The Los Angeles Times had an interesting -- but completely wrong -- article in its June 17 online edition entitled, “What type of vice presidential candidate will Romney go for?”
Writer Paul West of The Times’ Washington Bureau covered a bit of recent presidential history about how various presidential candidates allegedly made their choices for running mate. However, most of the article was spent selling the idea that presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney would make a “conventional choice.”
In other words, Governor Romney should and would choose another moderate establishment Republican to join him on the ticket this fall.
The idea that the moderate former Governor of Massachusetts needs a conservative on the ticket to unify the Republican vote behind his candidacy was dismissed in one short sentence:
“Romney may not feel a need to balance the ticket with a strict conservative now that polls show strong support for him among Republican voters.”
Given the L.A. Times’ liberal bent it is understandable that the paper’s writers might not understand how Republicans win presidential elections, but you would think the various Republican “strategists” and Romney campaign insiders would get the picture by now.
Apparently not, since all of the named and unnamed sources for the articled argued directly or indirectly against Governor Romney choosing a conservative to join him on the ticket.
For the record, here’s how Republicans have won five of the past seven presidential elections: unify all of the elements of the conservative coalition behind a candidate running on conservative issues.
So-called moderate Republicans are, at best, 20 percent of the Republican vote, and when moderate establishment Republicans dominated the Party, Republicans routinely lost presidential elections and were a powerless minority on Capitol Hill.
Republicans began winning and growing their way to the status of a majority Party only when they embraced the traditional three-legs of the conservative movement: fiscal conservatives, strong defense conservatives and social conservatives.
That is the coalition that twice elected Ronald Reagan and won five of the past seven presidential elections. And when Republicans don’t run as conservatives and govern as conservatives, they lose.
Now the three-legged coalition of Ronald Reagan has been broadened by the addition of the constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party. Working together, the four legs of this new conservative coalition have created a powerful political movement whose energy won what should be a 21st century American political realignment -- the 2010 House elections.
Conservatives look to Governor Romney’s choice of running mate as an indication that he shares their commitment to small government constitutional principles. Choosing a running mate who has unquestioned credibility as a small government constitutional conservative is a vital step toward building conservative enthusiasm for the Romney candidacy.
Given the choice between the disastrous and dangerous Barack Obama and a moderate Republican, of course most conservatives are going to vote for the moderate Republican. However, to generate the enthusiasm Governor Romney needs to win the presidency, he must choose someone who will unite the various elements at the grassroots of the Party.
Although L.A. Times writers may not appreciate the point, the conservative movement makes up the majority of the Republican Party. Judging by the quotes in the paper’s recent article, Governor Romney’s advisors may not understand that to win, they need to energize conservatives, not just get their votes on Election Day. To energize conservatives, the Romney campaign must choose a principled small government constitutional conservative as his vice presidential nominee -- one that conservatives see as a conservative, not someone who the media thinks is “safe,” but who conservatives won’t accept as one of their own.
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Pawlenty?
Mr. Viguerie, thank you for your excellent analysis.
So, is the Romney campaign listening?
Consensus forming around Pawlenty?
Exclusive: Romney Holding Weekend Retreat With VP Potentials Excluding Rubio
In the meantime, people may want to listen to this speech given by Sarah Palin last Friday at the Right Online conference sponsored by the Americans For Prosperity Foundation.
Watch carefully how people are labled
One of the things that annoys me the most about MSM coverage is the routine reference to people who are not conservatives as conservatives. Mike Huckabee is a clear example of this. Jeb Bush the most recent. The media keep calling him a conservative even after he just outed himself last week as a RINO. Of course, none of the Bushes are conservatives and we conservatives would do well to keep that in mind, not just for now, but for the future.
It is absolutely crucial that Romney choose a conservative if he wants the right to support him enthusiastically. I went from debating whether to hold my nose and vote for McCain to putting a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on my car, attending rallies and making phone calls after he chose Sarah Palin for VP. A good choice from Romney would have the same effect. Portman and Pawlenty are not conservatives and thus would not do what is needed. I'm not sure about Rubio; I'd prefer someone with a longer track record.
Republicans need advice from LA Times ?
For Republicans to heed advice from the LA Times would be tantamount to you follow advice from the very Lucifer to get access to heavens.
If Viguery spends time and effor to write against the LAT piece is because there are millions of idiotic RINOs, establishment-Republicans and centrists that have no clue at all of who is whom in the current ideological/political arena.
By the way (whiled looking at the next diagram) notice that whom some convincing effort has to be exerted upon to vote against Obama are the centrists, a malleable, ambivalent genre of voter that can be found among Republicana, Democrats and indpendents (the latter being such by virtue of not beign registered with any political party but as independents.
Generic-conservatives, in general, and grasssroots-conservatives, in particular, are elementarity savvy enough to know to dismiss any "advice" from the cult-of-personality (COP) media (aka "old" media, or "mainstream" media). Obama and the COP media are one and the same, as two peas in a pod.
Whom we non-leftists, especially conservatives, must aim our effort to vote AGAINST Obama --and, more-effectively (holding noses), for Romney-- are the about 82 million non-leftist Americans of voting age that did not vote in 2008 (40% of whom are not even registered). Supporting the contention that the vast majority --and probably all-- of those 82 millions are non-leftists is the undeniable fact that absolutely every single leftist in America voted for Obama in 2008, for, getting one of them to the White House has been their dream since the times of Marx and Engels. Read how Marx himself started in 1851 the road that took Obama to the White House in 2008, at http://eleutheros.us/DownloadedFiles/Politics/USA_Politics/Leftism/SocializationOfAmerica/SocializationByObama/HowMarxAndWedemeyerStartedObamasRoadToTheWhiteHouse.pdf.