The Gay Republican #3 - Romney's Poll

Like a good American, I voted this Super Duper Tuesday. And like a good Republican, I voted early, by absentee ballot. The forty-one cents that it cost in first class postage was a cheap price to pay not to have to stand in line at a polling place, thinking “This is southern California; I bet I’m the only human in this room with enough brains to assemble a political thought other than ‘Fuck Bush.’”

This article won’t be posted for your consumption, dear reader, until (probably) Thursday, so its contents will hold sway over precisely nobody’s voting decision. But a news graphic in today’s Daily News provided some consolation; it announced that in Los Angeles County there are about 1.9 million registered Democrat voters and about 1.0 million Republicans. Consider as well the fact that the California Republican Party holds a closed primary, meaning that only registered Republicans can vote for the Republican nominee. Add to those two facts a third: the likely audience for this narrative’s venue is young, tattooed, and doesn’t have a 401(k). I think you’ll agree that even if this article had been published on Saturday, its effectiveness as a conservative electoral influence would still roughly equate to the effectiveness of a banner ad for Jim Cramer’s Mad Money on TheHungerSite.com!

(Aside: TheHungerSite.com is a gleaming illustration of the vapidity of liberalism. You go to the site, click a button, and it tells you that you just donated “a cup of food” to feed the hungry.
Really? My mouse click did that? Obviously not, but it makes the clicker feel as though his sheer “caring” made a difference. So you make your non-sacrifice, and you receive a belly full of happy feelings in return. Maybe tomorrow you’ll buy a TerraPass for your car; if you’re simple-minded enough to believe that your mouse-click fed a starving Ethiopian, then you’ll probably also swallow the idea that you can assuage your car-driving eco-guilt for a year by paying somebody on the other side of the planet $60 to reduce his carbon emissions accordingly.)

Rather than dance around it, I’ll just come out with it: I like Mitt Romney….

I have throughout the race. He’s a handsome, intelligent, well-spoken former Governor, who enjoyed fabulous success governing a state where his traditional Mormon roots put him at odds with a very liberal population. He implemented a universal health care system in Massachusetts that precludes (further) government bloat. (It works like car insurance: If you live in Mass, then you must carry health insurance. And if your employer doesn’t provide it and you can’t afford it, then the state will assist in paying for it.) Also, Romney has a track record of enviable business acumen, which would be well put to use helping our nation excel in a global economy.
And as if that’s not enough, he has five HOT sons. Have you seen those boys? Ben, Craig, Josh, Matt, and Tagg.

Gleaming, clean, pure-bred, Latter-Day fetish objects; the whole lot. If you figure that about 10% of the population is gay, then the odds of at least one of those boys being light in the loafers is about 41%. (If you’re scratching your head about where that number came from, stop reading this article immediately and go donate a cup of food at The Hunger Site.)

If Craig Romney ends up being the Mary of the group, I call “dibs!”

Anyway, Mitt Romney is the only viable conservative left in the race, so he’s my guy. I was leaning toward Fred Thompson for a bit, but he’s gone. I think that a Romney-Giuliani ticket would blow away either Hillary or Obama (or both) so that’s what I’m hoping for. At press time (figuratively speaking) the California polls have not closed yet, but Mitt Romney seems to be leading.

Other states however, as I see them on CNN.com right now, aren’t looking so good for Mitt.

The American press (with the glaring exception of right-wing talk radio) is audibly salivating over the possibility of Senator Lockjaw McCain being the Republican nominee. And by the look of things, their odds are improving by the day. My question is this:

What’s his appeal? To the Republican Party base, I mean. What does he offer us?

The Hanoi Hilton thing? Is that it? Enduring enemy torture might earn you a medal of honor, but it’s not the criteria we use to select our leaders.

I get the sense from what little TV news I see that there’s a common sentiment among voters that it’s John McCain’s “turn”. The nomination contest in 2000 was a close one (not really - he withdrew in March of 2000 - but people seem to remember it that way) and it was an ugly one and McCain has paid his dues and now it’s 2008 and it’s McCain’s turn.
This, to me, is the wildest imaginable perversion of electoral fundamentals.

Elections aren’t about the “rights” of the candidates! Elections are about the “rights” of the electorate. John McCain’s “my turn!” claim on the 2008 Republican nomination is about as valid as my claim on Craig Romney’s nipples.

My real problem with McCain though is simply the inverse of my affinity for Mitt Romney. McCain isn’t a conservative. His modus operandi is all pragmatism and no principle. If it’s politically expedient to oppose tax cuts or propose campaign contribution limits or nominate liberal judges, he’ll do it. And the press loves him for it, granting him fawning interviews and referring to him as a “maverick”, which only reinforces his bad behavior. The next time Katie Couric or Christiane Amanpour offer to lionize him for kneeing his Republican base squarely in the groin, he’ll do it again.

Strangely (or perhaps not) the reason McCain seems to be doing so well in the Republican primaries is that non-Republicans are voting for him. McCain has yet to win a majority, or even a plurality, of the conservative base Republican vote in any primary so far, with the shady exception of Florida. Romney gets those votes. McCain gets his support from independents and Democrats who ask for Republican ballots at the polls (see: South Carolina). This is a twist that makes me wonder why any of the state parties – Republican or Democrat – would allow non-members to help pick their nominees. Some think that it’s a clever idea, that sacrificing party self-determination will result in a more moderate candidate who will therefore be more “electable.” I, however, beg to differ. And I offer a counter-intuitive observation: Electability does not win elections.

Exhibit A: John Kerry.

Ronald Reagan defined conservatism as a three-legged stool; the three legs being fiscal policy, foreign policy, and social policy. Mitt Romney may have gone through his evolutions, but he seems to sit solidly on all three legs of the conservative stool. John McCain, on the other hand, seems to occupy all, any, or none, from day to day, depending on his mood (or perhaps his pollsters).

Conservatives – even moderate ones – had better wise up and start seeing through John McCain’s folksy “straight talk” myth, or else we’re all going to wind up having our conservative stool pushed in.

And not in a good way!