Where’s Romney’s Severe Conservatism?

In The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes gave a run-down on where the Presidential race is at this point, concluding that we are at a dead heat with a liberal and a non-ideologue. Hayes points out the far-left liberalism on display at the Democratic Convention, and the “he’s a nice guy” attitude of the Republican Convention.

In Tampa, the Republicans emphasized competence over ideology. Their critiques of President Obama, particularly in the 10 p.m. hour when most people were watching, focused on his mismanagement of the economy and not his misguided views. And the tone was one of disappointment, not anger. “I wish President Obama had succeeded,” Romney said, “because I want America to succeed.” Although Obama has expanded the government more than any president since Lyndon Johnson, and arguably since Franklin Roosevelt, none of the prime-time speakers at the Republican convention labeled him “liberal.”
That’s odd.

Sure it’s odd, if you assumed Mitt Romney was going to go full-throated conservative which is what Reagan did. But there were absolutely no indications prior to the convention that Romney was a conservative, save the cheerleading from the moderate wing, trying to convince us that Romney is Reagan, just without the conservative label, which was impossible to begin with.

The fact is, with all the comparisons between Romney and Reagan by DC bubble-dwellers, Romney is not Reagan. You don’t become Reagan by surrounding yourself with people who are Reaganesque, you understand what Reagan stood for, and why he stood for it. Reagan read about and wrote about conservatism for decades, he knew it, he was conservatism. Romney said he was severely conservative and won CPAC awards, but that doesn’t make him conservative, and that’s the problem.

Not to rehash the primaries, but that was the major reason Romney didn’t win 70% of most Republican votes in any given state early on, because the nation is conservative, and we were arguing about which conservative was going to be the best to go against Obama. It was the Republican Party cheerleaders who picked Romney.

That said, I think Romney can win, but if he plans to break out of this tie by remaining non-ideological, he’d better think again.

More voters identify themselves as conservatives than liberals—one reason conservatives are usually happy to apply that label to themselves and liberals often prefer euphemisms like “progressive.” The latest Gallup survey on ideology finds 41 percent of Americans consider themselves “conservative” and just 23 percent “liberal” (with 33 percent preferring “moderate”).
The same poll finds that conservatives do even better when the question concerns the economy. Some 46 percent of Americans consider themselves “conservative” on economic issues, while just 20 percent describe themselves as “liberal” on economics (and 32 percent say “moderate”). Shouldn’t Romney be using these labels at every opportunity?

In fact Mark Levin described it in Liberty and Tyranny, as conservatism versus non-conservatism, that conservatism is liberty and non-conservatism is tyranny, and,

“Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.”

It’s clear Obama is no moderate. With liberalism on parade at the DNC, booing God, the example Hayes gives about Barney Frank and the like, you would think a person only minimally paying attention could at least discern that much. Yet with all the hype surrounding the Ryan pick as a way to “solidify the base,” because the base is conservative, Romney can’t sit around as a moderate non-ideologue and hope he’ll eek out a win.

It seems to me Romney is relying on Ryan’s articulation of conservative ideology, and figures that should suffice. But the position creates an oxymoron.

“I wish President Obama had succeeded,” Romney said, “because I want America to succeed.”

This is a buzz phrase created to accept the liberal argument following Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails,” comment. The liberals went batty over Rush’s comment, saying that Rush must want America to fail. This effort by the campaign consultants to accept liberal arguments is a waste of time, effort, and my guess is, a hell of a lot of money. So if Obama is liberal, his Keynesian model, his raiding of medicare, his printing of money, his takeover of major industry and the nation’s health care system, why in the hell would you want him to succeed? And if he succeeds, doesn’t that mean we become Greece? Doesn’t that mean America fails?

Rush Limbaugh said it right, “I hope he fails.” The nation is not stupid, they can understand this concept.

If Romney has hidden his “severe” conservatism, he’d better find it, or Obama will succeed in destroying America completely in a second term.