The Romney ad I’ve been waiting for

January 26, 2008

Just 11 days ago, I offered the Romney campaign a little advice about how best to go after John McCain: “In 2001 — in discussions initiated by McCain, not Dems — the Arizona senator was in talks to leave the Republican Party altogether. Three years later, he reportedly reached out to John Kerry to join the Democratic presidential ticket, and told a national television audience that he would consider an invitation from Kerry, if it were offered…. Want to beat McCain in the primaries? Start advertising this quote. But, do me a favor. Hurry.”

I’m absolutely delighted Romney is following through.

For those of you who can’t watch videos online, the clip highlights a) some of the reasons conservatives are uncomfortable with McCain; b) some of the major issues on which McCain is on the same page as Obama and Clinton; c) McCain’s willingness to serve as John Kerry’s running mate on the 2004 Democratic ticket; and d) McCain’s well-publicized consideration of leaving the Republican Party in 2001.

It seems to me to be the kind of message that should raise Republican eyebrows.

But the Romney camp has apparently issued this as an online-only web video. C’mon, Romney, get this ad on television screens, asap.

I will NOT vote for John McAmnesty! I live in Southern California and spent many hours on the phone and computer contacting senators to kill the shamnisty bill that McAmnisty proposed with Kennedy and Ghramnisty. Southern California is becoming Mexico. The once nice white neighborhoods have gang tagging, the schools can’t pump out the free breakfasts and lunches fast enough. The emergency rooms are closing because they are not being paid for their services. I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK! and John McAmnesty will continue to give it away. I sure hope Romney comes through… or an angry, white man runs as a third party candidate. Call me a new xenophobe if you will, but I am not happy about McAmnesty on the Republican ticket!

  • I totally don’t get why the progressive blogosphere seems to think that we’d be better off running against Romney than McCain. I don’t see it that way. In my opinion, the chances of a seventy-something McCain getting through the entire election season without a major league eruption/implosion are slim. I think Romney would be a more disciplined, tougher candidate.

  • True that the Mittbot would be a far more disciplined candidate. But his flaws are already so well established that it will be much easier to define him as an unprincipled flip-flopper. McCain, for all his flaws, is already so well-defined as St. John the Independent that the Dems will really have to work to dull his sheen. Not that they can’t, but my gut tells me that despite Mitt’s relative strengths, he’d be the easier candidate to defeat.

  • McCain wants to be in the White House before he dies. He will lie and do anything he has to do to accomplish that. His pandering has reached epidemic proportions and it’s just sickening that his one overarching desire causes him to do or say ANYTHING to achieve that goal.

    If McCain thought that his saying he’d pull all troops out of Iraq tomorrow would win the election for him, he would say it in a heartbeat. Since goopers still think the war and lifelong occupation is a good thing to do, he won’t say it but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he did a complete 180 in the coming months.

    He is the worst of everything politics has to offer. Say everything, do nothing.

  • Being sickened by the racist of agenda of “La Raza” (literally ‘the Race’) does not make one a bigot. My wife is not white (she’s half Filipino and part American Indian). My children are mixed. My sister’s husband is a Christian Arab. My first cousin’s wife is 100% Mexican. I can tell you that NO ONE in my family has time for the Hispanicization of our country. Mexico, to put it bluntly, sucks. I also live in Southern California. My son is the only non-Latino boy in his elementary school. We’re tired of paying for the ‘reconquista’ (‘reconquest’) of our own country. Vote Romney!

  • Rob,

    Things are falling apart, but it isn’t the fault of those people coming to America in a desperate attempt to live. And it sure isn’t a simple problem:

    FREE TRADE and deregulation have outsourced American jobs and raped third world countries leaving the people there no choice, but to escape. Some come here…but the jobs aren’t here anymore either…they’ve been outsourced! Read “the Shock Doctrine”.

    GLOBAL WARMING: HUMAN greed and Republican protection of polluting businesses speed global warming onward. Global warming (dwindling resources in some areas) has been responsible for mass migrations and I truly believe we ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Wait till low lying areas in the US are innundated….far beyond the New Orleans precursor.

    HUMAN and Government inability to start addressing over population issues. (Resources dwindling and people increasing)

    Multiple factors are causing the denigration of our world as we know it. Walled enclaves arent’ the best answers…but we are heading in that direction if we don’t get a really great leader or we continue on our trajectory.

    Republican & some Democrate colluding with Corporate crony rule for the past 20 years has resulted in weakening our country as they put all our resources and tax dollars into the roof instead of the foundation. Trickle down doesn’t work…they know that and they don’t care…as they follow their PROFIT…but they are killing the golden goose.

  • “a) some of the reasons conservatives are uncomfortable with McCain; b) some of the major issues on which McCain is on the same page as Obama and Clinton; c) McCain’s willingness to serve as John Kerry’s running mate on the 2004 Democratic ticket; and d) McCain’s well-publicized consideration of leaving the Republican Party in 2001”

    Shouldn’t some of those qualities attract moderate majorities from both parties as well as a handful of independents? Oh that’s right, they do attract the moderate masses and that’s why the liberal dems are desperately hoping for a Romney nomination!

  • The music in that anti-McCain clip is really cool, isn’t it? 🙂

    Rob @ #1 isn’t an endangered species at all. His comments are very typical of what I hear in these parts every day. I’ve been worried that McCain might be the strongest Republican candidate, strong enough to defeat the weakest Democratic candidate (that being Hillary).

    Which emotion is stronger: xenophobia, or Clinton Derangement Syndrome? I don’t know, but it looks like we may get to find out.

  • We need a tough, no-nonsense guy running the shop. America is going to hell and a handbasket – we need highly principled, experienced executive leadership. There’s only one of those anywhere in sight! Go Mitt!!

  • Isn’t it funny how celebratory many Democrats are of Obama’s “post-partisan” philosophy, and yet these same people go after a Republican who has a similar philosophy?

    The reason this is web-only is that Romney’s folks are smart enough to be testing it for potential backfire. Spending money to advertise that an opponent is more interested in the good of the country than he is in partisan politics would be crazy. Whatever you think of McCain (I have personally lost all respect for him), this is a pro-McCain ad. It would take the most zealous of partisans to think this would do anything but help McCain if it were broadcast for real.

  • So you’re thrilled at the prospect of eliminating a Republican candidate who has demonstrated that he has things in common with Democrats?

    An apparently worse President Romney is to be prefered to a President McCain?

    Sorry, but I’m not following why this is something to cheer over.

  • “Isn’t it funny how celebratory many Democrats are of Obama’s “post-partisan” philosophy, and yet these same people go after a Republican who has a similar philosophy?”

    Brooks, there are many zealous partisans found in these parts.. I actually like to call them “partisan sheep”. The only reason lefties like Steve go after McCain for his “post-partisan philosophy” is because they are scared he will win the GOP nomination and have have a decent shot of beating Hils, and less so, Obama. In reality, they should celebrate a GOP Senator that has crossed Party lines in the past.

    Heck, the so called conservatives should take note of blogs like these and realize the true threat McCain represents for their aspirations for the White House. Any time you find lefties praising the campaign tactics of a GOP candidate it should raise an eyebrow on the right! Needless to say, ultra-conservatives like that fat drug addict from Florida, Sean I-Am-A-Dope Hannity and the ex-Senator in PA are too pig headed to realize that McCain is their only hope.

  • McCain simply campaigns with a sometimes centerist sometimes conservative facade. If and when elected the Republican establishment will make sure he administers as yet another Republican Corporatist. Attempts to privatize Social Security, stopping any attempts at universal healthcare by yet another healthcare hypocrite, more cuts in social programs, more privatization of public resources, more RATS on the SCOTUS and more bankrupting of the nation in the Middle East will be the norm. Opponents will be attacked as liberals, the MSM will drone on about gridlock and “independents” will moan about the state of the nation. The stupid majority of American Voters (or enough of a minority to get another Electoral College selected Prez) will have done it yet again. Such a nation should not be allowed to have WMDs.

  • Here come the goobers spouting “oh, my…this means a republican can win” bullshit. No republican will win the WH this election. Are you Kidding. after the Bush disaster having the full support of all republicans. They could run McCain and Romney together and still lose. After the horrors of Bush no republican will win the WH because they are still republicans. It’s like running a corpse against a live person. Dems will win no matter who they nominate. The idea Steve has is that Romney running such ads will keep him in the race and bring out more embarrassing republican discussion and hypocrisy.

    FYI… the US stole NM, California. Arizona etc from the Mexicans and now bitch because the Mexicans are still too close. The answer is simple…Annex Mexico and the rest of South America and divide them into states…then there would be no borders instead of bitching about “there goes the neighborhood”. Create jobs by having them grow the worlds hemp which among other things could be used for fuel. Think outside the box…we do have answers and the mexican great wall of china isn’t one of them. But what the US has done for many nations is try to decide their future for them. Sometimes it comes back to haunt.

  • Brooks and JRS, in response to both of you . . . we laud Obama and condemn McCain not for their current rhetoric, but for what they would actually do in office. Anyone who has taken a basic course in American government knows that candidates always run to the center during an election. Even Bush did in 2000– that whole “uniter, not a divider” business. Is it dishonest? Of course. But is it a necessary evil? You bet. The majority of the American public doesn’t respond well to anger (exhibit A: the Edwards campaign. People identify with his populist rhetoric, but have been unable to embrace his candidacy, based upon the subconscious reaction they have to his angry presentation). My point in all of this is, yes, McCain and Obama are both campaigning as unifiers who can cross party lines and work with the other side. In reality, when one party (especially the GOP, if recent history is any guide) gains power, it abuses its political capital, and does not govern down the center. So, around these parts (seeing as this is an unabashedly left-leaning blog,) we like the idea that Obama can win an election and implement programs that will help turn this country around after the mess Bush has made of it. We also fear that McCain could easily win, and, to appease the establishment of his party, would continue along the same path as Bush, and run this country further to the right (and, consequently, into the ground).

  • I challange anyone to show me an elementary school where there is only one non Mexican. What a crock. I lived in Southern California the first 62 years of my life, have been in Washington State for the last three. The Mexicans we had working on our olive ranch were wonderful. Don’t know if you phobes have noticed how expensive produce is now in the market, if you can even get what you want. Up here in Washington there are many farmers going out of business because the good ole boys are above working in the fields and the stuff just rots. I know it has been said over and over but be careful what you wish for.

  • Bob Currie, with his earlier post, is an example of a rich, white liberal; he liked the “wonderful” Mexicans when they were singing Mariachi songs working on his families “ranch” when he was a child, and now he is happy to have more of them invade our country while he lives isolated up in the “white” state of Washington.

    60 years ago, on his “ranch”, Bob didn’t have to deal with schools filled with illegals, neighborhoods swelling with multiple families living in one house, gang violence and tagging everywhere, emergency room’s closing, education falling apart. Bob’s liberal attitude reminds me of what I have read about the slave owners in the south. They liked their happy, singing slaves, and they refused to get rid of slavery because they wanted cheap labor… and look where THAT got us.

    Bob is lucky that he could afford to move away from Southern California with the profits he made from the cheap labor of illegals… but, you know what Bob? You moved away with your profits, but you left your Mexicans here! But don’t worry Bob, they are spreading north, heading your way. They will be there soon and then the “good ole boys” will have you to thank when they experience the joy of “push 1 for English”.

  • Yeah, Rob, those funny ‘Mexicans’ who lived in what is now the US a couple hundred years longer than white shits like you. Thanks for staining the country.

  • This campaign in Florida is turning more into a personal race than a political campaign. All the subtleties of the candidates are coming out. Every unsubstantiated rumor, spin on quotes, everything. The gloves really are off. No longer is it economy vs. the war in Iraq; it’s no Romney vs. McCain, and it’s polarizing the party.

    I’m all for Romney. I think he’s the best. I also blame McCain’s dirty Clintonesque attacks for making this primary stoop to the Democrat’s level. Here’s to electing not just the most economically sound candidate, but the one with the best character. Go Romney!

  • Crissa..

    Thank you for your articulate and highly thought-out response to my post, and your wisdom has given me an idea!

    I am sure that other people lived in your home before you occupied it… why not give them all a call and ask them to move in and share it with you now? Perhaps a few people in the living room, another in the bedroom with you, a cot or two in the kitchen, and an entire family in the garage.. and of course, you will pay for all of their financial needs.

    I mean, why not? You want the “white shits” to do that in their neighborhoods with the illegals. Put your money where your potty mouth is.

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