If you are a conservative like me, and if you are not willing to vote for Mitt Romney in the general election (if he’s the GOP nominee), this post is for you. Please note that I am the guy who trashed Romney and his RINOish record in the American Thinker’s pages last year, and like you, I believed until a few months ago that Romney indeed would not be preferrable over Barack Obama. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that Obama is so disastrous and so destructive that he must be defeated this election season at all costs, repeat, at all costs, even if it means nominating Romney. In this post, I’ll explain why I’ve come to this conclusion and why you should too, and why you should vote for Romney IF he is the Republican nominee.
You may have been told by someone, perhaps even by many prominent people, that America can survive Obama and still be reformable and governable by 2017; that America can survive the damage Obama will do to it if he’s allowed a second term as President; that somehow the country will be able to outlast him and wait him out; and that in 2016, a conservative reformer will somehow ride to the rescue, win the presidential election, and somehow miraculously reverse all of Obama’s socialist policies and those of his predecessors.
If you have been told that, you can place such assurances in the dustbin where they belong.
If Obama gets a second term, it will be an utter and irreversible disaster for America.
Just look at what damage he has done to the country in his first three years as President. Think about what damage he will do in his second term (if he gets one), when he won’t have to worry about reelection.
If he’s reelected, here’s what will surely, or almost certainly, happen.
Obama’s socialized medicine will become irreversible. At present, a majority of Americans still wants it to be repealed. But the Dems have structured the scheme in a way that ensures that while the taxes to pay for it were instituted immediately in 2010, the goodies won’t kick in until 2014.
When people are thrown off their employer-provided insurance plans and forced onto government-provided insurance policies, they will be fighting tooth and nail to defend their “free” healthcare services, just like the British and the Canadians. In Britain and Canada, socialized medicine became the accepted status quo decades ago and not even the staunchest conservatives dare to touch it. Similarly, in the US, there are already so many people dependent on existing entitlement programs that even most Tea Partiers warn politicians not to dare to even think about touching their entitlement benefits.
So (as Ann Coulter points out) unless socialized medicine is not repealed within the next 3 years, it will never be, and by 2016, Republicans will be promising to only “modernize” it and make it more efficient. And Newt Gingrich will be calling plans to tinker with it “right-wing social engineering.”
The addition of another entitlement, at a time when the existing Big Three entitlements are already consuming 63% of the entire annual federal budget, will leave little to no money for legitimate government functions and duties, including defense.
Speaking of which, Obama will veto any attempt to spare the DOD from the sequester, even if the Congress passes corresponding spending cuts elsewhere as a replacement, and will further cut America’s defense to the point when the country won’t be able to defend itself. The US will become just another European “social democracy” with socialized medicine, bloated entitlements, and a weak defense.
He will also unilaterally cut the US nuclear arsenal so deeply that it will be vastly smaller than that of Russia and even China, as he already plans to do. After he does, any idiot will have to build only 300 nuclear warheads and voila, he will achieve nuclear parity with the US, while Russia and China will possess larger arsenals than the US and will be able to blackmail America with nuclear weapons.
He will also have the opportunity to appoint four more Supreme Court judges, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Stephen Breyer, all of whom are in their 70s and will certainly leave the bench during the next 4-5 years. Obama will replace them with young, liberal jurists like Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
He will further grow the size and scope of the federal government, growing spending at an insatiable pace, vetoing any serious attempts to cut it, and issuing further unconstitutional federal mandates.
And perhaps most worryingly, he will continue his open borders policy, refuse to enforce the law, and will issue (by executive fiat if he has to) amnesty to illegal aliens. This will ensure that no conservative, and possibly even no Republican of any stripe, will ever get elected President.
Think that’s a far-fetched claim? Think again. Look no further than California.
This is a state which, just a few decades ago, produced such great Senators and Governors as S. I. Hayakawa, Pete Wilson, and Ronald Reagan.
But in the last 2 decades, massive immigration, both legal and illegal, has transformed California into such a liberal state that no Republican (let alone any conservative) can get elected there to statewide office anymore.
As Ann Coulter points out, if Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two successful businesswomen, cannot get elected to statewide office in California, then it’s game over for Republicans there.
The same will happen to the country as a whole if nothing serious is done about immigration in the next 4 years.
If a Republican is not elected this year, there will likely never again be a Republican President (which is exactly why the Democrats want to implement amnesty).
All of this, and more, will happen if Obama is allowed to win a second term as President.
And after that happens, there will be zero chance of electing a conservative President, zero chance of implementing conservative policies, and zero chance of turning the country around, just as European countries are already a lost cause.
And YOU will be co-responsible for this if you stay home or vote for a third-party candidate in the 2012 presidential election.
If you are a conservative, if you care about conservative principles, if you care about the country, you cannot stay home nor vote for a third-party candidate. You must vote for the Republican nominee. Even if that nominee is Romney.
There is no conservatism without the GOP, and there is no GOP without conservatives.
Mitt Romney is hardly anyone’s first choice for the GOP nomination except of moderate Republicans, but he’s far preferrable to Barack Obama and he will help Congressional Republicans dismantle Obamamunism if he’s elected.
The notion that he will turn his back on us conservatives and betray us as soon as he’s elected is silly. He will have to pander to us conservatives, just as he does now, because of his past liberal views. He will have to pander to us to reassure us. Would you rather have someone who has to toe your line and pander to you, or someone like Obama who will completely disregard your opinion and go full speed ahead with liberal policies?
Romney wants to be liked by us conservatives; Obama can’t even hide his contempt for us.
Which brings me to the two most important issues of this election: socialized medicine and immigration.
Romney has already said, multiple times, that if elected, he will issue a waiver from Obama’s socialized medicine scheme for all 50 states and then proceed to repeal it fully. He will do it, because he knows that if he doesn’t, he will be defeated by a conservative challenger in Republican primaries in 2016.
So Romney will have to repeal it – to save his face if for no other reason.
On illegal immigration, Romney is absolutely opposed to any form of amnesty, earning an Excellent rating from NumbersUSA on that score, and he also opposes any benefits for illegals, giving them DLs, and funding for sanctuary cities. In fact, as Governor, Romney explicitly PROHIBITED issuing DLs to illegal aliens. He also supports the E-Verify Program, deploying troops on the border, and building a border fence.
(By contrast, Santorum and Paul, kowtowing to the business lobby, oppose the E-Verify program, and Santorum even opposed its voluntary usage, while Gingrich supports amnesty.)
Romney is also very conservative on defense and foreign policy. He will reverse Obama’s disastrous defense cuts, reassure Israel and other allies of America’s commitment, and stand strong against its enemies, while avoiding unnecessary military crusades. If Congress joins him in rebuilding the military, it’s likely he won’t have to actually use it, because no one will be stupid enough to fight a militarily-strong America.
So if you are a conservative, if you care about conservative principles and the country, please vote for the Republican nominee in November, even if it is Mitt Romney.
Défense et Géopolitique 
Mr. Mazurak, you build a cogent argument in favor of pulling the lever for Romney, no matter how much it hurts. As one who has at times considered abstaining from the presidential election out of disgust with the GOP, I will give your views the careful consideration they deserve. However, let me take issue with your statement, “There is no conservatism without the GOP, and there is no GOP without conservatives.” This is blantantly false. Historically, conservatism predates the GOP, and exists independently of it. The Republic Party has not been genuinely conservative in decades. Ronald Reagan was the most recent traditional conservative to hold the presidency, even if he did not always govern as such. We’d probably have to go back to Barry Goldwater to get to a constitutional conservative presidential candidate within the mainstream GOP Since the 1970s and the abrupt shift leftward of the Democrats, the GOP have shifted leftward also into the space vacated by moderate Democrats. The east coast establishment of the GOP – the Rockefeller Republican wing – is now virtually indistinguishable from the Democrats on many issues.
In fairness to you, the terms “Republican” and “conservative” are so-often conflated these days that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that they are not one and the same thing.
You are absolutely correct that illegal immigration (and by inference, the vote) and socialized medicine are two of the most important issues we face this election cycle, but you should add another one: the nation is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, albeit one our elites and the media are doing their best to hide, concerning Obama and his usurption of the presidency. Obama has never been elligible to be POTUS, and can never be – because he fails the test of natural-born citizenship under article II, section I, clause V of the constitution. It is irrelevent where Obama himself was born; the critical factor is where Obama’s parents were born. His father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth, thus Obama is only native-born, not natural-born as required by the constitution. Debating the specifics of our policies on defense, healthcare and other matters will be of little help if our constitution republic is stolen from under our noses by lawless and corrupt politicians who now regard that document as obsolete and fit only for a museum, wouldn’t you agree? In closing, not one of the candidates for the GOP nomination – not Romney, nor Santorum nor Gingrich nor even Ron Paul – has had the courage to take up this issue in an honest, forthright manner as required by the constitution and the rule of law.
GeorgiaBoy,
You misunderstood me. I did not claim that conservatism does not predate the GOP. However, the current political reality is that without the GOP, there will de facto be no conservative influence, because there will be no “home” for conservatives – no party to represent cons. voters. Without a viable party, cons. voters cannot hope to get any officials elected and to get any cons. policies enacted, since the Dems won’t enact them, and neither will the GOP’s Rockefeller wing.
Creating a 3rd party is not an option, because it will be years, if not decades, before a viable 3rd party emerges (you know, a party capable of winning elections for all sorts of offices, from dog catcher to President). Unopposed, the Democrats will turn the US into the United Socialist States of America within the next 4 years. Then, your grandchildren will be lucky to see a free America before they die.
That is why conservatives’ ONLY HOPE is to work inside the GOP and to take it over. This can be achieved by ousting RINO leaders from office. Specifically, John Boehner (House Speaker) and Richard Lugar (the most senior RINO in the Senate). If these 2 guys are voted out of office (and both of them already have conservative primary challengers), this will send shivers of fear down the spine of every remaining RINO in Congress and will show them that if they don’t honor conservative principles, they will be the next unemployed RINOs. So the next Speaker will be sure to consult with Michele Bachmann before doing anything. The only hard task will be to actually vote Boehner and Lugar out of office; they will be supported by the entire Establishment and will raise a lot of money for themselves. Conservatives must therefore support their conservative challengers (in Indiana, it’s Richard Mourdock) and, if they survive their primaries, support their Democratic opponents. Better a Democrat newbie than a RINO leader. In fact, better a RINO newbie than a RINO leader.
Re: “However, the current political reality is that without the GOP, there will de facto be no conservative influence, because there will be no “home” for conservatives – no party to represent cons. voters.” Zbigniew, we have the GOP now, and there is no real home for conservative voters within it. The GOP’s policies are starkly unconservative over the last two decades, since Reagan left office. The mainstream GOP establishment has made it quite clear that it regards traditional conservatives as an unwanted irritant and anachronistic. The only time the party cares about and reaches out to traditional mid-American conservatives is around election season. The rest of the time, the GOP establishment does its best to make us feel like lepers.
Your observation about creating a third party is probably accurate; the barriers to same erected by the existing major parties have assured that. As for retaking the GOP from within for Reagan/Goldwater conservatism, I’d love to see it, but I am not holding my breath. People have been talking about that for years, but it hasn’t happened. I agree with your anaylsis concerning “new” (junior) RINOs versus established, more senior ones. They are at least easier to control, and don’t have the chairmanships on powerful committees like the House Armed Services Committee, for example.
I would argue, based on what I know about your priorities for national defense, that you should actually hope for the rapid development of some sort of group able to exert influence on the corrupt major parties and bring them back into line. Perhaps the Tea Party will fill the bill, perhaps not. However, it seems incontestable that the fiscal crisis is at least as grave a threat to the republic as any foreign military power. If the Democrats – and the GOP – cannot be forced to cut unconsitutional and unnecessary spending on social service entitlements, it is almost certain that the military will get cut instead. And neither of us wants that.
GB,
I agree with you that the current debt problem is indeed a national security risk and that if unconstitutional domestic spending is not eliminated, defense spending will be cut instead (indeed, it is already happening) – and neither of us wants that to happen.
I, like you, hope that a strong group will emerge to exert pressure on the GOP regarding fiscal and defense issues. The problem is that, regarding defense, there is no such group now (despite my repeated, unsuccessful attempts to create one); as for fiscal issues, we have the Tea Party and many fiscal groups such as the NTU, ATR, the CAGW, and so forth, but the Congress all too often seems to be ignoring them and pressing on with its wasteful spending ahead. We can only hope that the Tea Party will gain more influence on the GOP, and defeating Boehner and Lugar at the ballot box would certainly increase the TP’s influence.
As for the GOP not being a home for conservatives, the reality is that the *only* choices Tea Partiers have now is to either work inside the Party and retake it or start a third party from zero and build it up, while conceding the country for the next 8-16 years to the Democrats. Those are the only options available.
Taking over the Constitution Party is not an option, because that party is dominated by the same kind of Radical Christians who gave America Dubya and allowed him to pursue Big Government policies. Taking over the Libertarian Party is also not an option, because that party has utterly discredited itself over the last several years. You would have to first dig them out of the hole they have dug themselves into, just to get back to ground zero.
So you would have to build a third party from scratch. But it would take many years, if not several decades. The GOP was established in 1854, but the first time it won a presidential election (thanks to divisions among Democrats) was 1860. And that candidate was so objectionable to half of the country that a Civil War erupted.
The problem is that America cannot wait another 4, 8, or 16 years. It needs to be saved NOW.
Unopposed, the Democrats will turn the US into the United Socialist States of America within 8 years. Then, your grandchildren will be lucky to see a free America before they die.
People will need to control their passions and work patiently, step by step, to roll back liberal policies and take over the GOP. The first step that the Tea Party can make now, and is already working on, is primarying Boehner and Lugar – the most senior RINOs in the House and the Senate. It would also be a good idea to primary Cantor, Corker (who already faces a conservative but little known challenger, Zach Poskevich), Cochran, and Alexander. At the same time, Tea Partiers need to support Romney and thus indebt him to the Tea Party, to call in that favor when needed. For better or for worse, Romney is the GOP’s only hope of defeating Obama.
Romney knows that if he doesn’t repeal socialized medicine within the next 4 years, doesn’t secure the border, or doesn’t cut spending at least by some modest margin, he will be successfully primaried by a conservative challenger (Sarah Palin, maybe?) in 2016. He knows it and doesn’t want that to happen. He will do everything to prevent that.
After Romney does his job, the Tea Party needs to do what it failed to do this time – unite behind a single conservative candidate early in the race.
Besides, your statements do injustice to many truly conservative Republicans such as Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Jim Demint, Jim Inhofe, Saxby Chambliss, and Ken Cuccinelli.
Zbigniew, your reply makes some interesting points. As for whether or not the GOP can be captured from within by Goldwater/Reagan conservatives, time will settle that question for us. I am considerably older than you, and thus far more cynical, I believe. In my lifetime, fifty years, there has been only one truly conservative chief executive – President Reagan. The rest of the Republicans have been pretenders as far as I am concerned. So, eight good years out of a possible fifty – that works out to less than 20% of the time. So, while I will continue to work and hope for the best, you’ll forgive me if I don’t break out the balloons and champagne just yet.
There are good conservatives in the House and Senate, some of whom you noted, but they – thus far, anyway – have not managed to stem the tide of government growth, out of control spending, or halt Obama’s radicalization of America.
By the most-strict litmus test possibly, adherence to the constitution, the GOP has proven to be almost as bad as the Democrats and the left. Obama is not a natural born citizen, and thus cannot be eligible for the presidency under article II, section I, clause V of the constitution, the “natural born citizen” clause. Our nation is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, albeit one no one in power wants to talk about, and the GOP has done precisely zero about it. As far as I am concerned, that is dereliction of duty and a crime against the oath of office all of these individuals took upon swearing in, but that is a matter for another thread…. my point being, these “good conservatives” have failed in their most basic duty to our nation – the defense of the constitution and the republic for which it stands. Having a strong defense hardly matters if the republic of the founders is allowed to perish, wouldn’t you agree?
GB, I disagree with your last point. And although I agree that Obama is not a natural born citizen as per the Law of the Nations, from which the Founders derived their understanding of the term “natural-born citizen, I believe the GOP is right not to pursue this proven losing issue at this time, when there are more important issues to address and when Obama can be defeated this year. If the GOP wins this presidential election (and the only way to do so is to nominate Romney), the question of whether Obama is eligible or not will become moot. If the GOP loses, it will also be moot, because Obama will destroy the Republic if he is allowed a second term as President.
And although I understand why you’re frustrated with the GOP – as are most Americans – the cold, hard reality is that the *only* choices available to you is to either work within the GOP and topple its RINO leaders, or to start a third party and thus leave the Dems without competition for at least a decade, thus allowing them to turn the US into the United Socialist States of America within the next 4 years. Your choice.
As a consolation, I can tell you that John Boehner now has a credible primary challenger (although that challenger is a single-issue guy), and Cantor, who recently sunk Marsha Blackburn’s spending cuts proposal in the House, is certain to have at least one conservative primary challenger this year. Richard Lugar, the most senior RINO in the Senate, AKA Barack Obama’s favorite Republican, already has a conservative challenger.
If these three RINOs, or only Boehner and Cantor, are voted out of office, this will send shivers of fear down the spine of every RINO who survives the 2012 election: “Do what conservative voters want you to do or you will be the next unemployed RINO.”
Instead of wasting our time dreaming about a third party, we conservatives need to work within the GOP and strive to defeat the forementioned three RINOs.