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Mitts gonna Mitt
Mitt Romney started the year off with a Washington Post hit piece on the president, with this headline:
Mitt Romney: The president shapes the public character of the nation. Trump’s character falls short.
Even Trump-haters are noticing how this isn’t going the way he hoped:
Yet, completely predictable.
This is the standard that has been set by many on the left/media (furthered by a small set of grifters/unhinged cultists pretending to be on the right): conservatives must abandon all positions and principles for their criticism of Trump to count. https://t.co/RiMhrn53QD
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) January 2, 2019
Romney’s op-ed earned praise from Morning Joe and Jeff Flake, and a tiny sliver of the tiny sliver that is NeverTrump.
It also earned the wrath, mockery and scorn of most of the left and right.
I know on a voting level what matters most is R or D.
But on a public discussion level, losing Orrin Hatch’s seat to Mitt hurts more than losing Flake’s seat to Sinema.
We trusted Romney with the 2012 nomination; admittedly because there were no good candidates. We voted for him in the general and Romney failed to win the election, and stuck us with four more lousy years of President Obama.
Romney should spend more time working humbly to reverse the damage he’s done, and less time grandstanding against the man who succeeded where he failed.
Published in Politics
It’s not necessarily graciousness. It could have been political calculation that went bad. Jerry Ford was probably one of the more decent men to inhabit the White House. But that doesn’t make him a saint.
I want to revise and extend my own comment here.
We don’t have example of it working at the presidential level for incumbents.
Obama was a stronger candidate in 2008 bc he had to fight a primary. There are probably other examples.
Fred, why must be have concrete examples of everything? Are we not allowed to intuit certain things? Can I prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Reagan’s challenging Ford made him stronger? Of course I can’t. I can, however, infer it, because, for example, of the way Ford campaigned. He almost overcame a deficit, I believe, of 33 points. Witness his wonderful closing speech at his convention. It was so good that people forgot it was Carter who challenged Ford to a debate. But ford went to so hard on offense, I believe it moved his numbers. He would not have been so strong, I believe, without the challenge from Reagan. Maybe it didn’t totally work; that was, however, more a result of the calendar than anything else.
John Ashbrook and Pete McCloskey primary challenged Nixon in 1972.
Richard Russell challenged Harry Truman at the 1948 Democratic convention, though in fairness, he didn’t run in any primaries, and in those days primaries didn’t dominate the selection process, state caucuses did. The southerners did walk out of that convention and then turned around and ran a 3rd party candidate in the general election against Truman, Strom Thurmond. Like George Wallace in 1968, Strom Thurmond did receive some electoral votes (39) in that election.
Fred certainly should know that was a good excuse for moving the amendment to a vote but for Americans it has been disastrous for our constitutional federal republic. As for the associated corruption it only shifted the locus.
Yep, I remember. The promise broken was why Jesse Helms endorsed and supported Reagan in the primary of 1976 and North Carolina was the first state that Reagan won in the primaries that year.
And Nixon got 87% of the primary vote, with another five percent going to “uncommitted.”
The reason nobody knows who they are is because they were never serious challenges
Sure. But you did miss one.
But it brings up some other points that’s relevant. Primary challenges usually happen because the incumbent is inherently weak and hasn’t been paying attention to all parts of the coalition that got him elected. Primary challenge or not, that inherent weakness could be the reason they go on to lose the general.
Also, as an aside, the Nixon campaign tried to say that by conducting the primary challenge, that these people were disloyal to the party (or sometimes “traitors”). The counter claim of course is they were running within the Republican Party system and they had a right as Republicans in good standing to do so.
Nixon finally admitted they were not disloyal.
Most importantly, what are the rules in Utah regarding those holding office running for another office? Are they required to resign as in some states?
In other words, if Mitt runs for President, does that mean he’ll have to resign his Senate seat? Because as things stand, he doesn’t have a chance in 2020, and we’ll be rid of him tout de suite!
No. No state can require a federal officeholder to resign anything.
What you might be confusing is those situations where a term is up, and whether that state allows one to run for two offices at once. Since the U.S. Constitution mandates states to run elections for federal office holders, they can regulate whether you can do that or not.
One example is Paul Ryan’s run for Vice President. He also ran for re-election for his House seat, and Wisconsin law allowed that.
Mitt’s senate term won’t be up in 2020, so it’s not an issue for him.
Thanks. That’s what I’m thinking then. So we’re stuck with him either way.
But what about 2024?
You can intuit all you want. But I just don’t think your premise is that strong, considering that every time it has tried, it’s failed.
Good point.
I don’t know what Utah law is. But I don’t think Romney cares. He will either run for president in 2024, or he won’t. Regardless, I don’t think he will run for another senate term.
Well, he’ll be 77 at that point, so he may not want to…
No, wait. Nevermind. This is the Senate we’re talking about.
You never change, Fred. I hardly consider almost closing a 33 point gap a failure. Without the pardon, he might have won. And it might have been with Reagan’s help. Your wanting to discount that baffles me. But then you do have that effect on me.
I’m a little surprised he ran for senate. He’s been successful in other areas of professional life. And I suspect that he has a lot of oomph in the Morman Church.
He could probably “run” for higher office within that organization, since they respect age there.
Not to mention he has lots of money. This senate stuff is for a presidential run. It would take him an additional two terms to build up enough seniority to get a committee chairmanship. Given his age, and the risk that the Republicans won’t even have a senate majority when his time came, he’s not well positioned for that.
He just can’t get rid of the presidential bug.
Look, a few things:
I handle Fred like I handle everyone else on Ricochet. I argue the issues and don’t make it personal.
That’s good. I’m the same way. It’s not personal.
Final comment:
Your discounting is just silly. Because……
Good conversation, Fred. But you started this by asking if the challenge were the factor in Ford’s losing, or was it the pardon? Now, you seem to want to argue against your own writing.
I’m not disagreeing with you about anything.
In 1976 I was still recovering from my bout of liberalism. I favored Ford, but didn’t think there was a huge difference between him and Carter. A mistake on my part.
In summer 1980 I wrote a letter urging Ford to run. I thought he would be better than Reagan. Another mistake on my part. I was glad when Reagan won, but it was not until I saw that he meant what he said about tax cuts that I became a fan. By 1980 I was already used to Republicans backing down from their promises, and assumed Reagan would do the same. Finding out that we had elected somebody who meant what he said was new and exciting.
He has delusions of relevance?
I enjoyed Sen. Paul’s response on Cavuto to Romney’s op-ed:
That was nice. Rand Paul and Linsey Graham don’t really like each other. They have both come out with pretty similar responses to Mitt. IF this was how Mitt was going to move from freshman Senator to leading voice, it does not look like it worked.
Agreed. I think Mitt expected this to play out very differently. I think most Trump-haters, including most of the “balls & strikes” pols & pundits really misunderstand Repub voters and particularly the Late-Trumpers. I have a ton of respect for Senators Paul & Graham who were in vicious primary battles with Trump but eventually accepted his victory and came around to work with him
“Romney’s part of the crowd that wants to send our money overseas forever. They love foreign aid and they love war.” Rand Paul
OUCH!
Rand will never be President, and to me that’s a damn shame!
I love Rand, but I don’t agree with him enough to want him as president.
What I was looking forward to for 2 years was Rand, Rubio, Cruz, Walker and others debating actual issues on the national stage. That would have been awesome. Then the orange man came and we debated hand size.