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Jewish World Review
Sept. 25, 2012/ 9 Tishrei, 5773
If Romney loses
By
Michael Smerconish
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT)
What a donnybrook this is going to be.
The few weeks until the election? Nope. What will follow if Mitt Romney loses.
Rush Limbaugh raised the issue. He was responding to comments made on what he called "PMSNBC" by Chris Matthews suggesting that an Obama victory would be the end of conservative control of the Republican Party. Limbaugh had his own assessment:
"There's going to be a third party that's going to be orientated toward conservatism or Rand Paul thinks libertarianism. If Obama wins, the Republican Party will try to maneuver things so conservatives get blamed. The only problem is right now, Romney is not running a conservative campaign.
"But they're going to set it up, 'Well, the right sat home, the right made Romney be other than he is.' They'll try to deflect the blame, but they got who they want," he said of the Republican Party's selection of Mitt Romney for president.
I was keenly interested in Limbaugh's comments because I appeared opposite Matthews when he made the statement that got Rush's attention, only I never had the chance to respond on TV. Here is what Matthews said in the segment hosted by Tamron Hall:
"The best way to beat the right wing is to beat them. If (Obama) beats them in this election, they're finished. And I think that's the point. The moderates will come back. Jeb Bush will come back. The people like Chris Christie will come back. The moderates will retake the party. If you smash the right."
Matthews went on to say that the "Mitch McConnells will shut up for a while" if Romney loses.
While I agree with both commentators that there will be quite a crossroads within the GOP should Romney lose, I disagree with both Limbaugh and Matthews as to how events will play out. I suspect the divide within the party won't be resolved until voters get a say in the 2016 primaries.
Rush is wrong when he says that "Romney is not running a conservative campaign." Truth is, there has been none of the anticipated tack toward the center that would make Romney a more attractive candidate to independents. His comments in the aftermath of the death of J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, are illustrative of where he has sought his appeal from the far right.
Romney's unfounded statement that Obama had sympathized with the insurgents and apologized for the United States were a hat tip to the Internet lore that portrays the president as something other than American. It fits the fictitious narrative you get in depictions such as Dinesh D'Souza's movie "2016" that Obama is furthering European socialist goals while president and that he is embarrassed about his country, hence the need to apologize.
Trouble is, there are no facts to justify those statements. The man who once governed Massachusetts as a pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-health care reformer has run as a "severe" conservative and checked absolutely all the boxes required of him in the conservative litmus tests.
Matthews is mistaken when he thinks that a Romney defeat will mute McConnell, the senator who famously said that his "single most important goal" was to defeat Obama. The opposite is more likely. Should Romney lose, McConnell will no more shut up than Rick Santorum. As for the former senator from Pennsylvania, get ready for a giant "I told you so," given that he famously said that Romney "was the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama."
And there is no way that the likes of Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin will go silently into that night. To the contrary, their conclusion will be that Romney was a moderate in conservative clothing and that only a "real" conservative can assume the mantle of the party of Reagan, overlooking of course that Ronald Reagan would probably have had his bona fides questioned in this climate. Who said that? Jeb Bush ("Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party and I don't as having an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement, doesn't allow for finding some common ground.")
While it's true that Jeb Bush has suggested that the party grow the tent and that Chris Christie has some moderate tendencies (he's embraced a clear path to citizenship, has supported some gun-control laws, and has said that "climate change is real") there is no evidence that either is prepared to engage in a confrontation with the right over control of the party. Christie did once say, "I'm tired of dealing with the crazies," after being criticized for appointing to the state bench a Muslim lawyer who once represented a terror suspect. But Christie's full-throated support of the conservative incarnation of Romney casts doubt on his willingness to engage the fringe within his party.
No back-room maneuvering is going to solve this crisis. There are too many egos unwilling to get out of the way. Wholesale change will come only at the ballot box, which seems unlikely in the near future given the exodus of moderates from the party. What motivation do they have to return? Of course, I might be wrong. And if Matthews is right about Jeb Bush emerging in the GOP, you know what that could mean?
Bush v. Clinton in 2016!
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here. Michael Smerconish writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Previously:
04/19/12 Christie will get GOP nod in 2016
04/06/12 Romneys not only family with embarrassing stories
03/08/12 Here's an easy fix for King monument quote
02/28/12 Valor-medal lie as free speech
02/21/12 Now we know: Van Halen's M&M rider was just a test
02/14/12 Life inside the (class) bubble
02/09/12 Rethinking paths to wealth
01/17/12 Romney must face his work history head-on
01/11/12 Don't let those gift cards be a gift to retailers or the state
01/03/12 Headlines hoped for in 2012
11/09/11 Romney, beware: Cain may bob through the straits
11/02/11 Where there's ad smoke, there's … what?
10/20/11 After husband is murdered, 30 long years of phone calls
10/13/11 Black women should only marry out of their race?
08/31/11 Some political gaffes really say something
07/27/11 An overture of candidates' theme songs
06/28/11 Where's the app for common sense?
06/02/11 Over-scrutinizing lives costs us potential leaders
04/19/11 Taking a chance to say, Hi
04/06/11 Race policies should be altered to reflect new demographic reality
11/10/10 Delaware's independent, but short-lived, voice
11/03/10 Papers should leave endorsing to others
10/21/10 Media help to hype perception of bullying
09/23/10 Officer down, killer hyped up
08/04/10 Documents highlight Pakistan's shortcomings as a U.S. ally
07/06/10 On taking back Sept. 11
06/29/10 Name elite corps to develop energy independence?
04/21/10 New account reinforces a serviceman's valor
03/11/10 Medical profession must police itself better
02/18/10 One-trick athletes
02/09/10 Active, retired law officers should be able to carry guns on planes to help stop terrorists
02/04/10 How to bring tech up to speed
01/28/10 Campaign donations must be fully and immediately disclosed online
01/07/10 The flying emperor still has no clothes, and no one is willing to say so
12/24/09 A law to mandate college football playoffs?
12/17/09 Cheney's abuse of freedom of speech
11/26/09 The true cost of freedom from anxiety
10/27/09 If GOP wants to win in 2012, it must reshape its primary process
10/08/09 It's time to get smarter on extended school day
09/03/09 What a summer of eulogizing flawed public figures reveals about society
08/12/09 It's time for cyclists and motorists to reconcile
08/05/09 Faces have changed, but vitriol remains
06/25/09 Fair comment or foul? Warm up the Muzzle Meter
06/08/09 Believability is key in crime-hoax villains
05/14/09 Did Hollywood inspire the meltdown men?
04/20/09 Let's give killers their due: Anonymity
03/12/09 Uninsured who can't afford medical care lose a lot more
02/06/09 My debate with Musharraf on hunt for bin Laden
01/29/09 Torture must remain an option
01/15/09 Making a case for suing Madoff
12/22/08 A difficult but rational chat about plans
12/17/08 Facebook epidemic: More than 120 million have joined, many too old for this nonsense
12/01/08 The high price of downsizing the news biz
11/14/08 Prescience on greed, arrogance of a system
09/29/08 Closer look at party lines
08/26/08 Obama's pick creates GOP opportunity
08/21/08 Fishing with the Angry Everyman
07/31/08 The perils of e-mail: Ponder, then click
05/22/08 Two very different sides of the Internet
02/12/08 Sublimely ridiculous suits
11/28/08 Cell phones cut out secondary circle of kinship
09/26/07 What do we owe those who have died in Iraq?
08/30/07 A Navy SEAL's gut-wrenching tale of survival
07/30/07 First it was a faux pas, now it's a new word
© 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
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