Mitt Romney The Next John Kerry

Joesph Curl - Think about it: Mitt Romney and John F. Kerry are two Boston blue-blood multimillionaires, spending summers in their island estates and winters in their mountain mansions; both are recidivist flip-floppers with long records of often indefensible 180s; and each was going up against a supremely unpopular — the catch word is “beatable” — president.
Both are stiff, highly programmed and have problems connecting with voters.
Both failed to energize the electorate during the run-up to caucuses and primaries (Mr. Kerry ran behind Howard Dean for months, and Mr. Romney has trailed just about everyone, including a guy pitching something called the “9-9-9 plan”). And both were “next in line.”
Sure, there are dozens of differences, but there are also a slew of similarities stretching back to their youths. Both were prep school prodigies then — Mr. Kerry was Yale, Mr. Romney, Harvard. Both suffered embarrassing political drubbings early in their careers, with Mr. Romney, flopping from independent to Republican and running hard away from President Reagan in his loss to Ted Kennedy, and Mr. Kerry, a carpetbagger, getting his hat handed to him by a guy named Paul W. Cronin.
Both then took the state route to power, Mr. Kerry running for lieutenant governor, Mr. Romney, two decades years later, for governor (and this time it was “Willard” who had the residency issues). Both ran as political outsiders, a proven path to victory, and a strategy each would employ in their presidential campaigns. (Incidentally, Mr. Kerry’s boss was another giant Democratic loser, Michael Dukakis.)
But unlike Mr. Kerry, who had only ceremonial duties, Mr. Romney ran the state. There, he raised gas taxes, but he also cut spending by $1.6 billion. Mr. Kerry worked on “acid rain.” (Another difference, just FYI: Mr. Romney earned his millions; Mr. Kerry married a ketchup heiress.)
For his part, Mr. Romney is well aware of the coming comparisons. Just this month, while handing out sub sandwiches aboard his campaign press bus in New Hampshire, he joked:
“Roast beef. Any roast beefs? Going once. Veggie. There we go. Ham. Ham?
“What are you guys eating back here? What do you guys want? Filet mignon with some brie, is that it back here? What’s going on. Some arugula? That’s the John Kerry bus back there, I’m sorry.”
But there are spectacular differences, too, between the two Brahmin blue-bloods. First and foremost, Mr. Kerry picked Bob Shrum as his campaign manager. The former aide for Edmund Muskie and George McGovern sports a disastrous record: He handled Dick Gephardt’s losing 1988 presidential campaign, then worked for Bob Kerrey, who lost the nomination to Bill Clinton. Need we mention his work for Al Gore? ‘Nuff said. (Although he did work for Mr. Kennedy in his 1994 victory over Mr. Romney.)
Mr. Romney, on the other hand, has surrounded himself with a top-notch team of battle-tested political veterans. Behind the scenes is Matt Rhoades, former communications director for the Massachusetts governor’s first presidential run in 2008 who also served as research director for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004.
Even further behind the scenes is Eric Fehrnstrom, the mastermind behind Scott P. Brown’s 2010 ascension to the Senate seat Mr. Kennedy held for nearly 47 years. Sure, Mr. Brown will lose in a landslide in 2012, but still, that’s pretty amazing to win that seat. PR vet Gail Gitcho runs the communication shop — an A-team pro. Plus, many members of the 2008 squad are back, and it’s already clear they aren’t making the mistakes they made last time.
More different, though, are the incumbents. Mr. Bush was despised by the mainstream media, of course, but Americans weren’t convinced. They looked at the world, fraught with problems, and in Mr. Kerry, they just didn’t see a man able to handle them.
Mr. Obama is dramatically different from Mr. Bush: He isn’t waging a war half a world away, he is battling the U.S. economy, and losing badly. (This, Americans do get.) Mr. Obama looks awfully small — hardly a Clinton or Reagan, who each won re-election handily — and is far more like Jimmy Carter (right down to the whole America-is-letting-us-all-down schtick). Hardcore Democrats can hardly stand him. Independents who put him in office are bailing in droves. That energized youth? Yeah, not so much this time.
And most different is this: Mr. Kerry ran a very negative campaign, blitzing the airwaves with all that was wrong with Mr. Bush and, especially, America.
You know who doesn’t like that? Americans
So ponder this, Mr. Romney’s closing ad in Iowa:
“When generations of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, one thing they knew beyond any doubt … is they were coming to a place where anything was possible; that in America, their children would have a better life.
“I believe in that America. The spirit of enterprise, innovation, pioneering and can-do propelled our standard of living and economy past that of any other nation on Earth.
“And in the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense. And I intend to make it because I have lived it.
“We stand for freedom and opportunity and hope. The principles that made this nation a great and powerful leader of the world have not lost their meaning — they never will.
“I’m Mitt Romney, I believe in America, and I’m running for President of the United States.”
Not exactly John Kerry, is it?

Gov. Romney Only Canidate Is Right On The Two Most Important Issues

Ann Coulter -  In the upcoming presidential election, two issues are more important than any others: repealing Obamacare and halting illegal immigration. If we fail at either one, the country will be changed permanently.
Taxes can be raised and lowered. Regulations can be removed (though they rarely are). Attorneys general and Cabinet members can be fired. Laws can be repealed. Even Supreme Court justices eventually die.
But capitulate on illegal immigration, and the entire country will have the electorate of California. There will be no turning back.
Similarly, if Obamacare isn't repealed in the next few years, it never will be.
America will begin its ineluctable descent into becoming a worthless Western European country, with rotten health care, no money for defense and ever-increasing federal taxes to support the nanny state.
So let's consider which of the Republican candidates are most likely to succeed at these objectives.
In order to allow Democrats to indignantly denounce Republicans who said Obamacare would add to the deficit, the bill was structured so that no goodies get paid out immediately. That way, when the Congressional Budget Office was asked to determine if Obamacare was "revenue neutral" over its first 10 years, government accountants were looking at a bill that collected taxes for 10 years, but only distributed treats in the later years.
Starting at year 11, those accountants will be in for a big surprise when the government starts paying out Obamacare benefits without interruption.
Because of this accounting fraud, Obamacare can still be repealed. But as soon as all Americans have been thrown off their employer-provided insurance plans and are forced to start depending on the government for health care, Republicans will never be able to repeal it.
The vast complex of unionized government workers managing our health care from Washington will fight to keep their jobs (for more on this topic, see the Department of Education), voters will want their "free" government treats (for more on this topic, see Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) -- and even if they don't, there won't be a private insurance market for them to go back to (for more on this topic, see IRS rules favoring employer-provided health care).
The only way to stop Obamacare is to beat Obama in 2012, and repeal it before the health care Leviathan is born.
Otherwise, starting in 2016, Republicans will run for office promising only to improve Obamacare. Newt Gingrich will be calling plans to reform it "right-wing social engineering."
All current Republican presidential candidates say they will overturn Obamacare. The question for Republican primary voters should be: Who is most likely to win?
2012 is not a year for a wild card. It's not a year for any candidate who will end up being the issue, instead of making Obama the issue. It's not a year for one wing of the Republican Party to be making a point with another wing. (And there are no Rockefeller Republicans left, anyway.) It's not a year to be gambling that America will vote for its first woman president, or that the country is ready for a nut-bar libertarian.
Running against an incumbent president in a make-or-break election, Republicans need a candidate with a track record of winning elections with voters similar to the entire American electorate.
Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have never had to win votes beyond small, majority-Republican congressional districts.
Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have won statewide elections, but Huntsman and Perry ran in extremely red states that don't resemble the American electorate. Only Romney and Santorum have won a statewide election in a blue state, making them our surest-bets in a general election.
But if Santorum wins, we lose on the second most important issue -- illegal immigration -- and he'll be the last Republican ever to win a general election in America.
Just as Americans ought to be able to learn the perils of a welfare state by looking at Greece, we ought to be able to learn the perils of illegal immigration by looking at California.
Massive legal and illegal immigration has already so changed the California electorate that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore. Not so long ago, this was a state that produced great Republican governors and senators like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, S.I. Hayakawa and Pete Wilson.
If even Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two bright, attractive, successful female business executives -- one pro-life and one pro-choice -- can't win a statewide election in California spending millions of their own dollars in the middle of the 2010 Republican sweep, it's buenas noches, muchachos.
And yet, almost all Republican presidential candidates support some form of amnesty for illegals in order to appeal to the business lobby.
Among the most effective measures against illegal immigration is E-Verify, the Homeland Security program that gives employers the ability to instantly confirm that their employees' Social Security numbers are legitimate. It is more than 99 percent accurate, and no employee is denied a job without an opportunity to challenge the records.
Although wildly popular with Americans -- including Hispanic Americans -- the business lobby hates E-Verify. Employers like hiring non-Americans because they can pay illegal aliens less and ignore state and federal employment laws.
Any candidate who opposes E-Verify is not serious about illegal immigration. If anything, E-Verify ought to be made mandatory to get a job, to get welfare and to vote.
Kowtowing to business (while pretending to kowtow to Hispanics), Paul, Perry and Santorum oppose E-Verify. As a senator, Rick Santorum voted against even the voluntary use of E-Verify.
Jon Huntsman claims to support E-Verify, but also wants to give illegals amnesty as soon as the border is sealed -- as determined by someone other than us. Also, he gave driver's identification cards to illegal aliens in Utah. (You'd think a guy no one has ever heard of would be more careful about ID cards.)
Following his latest guru, Helen Krieble, Newt Gingrich is for amnesty, combined with second-class status for illegals. Instead of giving illegal aliens green cards, Newt proposes giving them "red cards" so they can stay, take American jobs, have children, receive welfare benefits, attend public schools -- and eventually be granted amnesty. The Republican primaries will be over before most voters realize what Newt's "red card" scheme entails.
Only Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney aren't trying to sneak through amnesty for illegal aliens. Both support E-Verify.
Numbers USA, one of the leading groups opposed to our current insane immigration policies, gives Republican presidential candidates the following grades on immigration: Paul, F; Gingrich, D-minus; Huntsman, D-minus; Santorum, D-minus; Perry, D; Romney, C-minus; and Bachmann, B-minus.
And that was before Romney said last week that Obama's drunk-driving, illegal alien uncle should be deported!
That leaves us with Romney and Bachmann as the candidates with the strongest, most conservative positions on illegal immigration. As wonderful as Michele Bachmann is, 2012 isn't the year to be trying to make a congresswoman the first woman president.
Two Little Indians sitting in the sun; one was just a congresswoman and then there was one.

Rassmussen Poll: Romey 45% Obama 39%

Mitt Romney has now jumped to his biggest lead ever over President Obama in a hypothetical Election 2012 matchup. It’s also the biggest lead a named Republican candidate has held over the incumbent in Rasmussen Reports surveying to date.
The latest national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the former Massachusetts governor, while 39% prefer the president. Ten percent (10%) like some other candidate in the race, and six percent (6%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 
A week ago, Romney trailed Obama 44% to 41%.  The week before that, he held a slight 43% to 42% edge over the president. The two candidates have been essentially tied in regular surveys since January, but Romney remains the only GOP hopeful to lead Obama in more than one survey. Despite Romney’s current six-point lead, his latest level of support is in line with the 38% to 45% he has earned in matchups with the president this year. However, Obama’s 39% is a new low: Prior to this survey, his support has ranged from 40% to 46% in matchups with Romney.
A generic Republican candidate holds a narrow lead over the president again this week as has been the case all but three times in weekly tracking since late May.  Obama leads all the other named GOP candidates by as little as seven and as much as 15 percentage points.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Governor Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain have all surged ahead of the president at one point but did not maintain those leads.Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul are running one-two in Rasmussen Reports’ most recent survey of the Republican race in Iowa as next Tuesday’s caucus approaches. 
Romney also has more second-choice support than any of the other candidates among likely caucus-goers. Rasmussen Reports will release new numbers from Iowa at noon Eastern today.