Paul Rahe is getting nervous about the 2012 election contest. He doesn’t think that the most prominent Republican contenders have sufficiently focused their campaigns on moving beyond the Progressive Welfare State era of Big Government, and he’s alarmed that dithering by genuinely conservative potential nominees may wind up crowning the media’s first choice and every conservative Republican’s last choice (excluding Huntsman) by default.
Is it not odd that, in a time when the country is increasingly open to the suggestion that the administrative entitlements state is on its last legs and that the moment has come for rolling back its encroachment on the prerogatives of the states and the rights of individuals, there is not one seasoned Republican officeholder capable of articulating the argument for limited government who is willing to step forward, shoulder the burden, seize the opportunity, and take the bull by the horns. What has this country become? Greatness beckons, and no one genuinely qualified rises to the occasion!
Paul Ryan! Mitch Daniels! Your phones are still ringing. If you do not answer, I am virtually certain that we will be left with the last man standing – and given the intensity of Republican dissatisfaction with that option, I would not be surprised were he to lose in November, 2012.
Is there anyone apart, from his co-religionists, thrilled at the prospect that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee? When members of Ricochet say that they would vote for a syphilitic camel over Barack Obama, do they not have Romney in mind? Come November, 2012, how many of our fellow Americans will be willing to swallow a syphilitic camel in a good cause?
I, for one, will be willing – but I shudder to contemplate the consequences.
I think Mr. Rahe is getting a bit carried away. It is early days yet. But I agree with his preference for a decisive clearly defined campaign identifying “the end of the New Deal and the post-WWII Welfare State once and for all in the interest of Growth and Prosperity” as its theme.
Romney gave a good speech on foreign policy. Maybe Rick Perry can offer him the same deal Hillary received.
SDD
If the camel is the one on the ballot against BHO we will vote for him, of course. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are faced with an historic opportunity here to turn back the creep of liberal “remedies” that sap the vitality of our nation. Not just slow down that creep, but to totally change the nation’s mindset. If we don’t do that, we are defeated. We will eventually sink into the slough of “European style socialism”. In the long run it won’t matter whether that defeat is presided over by a radical like Obama or a “moderate” Republican who sees compromise as a sterling virtue.
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