Day: January 28, 2008

Let’s hear it also for a governor

Here’s an overlong but (also) persuasive pitch for Romney, to go as counterpoint to Dennis Byrne’s column below:

When it comes to the economy and judges, Mitt’s the One!

Bad economic news highlights the need for a President with the credentials of Mitt Romney, not political maverick John McCain, Mitt’s chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination.

That’s boilerplate: he’s the one for the economy.  But contained within this presentation is an even more important case for Romney, his being a more experienced and responsible manager.  Quoting National Review:

At a time when voters yearn for competence and have soured on Washington…, Romney offers proven executive skill.

Governors generally do, some more than others.  Senators generally do not.  GW was a governor but not a very good executive — “Heckuva job, Brownie” and all that.  But for president we want an executive, do we not?

This writer, NY lawyer Michael Gaynor, a gung-ho Romney supporter, also cites Wikipedia — McCain as goof-off until he was a hero, Romney as an achiever of the first water. 

Like Dennis Byrne, he picks judge-selection as crucial, citing McCain’s “gang of fourteen” membership aimed at blocking or compromising in appointments of conservatives.  In this he focuses on McCain as legislator- compromiser.

As for Romney, having the Judicial Confirmation Network in his corner says it all.

There’s more to be said about all this, but let us close with Thomas Sowell’s comment at Real Clear Politics a few weeks ago:

When it comes to personal temperament, Governor Romney would rate the highest for his even keel, regardless of what events are swirling around him, with Rudolph Giuliani a close second.

Temperament is far more important for a President than for a candidate. A President has to be on an even keel 24/7, for four long years, despite crises that can break out anywhere in the world at any time.

John McCain trails the pack in the temperament department, with his volatile, arrogant, and abrasive know-it-all attitude. His track record in the Senate is full of the betrayals of Republican supporters that have been the party’s biggest failing over the years and its Achilles heel politically.

Ouch! for McCain supporters, and let’s hear it! from Romney-ites — and, I may add, for those who have executive ability in mind when voting for the chief executive.

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Thunder on the right? Clash of titans?

I have told D. Byrne he is very persuasive with this Chi Trib column of today and think I’d better tell you all.  He gives the case for McCain as adequately conservative and best equipped to govern, along the way making a fair try at putting Rush L. in his place:

Nothing seems to anger die-hard Republicans more than Cafeteria Conservatives — folks who pick and choose which right-wing diktat they will believe or reject.

Chief among the die-hards is Rush Limbaugh, the conservative equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church’s Curia, who deigns to define what constitutes conservative purity. No one better in the church wields the nihil obstat (nothing hinders) stamp better than his lugness. Not even medieval church censors were better at defining what is free or not free of doctrinal error.

Chiefly the McCain advantage lies here, he says:

[T]he two most important issues in the election are national security (i.e. the war on terror, the war in Iraq and the nuclear threat posed by lunatic tyrants) and the quality and philosophical grounding of the new president’s appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

It’s Islamic fundamentalism, stupid, and the courts.

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