Mitt's "Flips" to the ConCentrist Right... Newt's "Flops" to the un-Reagan Left
Author: Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak.org
Source: TrueSpeak.org -- February 22, 2012
Although Mitt Romney prevailed by wide margins in Florida and Nevada in his quest for the Republican nomination for President last month, former US Senator Rick Santorum greatly slowed the Romney Express by more recent surprise victories in Colorado, Missouri and Michigan.
But still, the odds are substantial that Mr. Romney -- rather than an upstart Santorum or a fast-fading Newt Gingrich -- will eventually become the GOP nominee for the Presidency and, as such, mankind’s last hope for an Obama-free America.
Under these circumstances,
voters and analysts of all stripes should be examining the validity
of the "flip-flopper" albatross which has been hung so heavily
on the man – both by the billion-dollar attack-dog Obama campaign
and especially by fellow Republican Newt Gingrich, who has been quite
a busy “flip-flopper” himself in recent years.
Before getting to Romney’s case, let us look at Newt’s long list of liberal and left-wing dalliances – most of which have come long after his laudable roles in both the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s and the Gingrich-Kemp Revolution of the 1990s. But unlike the former House Speaker’s earlier heroics in the Congress, several recent and current detours into what we might call the “un-Reagan Left” have been wholly self-serving and highly non-conservative flirtations …
(a) with Nancy Pelosi’s and Al Gore’s “Global Warming” scam,
(b) with ObamaCare’s universal mandatory healthcare insurance,
(c) with Al Gore’s
and George Soros’ perverse Cap and Trade scheme,
(d) with Fannie and Freddie’s
2006-08 scramble to avoid Congressional auditing,
(e) with three successive
wives and allegedly other “skirts” on Capitol Hill,
(f) with an attack on
Paul Ryan’s MediChoice plan as “right-wing social engineering,”
(g) with self-serving
language-of-the-Left attacks on venture capitalism,
(h) with Obama and others who favor quasi-amnesty for many illegal aliens,
(i) with Geo. Soros in
demonizing Center-Right Romney as “Obama-lite” and
(j) with derisive finger-pointing
at the low 15-percent capital gains tax which applies to
much of Romney’s “enormous wealth,” as he puts it in Obaman class-warfare
lingo.
Remarkably, Newt’s
negativity toward the jobs-creating
capital gains tax rate comes hand-in-hand with a “jobs-cremating”
Barack Obama, who wants to raise that rate to 20 or even 30-percent
-- but when many of our jobs-friendly competitors (Japan, Hong Kong,
Germany, Singapore and others) have none at all.
Good grief! … Que pasa? ... What would the late, great Ronald Reagan think about Newt’s self-destructive, misguided and un-Reagan departures from authentic conservatism? Would he have considered any of these treks to the Left as “winning one more for the Gipper?”
Truth be known, Reagan
in absentia might even be tempted to violate his own so-called “Eleventh
Commandment” in severely reprimanding today’s often erratic neo-Newt
for his multiple deviances from straight and narrow Reaganism.
And yet, in many of his “think tank” and truth-in-history endeavors – e.g., inspiring documentary films, patriotic America-first history books and thoughtful public policy “white papers” -- the old-time “Mister Speaker” Gingrich has often risen from the ashes and temporarily replaced the worrisome left-leaning neo-Newt intruder pictured above.
So, how is today’s American public to know whether it would be voting for a reliable Doctor Jeckyl or for a dangerous Mister Hyde? Newt’s problem is that the voters do not know – no more than they know yet whether Mitt Romney is or is not a shameless "flip-flopper."
But Now, Back From Newtland to Mittland
It is no small wonder
that Romney’s polling numbers were stuck for so long in the mid-twenties
– when neither he nor anyone in his behalf has offered a convincing
narrative as to why the man is surely NOT the unprincipled, unreliable
“weathervane” that the derisive “flip-flop” label implies.
In the detailed evaluation
below, please recognize that while Mitt has, indeed, changed many earlier
public policy positions in recent years, all of these "flips"
seem to have been in the center-right and
"moderate conservative" directions.
He still has a bit of positive “flipping” to go (e.g., re the minimum
wage and the “very poor” issues), but so far so good.
And while there is no absolute GUARANTEE that these positions will remain intact, there has apparently been no "flopping back" to positions which were once more centrist or even center-left. For example, the new-and-improved Mitt Romney has become
o Increasingly pro-Life (based on both medical science and 10th Amd’t States' Rights)
o Increasingly pro-Second Amendment "Gun Rights"
o Increasingly
tough on illegal immigration and on border security
o Increasingly
anti-ObamaCare (born of universal HillaryCare, not one-state MittCare)
o Increasingly
supportive of Paul Ryan's "MediChoice" versus Obama's "MediCrash"
o Increasingly
supportive of enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
o Increasingly
supportive of Simpson-Bowles spending cuts & early Budget balancing
o Increasingly
critical of the pseudo-science of the Global Warming “ClimateScam”
o Increasingly
tough on national security and Defense Department funding issues
o Increasingly a Tea Parties "ConCentrist" (the concise new label for the Center-Right)
Importantly, this new ConCentrism defines both the Tea Parties and Mitt Romney himself far more accurately than do the “ultra-right” and "radical extremist" labels hurled at virtually all Republicans by the Left – but will seem extreme when applied to Romney.
And just as importantly,
this correct new ism makes legitimate claim to major parts of the “centrist”
and “vital centrist” labels that today’s leftists and ultra-liberals
so fervently and so deceitfully wish to co-opt for themselves.
Reagan's Rule -- Trust but Verify
At a time when “change” is all the rage, does this not entitle Mitt Romney to Reagan’s "Trust but Verify” chance to verify the stability and durability of his multiple moves to the ConCentrist Right?
After all, is this not
the kind of rightward change for the better we seek in millions of well-intentioned
but confused independents and centrists who were so thoroughly seduced
by the “OPRAH Land” (Obama-Pelosi-Reid-And-
But this is not sufficient for Gingrich, who insists on bemoaning and berating almost anyone (including Romney and Rick Santorum) who is more “moderate” and less “Reagan Conservative” than he once was -- before his several recent "Quondam Fi" (no longer faithful) lurches to the Left.
Finally, if further verification of Romney's bona fides is needed, we should notice that along with all of his policy changes for the better, the man has maintained and strengthened his fine reputation as an exemplary family man, a serious person of religious faith and high ethics, a hugely successful and jobs-creating businessman, a proven manager of complex bureaucracies, and a thoughtful and experienced leader with sufficient wisdom and "gravitas" to be a good President – even a great President if he keeps “flipping” in the correct direction.
And in that connection, it seems to this observer that Mitt’s steady growth in this neo-ConCentrist direction is made all the more believable, comforting and even energizing by a similar trek from left-wing to liberal to center-left to center-right and finally to “true conservative” several decades ago by a young “New Deal” Democrat and Hollywood union leader whose not yet famous name at the time was Ronald “Dutch” Reagan.
JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak.org 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com
A Washington DC-area attorney, writer and national security strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long of Louisiana. His TrueSpeak.org Web site is devoted to truth in language and truth in history in public discourse.
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Author’s Note:
For a related essay about Romney’s several “Flips” to the ConCentrist
Right but which also addresses the issues (a) of universal ObamaCare’s
model being universal HillaryCare rather than single-state RomneyCare,
(b) of a possible ConCentrist Romney-Santorum ticket, and (c) the outlines
of a “SuperStar” Cabinet, please refer to http://truespeak.org/contents/