RUTHFULLY YOURS

Smearing Newt: Taking Names for 2016

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/

I never thought I’d see so many purported conservative writers, and once proud conservative websites, shilling for Mitt Romney. Michael Graham of WTKK-FM in Boston certainly isn’t one of them. He has “Smoke Gets In Mitt’s Guise” in today’s Boston Herald:

After the electoral fiascoes of ’06 and ’08, it wasn’t the Washington GOP that turned things around. It was the conservative base and the Tea Party. They helped elect Sen. Scott Brown here and handed the House back to the GOP.

And now party bosses wonder why the base refuses to take our “Mitt medicine” and do as we’re told. Maybe it’s because we’re tired of losing.

That’s the real message Republican voters are trying to send. No more losing politely with some moderate squishy candidate who cares more about what East Coast elites think of him than conservative voters do.

You really want to stop Newt? It’s simple. Dump Mitt. Stop whining about Gingrich winning, stop flogging the GOP’s “designated establishment loser of 2012″ and back someone else.

Graham predicts that if Romney is nominated, he will lose. Which brings me to the taking names part.

Obviously if Romney wins the nomination, only the irrational wouldn’t prefer a Romney presidency to an even more radicalized second Obama term. But if Graham is right, that Romney can’t beat Obama, then we need to hold those in the conservative movement accountable that shilled so. . . demonically for Mitt. We need to remember who they were, and hold them accountable.

Holding them accountable means ignoring them the next time.

It won’t be hard to find them. Elliot Abrams can top the list.  There are many many more. Keep the list handy in 2016. When we hear from the Dole-over-Gramm crowd the next time, or the McCain-over-Huck corner, we can check to see if they were part of the Mitt-over-Newt establishment panic of 2012, and appropriately disregard them in 2016.

Of course it is not too late to disregard them now, particularly those who cling to an obsolete linear political model from a generation ago.  A candidate does not become more electable the closer they are to the center.  Favorable coverage on NBC Nightly News no longer swings elections.  In today’s polarized political landscape, the opposite may be true.  A candidate that creates no excitement, even if nicely positioned in the non-offensive middle, cannot win.  It is a lesson some conservatives have yet to learn, particularly inside the Beltway.