Why I support Romney, notwithstanding the arguments against supporting him
A VFR reader is very critical of me over my advocacy of Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. (I would have continued and posted the exchange but his criticisms got too personal and I had to end it until he modifies his tone.) He says that by supporting Romney I am violating my principled rejection of liberal-leaning Republicans and immigration supporters; Romney, of course, has said he is in favor of an increase in legal immigration`(though, notably unlike Bush, McCain, and Giuliani, he expresses no passion on the issue). What the reader doesn’t seem to understand is that immigration is not the only thing at stake here, but avoiding the liberalization and destruction of what is at present America’s main organ for conservatism, the Republican party. Such destruction would follow automatically from the nomination of McCain, Giuliani, and probably Huckabee.
Now Romney, though he appears to be malleable at his core (in terms of his political opinions, that is, not in terms of his personal character) and may end up moving away from the conservative positions he has taken, nevertheless has taken those conservative positions, strongly and clearly. By nominating him, the GOP would be nominating a candidate who has committed himself to conservatism, not a committed anti-conservative like McCain, whose entire political career has been devoted to opposing domestic conservative measures, as former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum has explained in his devastating recent interviews with Hugh Hewitt and Mark Levin. If Romney after becoming president wavers, the GOP, its own (deeply imperfect, but still alive and active) conservatism intact, will be able to hold his conservative commitments over him. Not so in the case of McCain and Giuliani, either of whose nominations would be seen as an explicit embrace of non-conservatism.
These general, non-immigration-related concerns also affect immigration. The Republican party is not only the main organ of conservatism in America, it is the main bulwark against the further opening of our borders. Do I need to remind readers of how the GOP majority in the House of Representatives stood like a stone wall against the horrible immigration bill in 2006, and of how the GOP repeatedly stopped the even more horrible Comprehensive Black Death Act in the Senate in June and July 2007? Now imagine what would happen with a GOP that had been liberalized and torn apart by a McCain or Giuliani nomination.
One could make a counter-argument that Romney as much as McCain or Giuliani or Bush will continue leading the GOP to the left, and that it would be best for conservatism for the GOP to lose to Hillary Clinton in 2008 in the hope that a more genuine conservatism may arise. I myself made that argument repeatedly during the 2004 campaign. However, it’s hard to see how the Republican nomination of McCain or Giuliani would mean anything other than the historic takeover of the GOP by liberalism. I think it must be stopped. We cannot deal with every possibility in every situation, but must deal with the present situation. Right now, in my judgment, nominating a decent upright candidate committed to overall conservative positions will be much better for conservatism, and thus for America, than letting Giuliani or McCain be nominated.
- end of initial entry -
Terry Morris writes:
You wrote:
“However, it’s hard to see how the Republican nomination of McCain or Giuliani would mean anything other than the historic takeover of the GOP by liberalism. I think it must be stopped.”
What must be stopped is the destruction of principled conservatism in my opinion. The GOP is not conservatism. It has historically been the conservative party, but not conservatism itself. Conservatism doesn’t need the GOP, the GOP needs conservatism.
LA replies:
So are you saying you would have no problem with Giuliani being the nominee, meaning that Republicans would lose the ability ever to speak about family issues again? Are you saying you would have no problem with MCain being the nominee, meaning that Republicans instantly lose the ability to advocate immigration restrictions?
It seems to me that by separating conservatism from the GOP as though they were metaphysically distinct entities with nothing in common, Mr. Morris misses the point that in many respects the GOP is a vehicle for conservatism and indeed the most powerful vehicle for conservatism in existence. And therefore that if conservatism were driven out of the GOP, conservatism itself would be radically disempowered.
M. Mason writes:
At issue here, however, is the fact that true conservatism is being driven out of the GOP, and has been for years now; an obvious proof of it being not only President Bush himself, but also the group of current front-runners that we have in the Republican presidential primaries, all of these men telling us, in essence, that we just have to roll over and consent to this state of affairs. This is absolutely unacceptable to me. I’m not looking for political perfection, it doesn’t exist. I’m prepared to compromise up to a point. However, I will only support a candidate for President who has exhibited a proven track record over the years that at least strongly tends toward standing and fighting for the most crucially vital conservative policies at this late hour in America, even if he may not be as firm on some others of lesser importance than I would like.
But the clamorous voices of the GOP political punditry say that we have to win this year, no matter what. And in order to “win”, they tell me that I have to take a McCain, a Huckabee, a Giuliani or a Romney. Well, if those are the choices, then I’ll take none. I do not owe the Republican party my vote, because I don’t self-identify as a Republican first and foremost, but as a true conservative. The Republican presidential nominee has to earn my vote. And in my view, at heart very one of these men is essentially just another thinly-disguised liberal of one stripe or another. With very few exceptions, I do not believe they have a currently-stated conservative position between them that they wouldn’t either seriously compromise or eventually renege on once they got elected.
The forces of true conservatism that remain in this country emphatically stood apart from and faced down a standing Republican President, traitorous “conservatives” and liberal members of Congress last year who shamelessly conspired and lied to shove a catastrophic illegal immigrant amnesty bill down our throats. That political force has now become emboldened and is growing in numbers and determination every month. We would obviously much rather prefer to work with a GOP that remains as a vehicle for conservatism in this country to effect the needed political changes we seek during the next four years. But with or without it as such, that fight will continue.
LA replies:
I don’t disagree with anything Mr. Mason has said. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable decision to keep a distance from the Republican party, at least on the presidential level. I’ve done that myself for the last three presidential elections and I’m sure I’ll do it again.
My two main thoughts on this, however, have been like this:
1. To see if there was an acceptable and viable candidate who provided an alternative to Hillary or Obama in the White House. If there was, we should support him. If not, not.
2. To stop the nomination of Giuliani or McCain, which would be deeply damaging to the conservative element of the Republican party and thus to conservatism. You cannot entirely separate the conservative movement from the Republican party. For example, if (as I’ve argued many times) Rudy was the nominee, it would instantly become impossible for Republicans and for conservatives connected with the Republican party to speak of morality, marriage, family, the importance of fathers, and related issues. Those issues would be dead. Indead the murder of those issues is the explicit aim of many of the backers of Giuliani as well as of Giuliani himself. When John Podhoretz said after the 9/11 attack that the culture war had died on 9/11, and “good riddance,” I think he was expressing the real desire of the neocons and others who want us to be in some global crusade but are indifferent to the moral/spiritual/cultural nature of our society. a certain contingent in the conservative movement , “The culture war Both the Repubican party, AND the social conservative movement which is closely connected with the Republican party, would be paralyzed and silenced as a vehicle for social conservatism. So that’s an example of an effect of a Giuliani nomination that goes beyond the party itself. The nomination of Romney would not have such an effect. It would affirm social conservatism.
Thus I don’t think Mr. Mason has taken in how destructive a Giuliani or McCain nomination, let alone presidency, would be, to conservatism, and thus to the country.
M. Mason replies:
In essence, there are just two differences in our positions on this that I can see, but they are important. The first is that you’re willing to take a political chance on Romney as President that I am not. But I have taken into account one of your other main concerns and am prepared to agree with you that, yes, probably the best outcome at this point would be for Romney to win the nomination, because that would at least affirm very important elements of social conservatism that we must not forfeit. That way, the Republican party can continue to maintain the public face of still standing for conservative morality without being ravaged by the moral disaster that, as you say, a Giuliani or McCain nomination would represent for us.
However, the second big difference is that I believe it would be best if Romney then went on to lose the general election. That’s right, I said lose to Hillary, for although on the one hand I absolutely loathe her left-liberal politics and fear what she stands for, I have looked past and beyond that fear and am now inclined to believe that such an outcome might not be as disastrous as we’ve been led to believe and, in fact, would be the catalyst for a resurgence of a much stronger conservatism in this country. I think I have good reasons for believing this, but perhaps that’s the subject of another thread for another time.
Though there’s certainly nothing wrong with the time-honored American tradition of viewing the Presidential contest as a horse race, there comes a time when one has to also look at it strategically as a game of chess and think three, four and five moves ahead of one’s opponent. Given the field of deeply (and in my view, fatally) flawed Republican presidential hopefuls this time around, short of a brokered convention that would give us someone far more acceptable, I think it’s best at this juncture that we just quietly (but not openly) concede the 2008 presidential election and work on a massive, thoroughgoing rebuilding effort for the next one and beyond. As I see it, we’re going to end up with yet another liberal President this year no matter who wins, so I’d rather the Democrats take the intense political heat and retribution of the voters for the disastrous liberal screw-ups that will inevitably ensue during the next four years and not Republicans.
Does that seem too risky a strategy to contemplate? Well, as you said a while back in relation to this subject, being a true conservative in a liberal society isn’t for sissies.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 16, 2008 02:48 PM | Send