Republican voters, showing little enthusiasm for the current crop of candidates for President, are slowly embracing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney not because they have any enthusiasm for him but because he seems — at the moment — to be the best chance the party has to beat Barack Obama in 2012
It’s the old political game of the “lesser of all evils” for frustrated Republicans who wonder where the all the good candidates have gone — assuming the party has any good candidates to offer up against an unpopular President who should be easy to beat.
“I don’t really care for Romney but I’ll probably vote for him because I really don’t have any other choices,” Thomas Hardwell of Spartanburg, SC, told Capitol Hill Blue this week. “We have to beat Obama and if that means holding my nose and voting for Mitt Romney, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Republicans from around the country say pretty much the same thing.
“I’d vote in a heartbeat for (New Jersey governor) Chris Christie but it doesn’t look like he going to run,” says Sheryl Winston of Kansas City. “So I guess it’s Romney>”
Most Republicans interviewed by Capitol Hill Blue agreed that tea party candidates like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are too extreme to win a national election where independents can make the difference.
“If we want to get anything done after next year’s election, then we probably have to go with Romney,” said Alexis Wilson of Denver. “I don’t like it but I can live with it if it means putting a Republican in the White House.”
Romney knows he not the candidate who inspires deep passion in GOP circles but he is counting on voter pragmatism within GOP ranks.
“I’m the guy at the time that’s needed. And if you guys agree, terrific. If you don’t, that’s your right, too,'” Romney said in a recent speech. “We need to come together to win.”
“He’s not the best candidate,” says Homer Cantrell of Chicago, “but at the moment he’s the best we’ve got.”
6 thoughts on “GOP voters not happy with Romney but he’ll do in a pinch”
This is a prime example of how blind partisanship is destroying this country. It was the same in 2008.
This any-port-in-a-storm mentality gave us Obama. When did Americans stop standing and start settling?
Just give me a Republican, any Republican…
Really intelligent. I’m proud to be an American.
We have now two “front-runners.” One who is the former governor of an overly “liberal” state that delivered the very same socialized medicine that “conservatives” love to hate, and a former Democrat that supported Hillary Clinton’s feeble and doomed attempt at the same.
I’ll repeat…Really intelligent.
Rick Perry claims to be an anti-federal, small government conservative, but his state benefits greatly from federal programs. The only reason Texas remains above the fray is due to federal defense contracts and federal welfare, but Perry tries (and apparently succeeds) to maintain that he actually had some thing to do with it as governor.
Romney is a political chameleon. ‘Nuf said about him. I can’t believe this is the best the “conservatives” have to offer.
Vote for either of these two frauds and you’ll feel the same type of buyer’s remorse that “liberals” and Democrats are feeling with Obama right now.
But hey, at least we’re not stuck with McCain, right?
Yeah, it would have been a lot different today, seeing as Obama hasn’t changed a damned thing but the name on the door and who the lobbyists write the checks to…
“He’s not the best candidate,” says Homer Cantrell of Chicago, “but at the moment he’s the best we’ve got.” …extract from article
Gee I guess if Homer says so, then it must be so…no? Yikes, is this the level to which candidate selection has degenerated in this nation?
We’ve moved to the point where the old maxim “in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king”. / : |
IMO Romney has the persona of an obnoxious, ineffective car salesman.
Carl Nemo **==
The thing is Carl, is that we don’t select the candidate; they’re selected for us. Only those that pass muster with the MIC and other associated interests are allowed on the sacred airwaves, creating the illusion that we’ve actually played a part in the electoral process.
He’s one of them…They all are, save one…
You are correct griff in that “we the people” do not select the candidates, but are proffered to us by the shadowy powerbrokers who use their MSM outlets to push their selections our way.
The electorate is then allowed to indemnify their pre-selections via the ballot box. It doesn’t matter which party wins in these times since they are both compromised by the same corporate entities.
I should have been more clear about how candidate ‘selection’ really works. It was all laid out by Ferdinand Lundberg (deceased) in the 1968 release “The Rich and the Super Rich” an expose’ as to who owns America lock, stock and barrel and have so since the dawn of the Republic to present. I’m not talking about noveau riche upstarts either, but the heavy draft models like the Rockefellers, Mellons, Scaifes et al. When a candidate is called to meet with the ‘Chairman of the Board’ relative to the New World Order; I.E., David Rockefeller, then get his blessing, they know they are on the fast track to the White House. They best know who their betters are and perform a smart jig to the tune of their corporate fiddle.
The flagship party for the well heeled and landed wealthy class is the Republican party. They’ve managed to compromise the so-called “people’s party”, the Democrats totally since WWII. There is no genuine opposition, but simply a duopoly that now report to these aforementioned shadowy entities via their corporate lobbying functions. Any contentiousness between the parties is simply high theater for public consumption. In the end “we the people” invariably get screwed time and again by these usurpers in high places.
Carl Nemo **==
Your point is generally correct, Griff, except that, as it occurs this time, there are an unusually large number of GOP candidates, all of whom are getting some amount of MSM time, if only via the debates.
RINOs, moderates, libertarians, conservatives, one-and-all; the field is as diverse as can be remembered. Ditto for diverse voter groups, who have demanded wider participation than can also be remembered. The only ones missing are the anarchists, who wouldn’t play anyway.
Whether the electoral choices to be made actually result in much of a difference is another matter… but it would seem that if zero gets nothing else accomplished, he’s been responsible for a massive influx of partisan opposition.
Perry will ruin his own chances. He’s terrible at debate.
Romney is an easy target for attacks because of his obvious big government preferences.
Closing in on third… Ron Paul. Ron Paul desperately needs a good PR guy. If he secures the Republican nomination, he can win. If he can appeal to those in the Republican base who are free from the burden of independent thought, he can win the primaries. He needs some catchy one-liners like “The only candidate who has always stood up against big government” or “More than promises – More than proven”. He can secure Tea Party support, even if the people who took up the Tea Party mantle of leadership denounce him.
Again I’ll say, I don’t agree with everything Ron Paul says. But he says things that no corporate shill will. He’s got my vote.
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