I want to see Mitt Romney beat Barack H. Obama for President. But I don’t think it is going to happen. I think he is the wrong GOP candidate at the wrong time. Like Alf Landon in 1936.
I cringe when I hear the pro-Romney pundits reference Ronald Reagan’s 1980 come-from-behind victory as inspiration for a Romeny victory in 2012. I think some of those pundits may never have been in the same room with Ronald Reagan in making their comparison of him to Romney. There is no comparison. Reagan’s personality and ability to connect with the average person is unparalled, and perhaps only Barack Obama and Bill Clinton approach his charisma. And they will both be center-stage next week at the Democrat convention making mince-meat of Romney.
Romney is not Ronald Reagan, by personality or policy. But he is more than a little like Alf Landon, the GOP “whiz-kid” from Kansas (and Kansas Governor) whom Republicans put up against a one-term incumbent Democrat President under very similar economic times in 1936. That Democrat was Franklin Roosevelt, who followed a conservative Republican named Herbert Hoover. Hoover was blamed for harming the national economy and causing the Great Depression during his one term. Roosevelt beat Hoover in part by blaming him for the bad economy and promising he would aggressively attack unemployment with massive government spending projects. (Are you seeing the parallels yet?)
But by the 1936 election, things weren’t getting that much better. Unemployment was an amazing 16.9%. Roosevelt was criticised by the GOP for instigating socialistic programs in his New Deal platform. So they turned to Governor Landon as the man to beat Roosevelt.
Landon was a banker and oilman, a wealthy and successful businessman who turned to politics and was elected Governor. A Methodist, he was known as a fiscal conservative who was not so strongly conservative on social issues and even supported some aspects of Roosevelt’s New Deal. But Labor unions hated Landon. Landon won the GOP nomination on the first ballot. (Still seeing the parallels?)
Read More at CA Political Review. By James V. Lacy.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons)
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Hopefully FDR taught us a lot about Progressives/Liberals and Communists. But the Slaver Wing of the DemoCommie party will never give up their quest for another Union of American Socialist Republics. They hate free people, because they can not enslave them. I hope we get a new type of Neutron Weapon that just destroys Tyrants and Slavers.
This really is unworthy of comment but I’ll force myself to make one. It seems that these forums these days are chock full of negativism, surrender and submission. I get the feeling that people are looking for the perfect candidate, a saviour. There is no such animal. Ronald Reagan is dead and gone and he ain’t coming back. Romney is by no means ideal but he’s better than what we have now and certainly what we would have for the next 4 years if not beyond. If you take to heart the garbage presented in this article and wallow in negativism long enough, you’ll finally convince yourself that its hopeless, sit on your @$$ and watch the country go completely dark. If that’s what you want then you deserve to have it. I think people get off in these forums trying to be as negative as they possibly can. They seem to get some sort of vicarious thrill out of being as hopeless and as dark as possible. If you really feel that way then I have a suggestion: Get the hell out of this country. Go somewhere else if you think that would be better.
Thank you for saying what i didn’t want to take the time to do: give this ‘article’ any attention.
There’s no way that we can go from a stone-cold Marxist, anti-Imperialist, America-hating empty chair to a true conservative in 4 years and after the progressive indoctrination has been going on for so long. No one person will save us—it’s up to each of us to take our lives and country back from the “totalitarian freaks”.
I agree with you 100% Smoki—they should shut up, buck up, suit up, or get the hell out.