We wish there HAD been a rightwing takeover of Romney, Inc. – we would love to be ground floor investors in one.
However, we have more than a passing familiarity with what makes a conservative a conservative, and when we look at Governor Romney’s inner circle -- and who has influence with the candidate -- we can assure the establishment media that he’s the same old Mitt he has always been. He's still a solid business community Republican with some conservative instincts and values.
The establishment media favored Mitt Romney throughout the Republican primary election cycle in large measure because they thought of him as the least conservative, most prone to compromise, Republican in the race.
Governor Romney’s occasional forays into the, to him, alien frontiers of conservatism -- such as when he outflanked Texas Governor Rick Perry on immigration policy and criticized Newt Gingrich for making a global warming commercial with arch-liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi -- were viewed by the media as merely tactical moves.
The establishment media surely figured that after the GOP Convention, the Etch-A-Sketch would get shaken and Romney would be revealed as one who believed in man-induced global climate change and in open borders. He just had to, wink, wink, occasionally play along with conservatives to get through the primaries.
The problem with that establishment media assumption -- about where the Romney campaign would eventually end-up -- is that it ignores who Mitt Romney really is. He's still a solid business community Republican.
This is the kind of Republican that frustrates conservatives, who are looking for principled leadership. However, if there’s one thing a solid business community Republican like Mitt Romney knows, it is numbers – balance sheets and budgets – the same things that are the more conservative Paul Ryan’s forte.
This is, after all, the same Mitt Romney who said, and has posted prominently on his campaign website, “I cannot fathom the argument that it's fine to spend more than we earn year after year. Passing on ever-increasing debt to our children is not just bad policy, it is morally wrong."
Words remarkably similar to those used by Paul Ryan in support of his “Path to Prosperity” budget plan, by the way.
Romney knows that Washington’s spend, borrow and tax culture can’t be sustained, and as a businessman and Governor, he’s not stuck with the excesses of the George W. Bush administration and the Republican Congress that voters tossed out in 2006.
The real source of this establishment media confusion about the direction of the Romney campaign has nothing to do with an illusionary “rightwing takeover” of the campaign and candidate – that’s a fantasy of journalists who need to fill a 24/7 news cycle.
In suddenly emphasizing Obama’s spending, debt and deficits, Governor Romney hasn’t moved to the right -- he’s simply applying the kind of analysis a businessman uses. He looks at the metrics, acts according to his fiduciary duty to investors and makes decisions based on the numbers, not wishful thinking.
Governor Romney has always claimed to be a fiscal hawk. However, it is a claim that took the selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate to suddenly give it the ring of truth to the media that always insists the Republican Party must “move to the center” to win.
Governor Romney is still a business community Republican, not a movement conservative.
The difficulty establishment reporters and commentators are having digesting Ryan as Romney’s running mate is that the concepts of looking at the metrics, acting according to your fiduciary duty to investors and making decisions based on the numbers, not wishful thinking, are so alien to the inhabitants of America’s newsrooms that they look like a hostile rightwing takeover of the campaign, instead of the kind of sound decision-making principles people in business, like Governor Romney, use everyday.
Petition:
Governor Romney -- Turn Paul Ryan Loose to Tell the Truth About America's Spending Crisis! SIGN THE PETITION NOW!
