Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
I can't help but think this latest endorsement of Mitt Romney means that Paul Rahe might be right.
When I think of Bissinger, I think of Friday Night Lights and 3 Nights in August, of course. But when I think of his politics, I think of him as a loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed progressive.
And yet he just wrote a piece headlined "Why I’m Voting for Mitt Romney" that lays out the case in detail. His prelude:
This is not a frivolous decision, nor is it an easy one. I grew up on the Upper West Side of New York, arguably the country’s nexus of liberalogy, where it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least as a child to discover that my parents, along with all the other attendees in some basement garret reminiscent of the French Resistance, had thrown eggs at Abbie Hoffman at a political get-together because he wasn’t liberal enough.
Voting for a president is based on a combination of factual and emotional perception. The tipping point was last week’s debate in Denver. Romney finally did what he should have done all along instead of his balky cha cha with the old white men of the conservative Republican wing: he acted as the moderate he is, for the first time running as himself, not against himself, embracing his record as governor of Massachusetts.
I have never seen a performance worse than Obama’s, distracted, his head dipped into the podium as if avoiding the smell of something rotten, acting above the very idea that a debate does provide a pivotal referendum on his first term as it has for all incumbent presidents, whipsawed by the legion of usual advisers telling him to play defense when his own intuition should have told him that he needed to go on the offensive as Romney slapped him around.
But there was more than the entitlement of entitlement. He struck me as burnt out, tired of selling his message although he has always been terrible at selling his message when it veers from idealism into the practical.
By instinct I still cling to my Democrat roots. But I admit that as I get older, on the cusp of 58, I am moving more to the center or even tweaking right, or at least not tied to any ideology. Those making more than $250,000 should pay more taxes, and that does include me. But I also am tired of Obama’s constant demonization, of those he spits out as “millionaires and billionaires,” as pariahs. Romney’s comments at a fundraiser were stupid, but 47 percent of Americans do not pay federal income taxes. Yes, a majority are poor and seniors. But millions do not pay such taxes with incomes of more than $50,000, and whether it’s as little as $10, every American should contribute both as a patriotic obligation and skin in the game. This is our country, not our country club.
He gets into specifics, and mentions that he expects this message to cost him friends.
But I found it striking that the 47 percent message -- something that is supposed to be so devastating for Romney -- plays a part in a member of the cultural elite turning from Obama.
The whole thing is interesting. Probably few here at Ricochet -- whether libertarian, RINO, conservative or something else -- share much of Bissinger's politics. But many here are now part of the same coalition. Perhaps those polls will be shifting some more in coming days.
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Feb '12
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Scott [roy-sir]:
Uncle Milt, Reagan, Gingrich, W, Santorum, Perry, et al -- and, yes, Romney -- are not wrong to encourage the poor and just-gettin'-started young families to hop on those first rungs of the economic ladder by keeping their taxes low or non-existent (income taxes, that is -- they pay plenty of others) at those early stages. It's good, conservative policy: get 'em climbing, and they'll pay their share soon enough.
Yeah, I sure wish I had option of choosing between losing 15% of my paycheck for income taxes, that actually do things I might benefit from, and "payroll" taxes, which are nothing but old people welfare, old sick people welfare, poor sick people welfare, and I-won't-take-a-job-that's-beneath-me welfare.
Apr '11
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Todd:"Romney finally...acted as the moderate he is."
I've heard this a few times now, yet I don't know any conservatives who watched the debate who feel as though he has abandoned them.
So either Romney was able to "thread the needle" and appeal to both groups by speaking out of both sides of his mouth, or perhaps, conservative ideas, when articulated well, have a very broad appeal. · 8 hours ago
Edited 8 hours ago
What people want is a leader. Probably more than anything else, our country lack leadership either liberal, moderate or conservative. That is Obama's greatest weakness. Last Wednesday on that stage Romney showed that he can command. I think that is naturally appealing to anyone who realizes the mess we are in.
May '10
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Well said. That is what Bissinger probably means by Romney acting like "the moderate he is" — he means Romney's talk of working with Democrats in the state legislature of Massachusetts ("reaching across the aisle").
It's a foolish dream to think cooperation with Democrats on the core issues will bring us anything other than what it has brought us this past century (more powerful, centralized government), but it is still an attractive dream which many voters latch onto.
Bipartisanship is killing this nation. It's fine among allies, but ruinous among ideological enemies. The America we hope to preserve and restore is nothing like the America liberals seek to impose.
Apr '11
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Douglas
I don't think he abandoned conservatives because I don't think he IS one, and never has been.
Right on. No conservative, even at the state level, would have enacted RomneyCare.
We're not getting a conservative, the RNC saw to that.
We're getting a guy who might be able to beat Obama. Right now, that's enough to get my vote. I fully expect to oppose the majority of President Romney's policies as President. This is better than opposing all of the policies of Obama.
That's the best this election offers.
Jan '11
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Bissinger, like most Upper West Side Democrats (no matter where they live) really wants Hillary Clinton to be President.
That is the true story of the Wednesday debate shellacking, a narrative that, if Obama wins a second term, you will see played out in Democrat and media circles for the next four years.
Obama will be "pensioned out" and the so-called Democrat realists - Hillary and Bill - will make their return, trumpeted by a chastened media elite.
Bad times do not birth stronger desires for liberty. As the New Deal showed, and as America's inner cities continue to show decade after decade, bad times make people hunger for security, the safe old thing.
As America's position internationally erodes so blatantly that even Democrats are embarrassed, and as the economy tanks in the double-dip recession we all fear is baked in the cake , the response within the establishment and the country will be for compassionate competence, not Tea Party revanchism, vouchers and economic free marketeering.
Sorry fellow conservatives. We've forgotten to demonize the third-rate mediocrity we have for Secretary of State. We've left the line of retreat open.
Elect no Democrat anywhere, ever.
Jul '11
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Patrickb63
This puts a picture in my mind of Harry Reid raising his head and beginning to sing "My mind is clearer now, at last I can see where we all soon will be"
Edited for spelling. · 2 hours ago
Edited 2 hours ago
"And all the Bad you've done, will soon be swept away, you thought you mattered more, than our whole country."
I love the reference by the way.
May '11
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
DocJay
Patrickb63
This puts a picture in my mind of Harry Reid raising his head and beginning to sing "My mind is clearer now, at last I can see where we all soon will be"
Edited for spelling. · 2 hours ago
Edited 2 hours ago
"And all the Bad you've done, will soon be swept away, you thought you mattered more, than our whole country."
I love the reference by the way. · 1 hour ago
"You have set them all on fire
They think they've found the new Messiah
And they'll hurt you when they find they're wrong"......
or will they?
Apr '11
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
Jeff
Douglas
I don't think he abandoned conservatives because I don't think he IS one, and never has been.
Right on. No conservative, even at the state level, would have enacted RomneyCare.
We're not getting a conservative, the RNC saw to that.
We're getting a guy who might be able to beat Obama. Right now, that's enough to get my vote. I fully expect to oppose the majority of President Romney's policies as President. This is better than opposing all of the policies of Obama.
That's the best this election offers. · 2 hours ago
Can you identify any policies in Romney's platform that you currently oppose?
Could you identify policies in McCain's (eg. Immigration), Bush's (NCLB), and Bush's (ADA) platforms that you disagreed with?
Aug '10
Re: Buzz Bissinger Endorses ... Mitt Romney?
"Behold the god who bleeds!"