MITT ROMNEY

Well! What can I say about Mitt Romney now that he has lost the Florida primary to John McCain? Until this evening, Romney had a strong lead in the delegate count for the national convention. But with McCain picking up 57 delegates, that puts the pressure on Romney.

Mitt Romney is a successful businessman, who has a track record of taking over failing businesses and turning them around. Like Giuliani and Bill Richardson, he's had executive experience in both the private and the public sector. He was the man who turned the 2002 Summer Olympics in Salt Lake City into a successful venture, although it was on the brink of collapse amid mismanagement and scandal. As governor of Massachusetts, he reversed the state's fiscal decline and created budget surpluses where none had existed before.

If the economy is to be the defining issue of the 2008 presidential race, then Romney is the candidate for the Republicans. His success in business and as governor put him head and shoulders above all the other candidates. On the issues, only Fred Thompson was stronger, although Mitt looks more like a president. Granted, that was superficial, but that is also part of what voters look at.

Romney is the epitome of that old saying, "If at twenty you are not a Liberal, you have no heart -- if at forty you are not a Conservative, you have no brain." Romney's political career has moved him steadily to the Right. In 1994, he was the closest of any Republicans to unseat Ted Kennedy, failing only because he moved to the Left in a misguided effort to "moderate" his tone for Liberal Massachusetts.

As a candidate for governor, he left behind these youthful indiscretions to run as a more mainstream Conservative. True to my observations yesterday, in The McCain Mutiny, Romney won.

Romney's campaign seems to have earned the enmity of the Liberal Legacy Media, despite his past Liberal leanings and his Hollywood-style presidential looks. My suspicion is that he is the one candidate that can actually unite the Republicans and beat either Hillary or Obama. As such, they are shilling for McCain as much as they can, telling us that he is the only candidate worthy of being called a Conservative. As if the Legacy Media has any real idea of what a Conservative is.

In service to this agenda, the Legacy Media has made much of Romney's Mormon faith. There has been a lot of attention given to Mormon history and to alleged mistrust of Mormons by the evangelical Christians who make up such a large part of the Conservative base. Of course, the simple fact that Mormonism is, in essence, a Christian faith gets left out of these examinations.

Questions have arisen about the Mormon practice, abandoned a century ago by mainstream Mormons, of polygamy. But that doesn't wash since, of all the Republican candidates, Mitt Romney is the only one who is still married to his first --and only -- wife!

Curiously, none of these issues were raised when Harry Reid, the "Dingy One" from Nevada who is currently the Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats, was opining as to how "the war is lost" and calling President Bush "a loser". For some reason, the Legacy Media doesn't see the Mormon faith as problematic for a Democrat.

The religion question became so extreme that Romney had to blunt the attacks. On Dec. 6th, 2007, he gave a speech (you can see it here) about his Mormon faith and his ideals as a presidential candidate. Entitled Faith in America, he answered and shut down all his critics, and did so in a way that enhanced his stature as a man and as a prospective president.

Romney, as noted above, has grown into his Conservative principles. Hence, he is tagged by McCain and the Legacy Media as a "flip-flopper". Well, Paul Compos of the Scripps Howard New Service has already demonstrated that it is McCain, not Romney, who is positionally challenged.

The stands Romney has taken in this campaign are the tried and true Conservative views. He seeks an overturn of Roe v. Wade, turning the issue of abortion back to the states and the people, where it belongs. He has vowed tax cuts and private sector solutions to various social problems, rather than the Nanny State of the Democrats. And he has stood solidly for America in the War on Terror, supporting President Bush and our troops.

Indeed, Romney and Fred Thompson are the only candidates I've heard actually defend American businesses, rightfully praising them for our unprecedented standard of living. All the other candidates, and especially John McCain, have criticized and belittled our corporations, threatening them with ever more onerous taxes and regulations.

So here is what we have with Mitt Romney:

• An impeccable and successful resume of executive experience both in the private and the public spheres.


• A genuinely decent man, without the personal baggage of most of the other candidates.


• A man who has grown into his Conservatism, learning from the past and applying it to the present, while not pandering to the base.


• And a man who, when unjustly maligned for his faith, stood up to the bigots without demeaning either them or himself.

Mitt Romney is my candidate of choice for the Republican nomination. A perfect candidate? No, and never has a perfect candidate ever existed. Yet Romney is the man who most epitomizes the ideals of Conservatism. He has the fewest skeletons of all the other candidates. He has the most experience.

Mitt Romney is the man for the White House, hands down, out of all the candidates that we have examined here in these columns. He has a tough battle ahead of him. But there is the one thing the philosopher got right out all he got wrong: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Romney is the man!

Copyright Jan. 29th, 2008