guy like Mitt Romney as our nominee.
The 2012 presidential election must present voters with a clear choice of two possible future paths for the country. One is to continue to move toward the European model of faith in government over faith in people. The other is to seek to return to the principles of limited government and individual liberty. So far, Mitt Romney has shown no evidence that he is ready, willing or able to make the sorts of strong arguments for the latter vision that are needed to carry the day. If there ever was a time for not settling this is it.
