Note: Please don’t be one of those people who sit out the election because Romney isn’t a Christian or doesn’t perfectly align with your views. The lesser of two evils is less evil.
And in this case, it is a lot less evil.
—–
Ann Coulter knows how to get attention. I think she is over-the-top too often, but she is far more fact-based than anything I see on the Left. And when her critics take the bait she exposes them for their extreme hypocrisy.
Consider the hand-wringing over her calling Obama a retard. Of course she shouldn’t use terms like that. But she wasn’t making fun of mentally retarded people, she was making fun of Obama.
More importantly, note the moral schizophrenia of those who criticize her for using a politically incorrect word referring to mentally retarded people while advocating for the legal destruction of those same people.
Remember, the Left celebrates the fact that they have reduced the number of people with Down Syndrome people by 90%. Read that carefully: They haven’t prevented cases of Down Syndrome, they reduced the number of people with Down Syndrome by justifying the killing of them in the womb.
This illustration summarizes it perfectly (click here if you can’t see the image).
How long do you think it will be before Obamacare requires people to have abortions to eliminate “unfit” people?
And speaking of Obamacare, please don’t miss her latest column on the importance of electing Romney. There are so many reasons he is vastly superior to Obama: The economy, religious freedom, the cause of life and more. But the longest term impact will be whether we can put the brakes on the devastating consequences of Obamacare.
The single most important issue in this election is ending the national nightmare of Obamacare.
If Obamacare if not stopped, it will permanently change the political culture of this country. There will be no going back. America will become a less productive, less wealthy nation. What wealth remains will have to be plowed into Obamacare — to the delight only of the tens of thousands of government bureaucrats administering it.
. . .
You know who specializes in rescuing failing enterprises and making things work? Mitt Romney.
Contrary to ignorant slanders about Romney’s private sector work, his specialty was not buying thriving companies and stripping them for parts. Rather, the Bain Capital model was to take companies that were on the verge of collapse — about to cut all jobs, pensions and health care for their workers — and save the business.
Romney is the Red Adair of his profession. He’s like a doctor who specializes in multiple gunshot wounds or an oncologist who takes only Stage 4 cancer patients. Yes, there were layoffs, but also lots and lots of jobs, profit, success, efficiency, saved businesses and saved lives.
. . .
Not only has Romney promised to issue a 50-state waiver from Obamacare on his first day in office and then seek a formal repeal and replacement, but he’ll know how to do it. The savior of dying companies will fix health care in this country so that no Democrat will be able to wreck it again.
The only way to rid ourselves of this national poison pill, set to destroy both health care and the nation at large, is to elect Mitt Romney our next president.
Eternity Matters 
The illustration doesn’t come through – there’s just a small blue box with a question mark in it.
I always like what Coulter says, but I wish she would be a bit lest caustic.
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On a number of political questions — the likelihood that Romney will repeal Obamacare, Romney’s acumen as a turnaround artist — why are we always asked to look at Romney’s experience in the private sector rather than the MUCH MORE GERMANE experience as governor?
It’s almost as if his being governor is a checkbox on an employment form — “executive experience”? got it — but the details don’t matter.
As governor, Romney passed the precursor to Obamacare and even subsequently wrote quite prominently about how Masscare should be the model for the nation. He has NEVER retracted his recent, repellant assertions that the individual mandate is fundamentally conservative.
And, as governor, he chose not to run for reelection and give the people of Massachusetts the opportunity to endorse or reject his one term in office outright.
Are Mitt Romney and John Boehner willing to be as ruthless in forcing repeal through the legislative process as Obama and Pelosi were in forcing Obamacare through in the first place?
It’s not enough for Romney to be the lesser of two evils if he doesn’t have what it takes to pull this country from the brink of an entirely predictable fiscal crisis. I don’t believe he has a truly ESSENTIAL fiscally conservative political philosophy — does he have a philosophy, other than the tautology that he wants to be president? — nor do I believe he has the fortitude to fight to enact such a philosophy.
—
And, for what it’s worth, Ann Coulter has destroyed her professional reputation in stumping for Romney, going so far as to defend MassCare and EVEN the individual mandate, at least at the local level.
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-02-01.html
The right people hate her guts, but it’s clear that, for her, pushing Romney has trumped any principled defense of limited government.
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For what it’s worth, HotAir highlighted a couple good responses to Coulter’s defense of MassCare:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/01/ann-coulter-three-cheers-for-romneycare/
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Bubba,
I hope your comments don’t mean you’re either sitting this one out or voting third party. There are really only two choices here, Obama or Romney and any alternative is equal to a vote for Obama in the effect it will have on the final tally.
Though I use the term “lesser of two evils”, I don’t really see a vote for Romney in this way. Romney was not my primary choice, but now he’s the only true choice available. He is wrong on some things, but “evil” isn’t necessarily the best
adjective in describing the difference between the two.
Romney’s simply not the best I could hope for, with many
concerns. However, the chasm that exists between the two
choices in terms of character and likely outcomes for the
nation is vast. Rest assured that he will not be rubber stamped by people like myself as he navigates his
way through his first term. Indeed, the last couple of decades have proven vigilance and participation by the
electorate is more important than ever. Romney’s harshest
critics, I believe, will be his current supporters over Obama.
As to Coulter, I view her in a similar way. She is far from perfect, but at the same time a valuable voice in general
against the typical tactics of the left. As I mentioned at another blog recently, rather than being a bully, she is one who stands up to the bullying of the left and takes them on without sugar coating a thing.
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Like I say, Coulter’s made the right enemies, but she sold out on her principles when she decided to stump so hard for Romney that she would write the incoherent “three cheers for Obamacare” piece.
A “none of the above” choice, either by not voting or by voting third-party, simply IS NOT equivalent to voting for Obama. Otherwise, what’s the effect of an actual vote for Obama? Is it like voting for Obama twice?
I agree that Obama’s evil in the sense that he supports using immoral means to advance an immoral agenda — and that’s not a bad definition for it — and I’d be willing to concede that Romney’s a good man, but that’s simply not enough. It is quite clear from his record that he’s a progressive — a managerial progressive instead of Obama the utopian progressive; a technocratic statist rather than a stealth radical.
That’s an improvement, but it’s far, FAR short of what we need to avoid the coming fiscal crisis. I thought the squishy pundits like Brooks and Christopher Buckley were crazy to think that Obama would govern like a moderate given his radical record, and I’m not going to pretend that Romney will govern as a conservative given his progressive record. That may well be the only hope we have, but it’s a foolish hope.
Seeing as I live in a very deep red state, my vote will have almost no effect on the election but a very big effect about whether I can live with my decision: if Romney cannot win my state without my vote, his campaign is already doomed.
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Ah. Then you possess a luxury that hopefully exists as strongly as you believe. How nice it would be if I could say the same of my state, Illinois, which needs to remove the entire north eastern portion in order to even pretend to be a red state.
But there is the very real issue of national mood and what it would mean should there be (but likely won’t be) a landslide
defeat of the Obama administration. Despite the Electoral
College situation, a massively lopsided popular vote would render the left fairly crippled for some time.
As to how Romney might govern, there is still a Tea Party that began to well up during the last Republican regime,
coming out publicly as an organized force with Obama. That is to say that this segment of the population was already pissed before Obama took office. I can’t see that Romney
will be rubber stamped by the people who voted for him if he doesn’t govern as a conservative. I don’t think too many of his supporters have a misconception about him, but know that Obama has to go and Romney’s track record in turning
around bad situations is what is most important now.
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I’ll probably write more later, further down so we’re not constantly nesting, but briefly: Mitt Romney has a reputation for being a turn-around artist, but King Midas is just a myth, and it’s not like turning the country around is a mystery: we need to rein in government, we need to repudiate progressivism.
Since Romney’s record clearly points to his being a progressive, it doesn’t much matter that he has a reputation for turning things around, he is VERY unlikely to be able to do what is necessary for the country. Maybe I’m wrong — and I actually hope I’m wrong — but it makes no sense for me to vote on the devoutly held wish that Romney will govern in a manner contrary to his record.
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“Reduce” the numbers with Down syndrome – by abortion. That is no reduction — that’s killing in my book and one more reason the Democrats are called the Party of Death.
I already said my piece on the word “retarded” which I won’t rehash but the hypocrisy of the Liberals is never ending. They use the vilest of foul language to describe Conservatives & Republicans and have melt downs the word “retard”, “constitution” and “black hole”. We’re dealing with either official idiots — or hypocrites.
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I’m glad I’m not the only one calling the Democratic party, the party of death.
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You’re not.
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The facts are the fact: they are the Party of Death appear to be quite proud of it. Shameful as that is.
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They like to claim it’s the REPUBLICANS who are the “party of death,” seeing as how we’re generally for guns, capital punishment, and tobacco…..whatever it means to be “for” tobacco. (Maybe it’s because we tend to oppose antismoking measures and smoke-free zones as a matter of principle.)
As far as I’m concerned, the Democrats’ tireless advocacy of abortion (usually for the flimsiest of reasons) outweighs all the rest of that put together. Especially considering that we’re for guns and for capital punishment because we like protecting good people from murderers.
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Um, Obama was the one who said that his bowling was “Special Olympics” level. So enough of these people getting their panties in a twist.
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Neil,
Good points as usual. I wish I had thought of the point regarding aborting those with Down Syndrome in my recent discussion at Dan T’s blog. I may yet use it.
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Here’s my personal breakdown on the “rightness” of voting for President.
The worst thing is to vote for Obama
The 2nd-worst thing is to not vote at all — at least vote for *somebody*, because sitting at home refusing to vote does not send any message except that you’re too lazy or apathetic to exercise the privilege of voting [not saying that all who do not vote *are* lazy or apathetic, just that that’s the only “message” that is being sent, though some apparently think that refusing to vote is sending a message of dissatisfaction].
As long as Obama loses, I don’t care who you vote for, but since it seems that Romney is the only one who has a chance of ousting Obama, I’m voting for him. I’m not voting for him because I think he’s so good, but because I think Obama really is that bad. I think Obama truly hates America and America’s founding principles and what America stands for, while I think Romney is at least patriotic and won’t intentionally screw things up as badly as Obama has, plus he won’t make a lot of the mistakes Obama has made (assuming that O’s errors and gaffes were unintentional mistakes, rather than intentional snubs, weakening of America, etc.).
I view America as a bus that is being driven towards a cliff, and we’re voting on who should drive the bus. If Obama wins, not only will he keep driving us towards the cliff, but he will stomp on the gas and drive us over as fast as he can. Romney may not move us completely away from the cliff, but I think he’ll veer us away as well as slow down. Voting for a third-party or write-in candidate is like voting for a new bus driver, but that driver isn’t even on the bus, so can’t possibly change course.
For everyone who doesn’t like the choice of Romney or Obama, starting Nov. 7, GET TO WORK making the changes that need to happen in order to get somebody else nominated and elected for President. What I see (and am guilty of myself), is that most people are content to sit back most of the time, and just come out every so often (every election), complain about the choices, vote or refuse to vote as the case may be, then sit at home home and complain about the choices some more, and do nothing afterward to get better choices. Make the change you want to see; join your local or state party; get out and get signatures; work on getting other people elected or at least nominated. Coming out every four years to “vote your conscience” or “vote for Ron Paul” or supporting the Libertarian, Constitutionalist or Conservative Presidential contender is not making any effective changes. Working to get people from such a party elected to local, state, or even federal positions *is* making a change. Trying to get a person elected President when the person’s party can’t even take one little House of Representatives seat is what is called “a pipe dream”. Break it down into “baby steps” and work on it one step at a time. Trying to get the Presidency is a giant leap… or a flying leap as the case may be.
Voting third party merely splits the conservative/ Constitutionalist/ libertarian vote, making the worst candidate get the most votes, and leading to the worst outcome. Take this anger and energy you feel right now and carry it over into Nov. 7 and beyond, and maybe *then* you’ll see some of the changes you wish.
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Very well put. Thank you.
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Yep, well said.
I’m like many social/fiscal conservatives: I wanted Perry or Bachmann back during the primaries, but Romney is who we got, and after having six months to get to know him, I do in fact feel better about his candidacy. His business experience could prove valuable in helping revive our economy. I also hope he follows through on his pledge to issue waivers from Obama Care for all 50 states, followed by full repeal….and his talk of extending the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers.
If we got both of those, I’d be inclined to re-elected him in 2016.
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I see Romney being slammed as if there is some third choice. It’s like someone being in a burning room and choosing to burn up rather than at least try to go out one of the doors because they don’ t like either door. Doing nothing is still doing something, and voting loser party is the same as doing nothing. Not one of these Utopians has been able to answer this one question for me: “how will NOT voting for Mitt get you closer to your goals, because as bad as it is, one of these guys is going to be the next president”.
What’s worse is after the election they will point their finger at those of us who voted for Mitt as if we were to blame, as if some better person would now be president if we’d only listened to them. The time for such shenanigans should have ended with the primaries… and they did for those who have a clue about the political process.
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Romney was my last choice from the GOP batch, as he was for many, but had clearly been chosen by the GOP as their candidate. He is without a doubt a far better choice than Obama, even if religious freedom is the only issue you consider.
Our job is to stay on top of things after the election and keep him on course, along with all of our elected officials, from your local city council all the way up. We have all learned that we can’t leave them on their own to do the right things.
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Bubba,
I’m wondering…do you see a Romney presidency as doing more harm to the country than four more years of Obama? If not, then my point about the effect of not voting (or voting third party) is indeed as if you had voted for Obama. First of all, third party choices are a waste considering the fact that none of them has the possibility of gaining the support to garner them enough electoral votes. They simply don’t. Consider past instances of third party candidates, particularly those who won the most support, and the current crop has no one who comes close to those losers. Then, when a third party vote is just another meant to avoid those four more years, it takes votes away from the one guy who has any real chance of beating Obama. There really is only two choices.
Secondly, to ensure Obama cannot win, there must be overwhelming support for Romney. To not vote lessens that likelihood as there is one less vote to cancel out a vote for Obama. A third party vote does the same.
So the question, it seems in your case, really comes down to whether or not you see Romney doing more harm than Obama. I can’t see that any of the GOP primary candidates could reasonably be seen as likely to do that. One must vote for Romney, and as I said, keep the heat on him and all other center-right Congressman and Senators (not to mention center-right elected officials on all levels).
I would also say that I agree that what is needed for America to turn around is no mystery. But Obama will do absolutely nothing to do what is needed. I believe Romney, at the very worst, would do enough to make a positive difference, even enough to make plain the lie of the Obama defense that it was so much worse than expected that it would take another term for him to truly right the ship.
Finally, one must consider that the track record of Romney that appears progressive (and I don’t consider him the most conservative person in the world) requires recognizing the Dem forces with which he had to deal during his time as governor. What might have been the consequences for that state had Romney NOT been governor and a true Democrat served during that period instead.
I don’t really like defending a guy I did not support in the primaries, but again, what’s the alternative. This is definitely a case, in reference to the “lesser of two evils” notion, where the devil you know is clearly NOT better than the one you don’t.
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Marshall, a third-party vote or an abstention is still NOT equivalent to a vote for Obama. A vote for Obama would change the Romney-Obama vote margin, and those other options do not.
All things being equal, a technocratic statist IS better than a stealth radical, and a managerial progressive IS better than a utopian progressive, but all things aren’t equal. It matters if the progressive has an “R” by their name, because the Republicans have already nearly ruined themselves as a true home for those who believe in a constitutionally limited federal government.
The Tea Party movement has never been pro-Republican, just anti-big government, and my suspicion is that moderates like Romney and Boehner just see the Tea Party enthusiasm as a vehicle to power BUT NOT a force to which they will be held accountable. Their rule-change shennanigans during the convention is proof enough of that.
If Romney governs like the statist that I think he is, the GOP will be done as the conservative party, and we’ll have Mark Steyn’s vision of a two-party, one-party state where the two teams argue over who can best manage Leviathian — OR we’ll have the possibly protracted chaos of the emergence of new, third party as the GOP goes the way of the Whigs.
—
About the headwinds Romney faced in Massachusetts, that’s the ground he chose, and it’s not going to be ANY easier to bring about real reform in D.C., not when the Ryan plan is treated as extreme even though it doesn’t balance the budget for another TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS.
Romney is better than Obama, but that’s simply not enough for me to support him. We have a patient in cardiac arrest, one quack is proposing poison while the other is proposing a placebo. The latter IS “less bad,” but I’m under no illusions that he’ll do more than push the time of death back a few hours.
In light of the beliefs I hold about the very serious but entirely predictable fiscal crisis we face, my standard isn’t just a comparison to the other guy. MY STANDARD IS THE CRISIS.
Is Romney adequate to the crisis? I think it’s sheer happy talk to believe that he is.
He didn’t come close to convincing me otherwise, so if he wins, he does so without my vote.
And I’ll say again that if my state of residency is in play to the point that my vote has any measurable effect on the outcome, Romney has already lost.
My vote doesn’t matter to the race, but it does matter to me, and I believe that, regardless of the outcome, I can sleep better voting the way I intend to.
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The problem is that each voter that thinks as you do is complicit in the worst possible outcome, provided there aren’t enough people to prevent that outcome. The dynamics of the voting process in this country simply does not allow for principled withholding of a vote, or the principled wasting of a vote for a third party candidate that simply
cannot and will not win. A vote that does not go to the lesser of the two evils (that are the only two possible
winners) is a benefit to the greater evil by virtue of the fact that it is one less vote that must be overcome.
It really doesn’t matter what Boehner or Romney think about
the Tea Party. What matters is what the Tea Party, and
people like them, think and do as a result of those they supported do or don’t do once in office. It’s still in the people’s hands to make the real difference and the Tea
Party tidal wave must prove it hasn’t crested yet. When Romney wins, all conservatives, all center-right citizens,
must be even more watchful, more vocal.
I can’t sleep better knowing that a vote I withheld from
Romney, the only possible candidate on the ballot with any
chance of winning over Obama, or a vote I wasted on a third party candidate with no hope whatsoever of winning the
presidency, led to four more years of who we know without
reservation is the worst possible person for president.
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You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself going my approach, so don’t go my approach. I haven’t been commenting here trying to convince you or anyone else to see things my way: I’ve just been explaining how I see them.
At first blush, you’re absolutely right that my position fails the standard of Kant’s categorical imperative of only doing what you could will universally: if everybody littered, the state park would be a wreck, so you yourself shouldn’t litter even if that one candy bar wrapper has a negligible impact.
I’ve wrestled with that, but I’ve concluded that my position is morally tenable.
This wasn’t a last-second position I reached, nor was it something that I kept to myself: I’ve spoken and written at length about my political reservations re: Romney, when asked and in response to things like the regular barrage of happy talk at the once worthwhile National Review.
If mine had not been a minority position among conservatives — if conservatives had not so quickly resigned themselves to Romney just because he’s not Obama — he would have been forced to make a stronger argument for smaller government.
Instead, the base has largely been so committed to supporting Anybody But Obama that only a small number of very observant conservatives objected to the appalling behavior of Romney’s legal team, Boehner, and the RNC in forcing rules changes on us during the convention, in the teeth of very vocal opposition.
“What matters is what the Tea Party, and people like them, think and do as a result of those they supported do or don’t do once in office.”
The RNC can change the nomination rules mid-stream, with only 3/4th support of the committe and OUTSIDE of the actual convention. I think quite a few conservatives are going to be surprised at just how muffled their voices are going to be in the GOP going forward.
THIS campaign was when we had the most power over Romney, and he and the moderate leadership in the GOP have learned precisely the wrong lesson if we want them to enact a conservative agenda.
You said it yourself:
“A vote that does not go to the lesser of the two evils (that are the only two possible winners) is a benefit to the greater evil by virtue of the fact that it is one less vote that must be overcome.”
If that claim is true now, it will ALWAYS be true for the foreseeable future. The Democratic party is now in complete control of virtual Jacobins and Bolsheviks, and so the moderate progressives in the GOP will ALWAYS be the lesser of two evils.
They can triangulate all they want, and all they have to do is clear the very, very low bar of not being overt enemies of this country, and they can trust that they’ll have your vote and the vote of those who think as you do.
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Marshall, I must ask:
Are you aware of the rules changes that were imposed early on in the convention, and how Boehner showed a ruthlessness he would NEVER show against the Democrats, pretending to be blind and deaf to the “nay” votes in the room in which he stood, all so he could pretend that the rules changes passed without objection?
Jeff G. at the brilliant blog Protein Wisdom wonders why the RNC — and it’s not just Boehner, it’s Romney and his legal team — would try to insulate itself from any future objections from the state parties and the grassroots. Do they not believe that their turn at the levers of power will validate our trust in them?
“That is, what is the Romney camp — and the non-existent GOP establishment — trying to insulate itself against, particularly if it wins the election? Or rather, going back to interest in why rather than what, why, if they are preparing for an election win, would they be working preemptively to weaken the state delegations and the grass roots movement?
“And the answer that keeps occurring to me is that the GOP must already fear a challenge to its authority from the TEA Party and the movement conservative base — they can see what’s happening at the state levels to any number of incumbents who have been defeated by upstarts and political outsiders — and they are concerned enough about such a challenge going forward that they were willing to alienate the conservatives now, at a time when We Simply Must Defeat Obama, essentially daring the base to walk away and give Obama another term, which they’ve calculated the base won’t do.
“Or, to put it another way, never let a crisis go to waste.”
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=43133
Since there will always be a crisis, the “lesser of two evils” argument will always have some amount validity, and the rank and file will predictably fall in line no matter how much the RNC tries to screw us over, because the alternative will always be even worse.
The Tea Party-energized Republicans just nominated the Massachusetts governor who passed the precursor to Obamacare, THE most singularly unpopular legislation and Reason #1 for the Tea Party’s power — and this moderate may well win today because he’s the lesser of two evils.
THAT is how little power the Tea Party has, and Romney’s team made sure that we’ll have even less power within the party from here on out.
It’s true that my position regarding Romney is very much in the minority among even solid Reaganite conservatives, and if my position is negligible in terms of impact, it means that the RNC has been given a clear signal that it paid LITERALLY NO POLITICAL PRICE for neutering the state parties and the grassroots.
I don’t think that’s the sort of signal we should be sending.
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The fact is that I do not disagree with your sentiments, just in how to deal with the situations we face (this is being typed at 2:30 in the morning after the heinous Obama victory). I do not settle for lesser of two evils, but accept that should we be presented with such a choice, the greater must not be supported. Ever. What comes afterwards is where grass roots solidarity and engagement really matters. IT still comes down to US and what we do between election
cycles, instead of leaving it alone until the next one begins, when it is already too late.
You alluded to the primaries and it is a constant demonstration of the shortcomings of the third party vote. We had how many primary candidates. Some were similar to each other, but they each drew votes away from the
other. Romney was the result of that effect. He wasn’t given to us by anyone but us. Indeed, in some ways, there was no ideal pick for me in the primaries. Do I vote third
party then, too? Now, the only bright spot is that Obama
can’t run a third time, but who might be available to turn around the crap storm that we’ll have to weather then?
Finally, I am not aware enough of the rules change to which
your refer. I can’t believe it is so foreign to me, but then, I work long night-time hours and miss a lot. Still, we’re left with Obama, so I’m totally unmoved by the news. This only indicates that I am right in believing that citizen participation is essential. The Tea Party was the result of unrest that
began well before Obama came along. As I said, I hope the tide hasn’t crested. We need to keep up the pressure more than ever, dial it up even, and this would have been true had
Romney won, especially in light of this rule change action. The lesser of two evils angle is meaningless without this
constant pressure from a citizenry that is supposed to be
governing itself. Otherwise, we will indeed be making just such a selection. We, as a nation, just aren’t in the habit. It must be a year ’round thing.
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