OK, so Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire primary. Big news. It was a foregone conclusion, but the media is still chattng on about it endlessly anyway, like it's a big surprise. "Well, he won the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary, so it looks like he's got it sewn up." I think that's from the mouth of Tim Pawlenty, who's hoping for a cabinet post in the Romney Administration.
You know, there's still 48 more states to go, and the Iowa Caucuses are not binding, meaning the Iowa delegates at the Republican Nominating Convention can change their votes. So big deal.
I actually went to Romney's Web site and looked at his 59 point program. Gingrich keeps saying, "The Wall Street Journal has called it 'timid.'" You know what? It is timid. It's like it's designed to take tiny non-boat-rocking baby steps that conservatives can agree on, but without actually doing much to solve America's problems. In fact, it's designed to not raise objections from anyone at all.
America does have problems. That's how the Comrade got elected. Romney's programs don't do much at all. He promises to repeal nationalized health care. That's the most radical, and I'm sure that was pretty much forced upon him by the prevalence of the Tea Party and the 2010 elections.
He nowhere addresses Social Security, which is just about bankrupt. Nothing about Medicare -- also tottering on the brink of insolvency -- though he does want to give the states block grants to manage their own Medicaid programs. He doesn't say anything about the EPA, and apparently will keep it and its authority in place, although he does want to speed up the approval process for construction and building nuclear plants and stuff like that.
The whole program seems to be predicated on a kind of 1998 snapshot of the USA. Hey, that was a while ago. Things have changed.
Oh, and this is a good one -- he wants to repeal Dudd-Fudd financial regulations -- excellent -- but replace it with a better set of reforms -- yuck. And Oxley-Sarbanes, kept in place for the big corporations, though lightened up for smaller firms.
Who called it "nibbling around the edges" during one of the weekend's debates? The whole program is nibbling around the edges. Nothing very striking about it. Very bland, tepid, supposedly safe, I guess. As I said, not much anyone can object to, because it doesn't really promise very much.
And he wants to do something about China. Difficult there, because if we slap tariffs on imports from China (or anyone else, really), they slap tariffs on our exports to them. That's a bad game to get into in foreign trade. It was one thing that nudged the USA into the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But it's kind of like Romney is saying, "Don't worry. I'm not going to shake things up. Just a few little tweaks and we'll be fine." Then give the inspirational speech about the Founding Fathers, and there we have Mitt Romney.
This isn't going to work. It's going to take some broader and bolder action to "Restore America," as Romney's backers claim to support. Restoring it to what? 1995? Sorry, no Internet Bubble to keep it all afloat.
Romney's conservatism is just way too damn conservative. Nothing will change. Very little will improve. He's not "fixing" anything, not redirecting anything. More like preserving all the bullshit so as to avoid upsetting anyone. And then in 2016, the dems will run another communist.
This just doesn't work for me, and I'm totally talking policy here. I don't see any "vision" of America. Just don't see it in the 59 points.
I wish they'd get into all this in some detail in the debates. And the Comrade will kill Romney -- Romney just doesnt have much to fight back with.
I don't know. I'm a big blues fan, you know. Love the gritty "Woke up this mo'nin', rain pourin' down" raunchy raw kind of thing. These endless riffs that make you want to just scream. Not the British. The British are just too damn polite. Ever hear the Rolling Stones make a mess of Motown? (I know, technically not blues, but still.... makes me think of "Motor City's Burning." That was blues.)
Romney's conservatism is kinda like British blues. It's OK. Just not outstanding. Not passionate. No real soul to it. Not going to make anyone scream.
Save the Republic.
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