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After bowling with Mitt Romney yesterday, Scott Brown introduced his friend and mentor to the adoring crowds of CPAC 2010, which started today. As Brown said: “When I started my campaign, we could only hold our events in a phone booth, and he was one of those guys in the booth with me.”
The strategy of the speech was clear: If you are a Republican who is happy that Scott Brown has derailed the President’s health care plan, its all due to Mitt Romney. It was Romney who helped Brown make his email lists, Romney who helped him fundraise.
Romney began his speech by saying that he loves taking Scott Brown wherever he can take him. And Romney also tried to whitewash away his RINO label (“I’m usually considered suspicious at events like this…”) by tagging himself to Brown: “Lets say something I never thought you would say at CPAC, Thank you Massachusets for killing Obamacare! Thank you attacking the Pelosi-Reid-Obama axis.”
It may be too early for 2012 VP speculation, but its clear what the logic is behind a Romney-Brown ticket. If Brown can (somehow) remain in good Tea Party standing for the next two years (a hard task, no doubt) then he can be a crutch for anyone who thinks Romney is not conservative enough. How can he be a RINO if the guy who killed Obamacare campaigns with him?
Best Joke by Mitt Romney: You may not have heard this, but Lindsay Vaughn’s gold medal has been stripped. (Audience goes silent) It’s been determined that President Obama has been going downhill faster then she did!
Worst Joke from Mitt Romney: Obama’s economic failure will be the biggest failure since Al Gore’s invention of the internet. (In this humble blogger’s opinion, I find the internet very helpful for my work.)
mickster99 // Feb 19, 2010 at 1:22 am
Kevin 47: Thanks for detailed and thoughtful reply. I appreciate it. I find it interesting that when defining socialism you mentioned our agriculture policy and farm subsidies. I assume by that do you mean financial supports of for certain commodity prices so as to make us competetive with foreign growers? Where do you think social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid fit in as aspects of socialism active in the US? As for controlling markets would you include the SEC, the FED as aspects of socialism. I recall reading a number of Republicans called for the eliminated of the SEC and let capital markets regulate themselves. Does that seem like a useful policy? Thanks again.
msmilack // Feb 19, 2010 at 1:28 am
Misc.: just read that the person who supposedly became violent with Romney on an airplane (and was removed) has explained that actually, it was Romney who struck him first; luckily, a friend caught the whole event on film (those little cell phones come in so handy) which I assume will become available any minute. I bet Romney is wishing he had stuck to his previous policy of using private planes. Shortly after McCain got skewered for living in 7 (or was it 8?) residences, Romney quietly began to unload his own multiple mansions, selling three (or is it four?) of his five million dollar homes and began to fly commercial. Maybe he should just purchase a truck like Scott Brown.
mickster99 // Feb 19, 2010 at 1:31 am
kevin47, if you were a Republican president with a large majority controlling the House or Representatives and say 60+ Republican senators what would be your legislative agenda to put a conservative agenda for smaller government, lower taxes, elimination of waste, etc into effect in the U.S.?
GOProud // Feb 19, 2010 at 7:53 am
Noah writes: “The strategy of the speech was clear: If you are a Republican who is happy that Scott Brown has derailed the President’s health care plan, its all due to Mitt Romney.”
Thanks Noah –I told FF readers and even the farLeft trolls here that very thing in an earlier post only to get the “he’s a mormon”, “he’s a RINO”, “he’s a flip flopper” tossed back at the insight… and I won’t even share what the farLeft trolls said.
farLeft trolls on FF given advice to Mitt or GOPers is about as sincere as Elliot Spitzer and Tiger Woods heading up a conference on Marriage Vows, Michael Jackson and Roman Polanski giving tips on Mastering that Pedophile Urge, or Barney Frank and Joe Biden producing a coloring book on Ethics in Govt and Public Service for Democrat Dummies.
But that’s ok… the farLeft’s fear –and you can literally smell the fear on guys like Chrissie Matthews, Keith Olbermann and David Alexrod– is well grounded. Let’s keeping putting the fork in them and turning ‘em on the spit of political reality because they’ve earned it for the years of abuse they heaped on W and Cheney.
sinz54 // Feb 19, 2010 at 9:40 am
msmilack: I keep praying for one Republican who has enough integrity to put country before party– who is man or woman enough to stand up, apart from the rest, and say, “Enough Obama-bashing, enough campaigning for the next election, let’s save this country and do what we were elected to do.”
Republicans were NOT elected to acquiesce in Obama’s incessant attempts to drive the country sharply to the Left. That’s the point you keep forgetting. We conservatives believe that Obama’s policies are wrong for the country. But you want us to just shut up and go away and let Obama do whatever he wants, right?
You are so wrong on every count, it’s unbelievable.
I live in MA. I’m not going to bother trying to explain to you how a heavily Democratic and liberal state could elect a conservative Republican to the Senate. Many of the same voters who voted for Obama in 2008 voted for Brown in 2010, including suburban voters who were supposed to be swinging to the Dems–till 2010. We MA voters made the right choice, given who Brown’s opponent was and what she was all about. (I’m too contemptuous of her even to name her.)
Until the Scott Brown win, the Dems had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The GOP couldn’t stop them from passing anything they wanted to pass. Why do you suppose they didn’t? It’s because the two bills that are blocked in Congress–health care reform and cap-and-trade–are deeply unpopular with the voters.
sinz54 // Feb 19, 2010 at 9:43 am
msmilack: I always found it interesting that Romney offered no opinions on national health care since he took pride (when it suited his personal agenda) in establishing the equivalent [to ObamaCare] in Massachusetts (where he is disliked by even the people who elected him).
If RomneyCare is disliked in MA (because it didn’t stop health care premiums from rising sharply), then why on earth should we enact an “equivalent” bill nationally like ObamaCare? Isn’t the reaction of MA voters to their own health care reform a warning flag that we should do something different nationally?
RomneyCare has the same basic structure as ObamaCare: Guaranteed issue; a mandate on all citizens to purchase insurance; and it even has a public option, CommonwealthCare, for the truly needy. Yet here are the Dems proposing to enact the same basic thing nationwide–even though MA voters are now sufficiently turned off that they could elect a conservative Republican to the U.S. Senate who promises to stop the other 49 states from having what MA has.
sinz54 // Feb 19, 2010 at 9:46 am
mickster99: kevin47, if you were a Republican president with a large majority controlling the House or Representatives and say 60+ Republican senators what would be your legislative agenda to put a conservative agenda for smaller government, lower taxes, elimination of waste, etc into effect in the U.S.?
Could I put my $0.02 in?
I would go with the Paul Ryan plan–as a starting point for discussion.
Currently, Paul Ryan has the ONLY plan, from either party, that seriously attempts to stem the explosive rise in Medicare costs.
The Ryan plan is flawed. But at least Paul Ryan has the guts to take on the entitlements problem, rather than toss it over the fence as Obama keeps doing.
sinz54 // Feb 19, 2010 at 9:50 am
kevin47: What you are really praying for is that Republicans will embrace your worldview. They believe they are opposing a poorly considered agenda (and I think they are right), and so they are defending their country.
Thank you.
That is exactly right.
Obama is soft on terrorism.
Obama is soft on Iran.
Obama has expanded the national debt to frightening levels.
Obama’s health care plan won’t do a damned thing to control costs. If anything, costs will rise sharply.
Obama’s cap-and-trade plan will be shot through with corruption and shady deals, weakening its power, just as it has been in Europe. (Even the hard-core Leftists to Obama’s left admit this.)
I live in MA.
Scott Brown promised to oppose most of these things Obama is doing.
He’s representing my interests by doing so.
sinz54 // Feb 19, 2010 at 10:22 am
debs: Does the writer understand that the guy “who killed Obamacare” enthusiastically supported Romneycare–which is identical to Obamacare? So what does that make Brown–and Romney, for that matter?
I live in MA.
Do YOU understand that the state of MA supported RomneyCare–it’s a liberal Dem state–but then elected Scott Brown to oppose ObamaCare nationwide? What does that make the citizens of MA?
Do you know why they did that?
For two reasons:
1. RomneyCare is increasingly unpopular in MA, now that it has failed to constrain costs. (I live in MA. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MA just raised my premium by over 40%.)
2. Nevertheless, at least the citizens of MA already have RomneyCare, which they pay for through their state taxes. With ObamaCare, they would have to pay through their federal taxes for a program that duplicates what they already have. There’s no benefit to the citizens of MA from ObamaCare. Rather, the federal tax dollars of MA residents would go to subsidize ObamaCare for other states.
sinz54 // Feb 19, 2010 at 10:26 am
debs:
BTW, ObamaCare is not identical to RomneyCare, as you claim.
It’s worse.
ObamaCare is shot through with special side deals to every special interest.
MA has one of the finest hospital complexes in America, and possibly on earth. RomneyCare could leverage off of that. ObamaCare can’t.
RomneyCare has a public option for the truly needy. ObamaCare doesn’t.
That’s the main reason why MA voted for Scott Brown: Why should the citizens of MA pay Federal taxes to support a national program that is worse than what they already have and for which they pay through their state taxes? Why should the citizens of MA pay twice for the same thing?
Scott Brown hammered that point in his campaign stops–and it was devastating to the Dems.
debs // Feb 19, 2010 at 11:01 am
Sinz,
You live in Massachusetts, and you dislike Romneycare, but most of your fellow citizens *don’t.* The ABC/Harvard/Kaiser poll taken a few days after Brown’s election showed that 68% of Mass residents approved of Romneycare. Just ain’t true that most people in the state don’t like–maybe you ought to get out a little more.
debs // Feb 19, 2010 at 11:10 am
If Obama’s program doesn’t have a public option, it certainly not because he got any help from the Republicans! You’re kidding right? You’re blaming Obama because the Dems health care plan lacks a public option? Blame Joe Lieberman if you want, but 90% of Dems wanted a public option and zero Republicans did. The hospital point you make is irrelevant–the structures of the two bill are exactly the same, subsidy/mandate/regulation–and the special interest payoffs will be eliminated in the final bill, and are much less than the payoffs that pharm and the insurance companies got from the Bush administration for Medicare Part D–much less. In fact, that’s why we have Medicare Advantage now–which fleeces the taxpayers.
debs // Feb 19, 2010 at 11:11 am
I meant to say, of course, that most of your fellow citizen do like the program. Here’s the key graf from the Post article on Jan 23rd:
Massachusetts enacted a universal health-care plan several years ago, and the survey shows that it remains highly popular. Overall, 68 percent of the voters in Tuesday’s election say they support the plan, including slightly more than half of those voting for Brown.
GOProud // Feb 19, 2010 at 11:40 am
Sinz54: “… even though MA voters are now sufficiently turned off that they could elect a conservative Republican to the U.S. Senate who promises to stop the other 49 states from having what MA has….”
I think you’ve got a problem of association, here. Voters didn’t elect Brown to repudiate MA health care programs; they voted for Brown for a whelter of reasons… to oppose ObamaCare, the harsh partisanship in DC, to rebel against the Democrat Party machine that thought it was a Kennedy seat… and, famously, against the Obami’s return to a pre-9/11 mentality on terror.
Brown won, Sinz54, because voters wanted him over a weak-knee’d, ineffective Coakley who had Obami Thugs manhandle press people and throw them to the curb when asking simple questions of Coakley. It didn’t help that the Obami Thug worked for the White House… but that’s how it goes when Robert Gibbs isn’t free to do public floggings of wayward press.
It’s associations, pal. And stretching Brown’s election as a repudiation of MA Health Care plan is one that also stretches reality.
It’s kind of like the educator yesterday who told a group of us at CPAC that students from families that are religious-centered get better grades, are better adjusted socially and do well in life. Therefore, we need to change HeadStart to include religious training for poor students from mostly dysfunctional families who can’t seem to get even the basic value of giving kids a warm breakfast.
It’s a problem with associating two unrelated events.
ratgov // Feb 19, 2010 at 4:28 pm
sinz54 “Obama has expanded the national debt to frightening levels.”
Here is my stock answer whenever someone talks about Obama raising the debt enormously:
In 2001 the CBO estimated a budget surplus of $850B in 2009. Three things changed that drastically:
- Bush tax cuts (which were suppose to increase government revenue by encouraging growth, but growth did not come close to covering the loss in revenue)
- The war in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Medicare part D
Those three items (no matter what your feeling about them) had an absolutely massive effect on the amount of money our government spends (both short term – the wars will eventually end) and long term (Medicare part D will have an absolutely massive impact on the cost of governemnt FOREVER).
When Obama took office, the Federal Budget was around 2.8T. The Federal budget for 2010 is around $3.5T.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873746.html
That is a 25% increase, but it does not give anywhere near the real picture. If we remove entitlement spending (social security, medicare and interest) the number goes from 2008 $1.1T, 2010 $1.4T.
Finally, the Obama administration has done something that I think that everyone would think is the correct thing to do: Start counting the cost of the wars in the budget (this was not done in the 2008 Budget). If you add that to the 2008 budget it is $1.3T. So the real answer (unless you wanted Obama to cut social security last year) is the the budget increased about 7% from 2008 to 2010.
BTW I’m totally with you on the cap and trade stuff. But you won’t win if you don’t speak the truth.
kevin47 // Feb 19, 2010 at 6:33 pm
“I have one correction to your response that feels important enough to make: please do not tell me what I am “really” praying for; you are in no position to know.”
I’m in some position, having read your opinions. Your concept of a health dissent is that which largely cedes the argument. In fairness, you might be praying for zombies from Saturn to enslave us to work in their salt mines, so I apologize for potentially misrepresenting your religious views.
“I find it interesting that when defining socialism you mentioned our agriculture policy and farm subsidies. I assume by that do you mean financial supports of for certain commodity prices so as to make us competetive with foreign growers?”
Your wording is pretty confusing, but I am referring to price controls and subsidies. The problem, and this is a hallmark of socialism, is that the product of governmental intervention has been absorbed into agricultural economy. Any farmer who purchases farmland does so with the understanding that his land will be subsidized.
“Where do you think social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid fit in as aspects of socialism active in the US?”
By and large, they don’t, though you could argue that governmental negotiations constitute a sort of price control for health providers. My opposition to Social Security stems from the fact that it is financially untenable. Just because something is stupid doesn’t make it socialist.
“As for controlling markets would you include the SEC, the FED as aspects of socialism. I recall reading a number of Republicans called for the eliminated of the SEC and let capital markets regulate themselves. Does that seem like a useful policy? Thanks again.”
It does seem like a useful policy, though I wouldn’t fall on my sword over the question. The SEC provides a certain measure of market confidence among the public, which is not dispositive. However, that seems to be the extent of its usefulness.
“kevin47, if you were a Republican president with a large majority controlling the House or Representatives and say 60+ Republican senators what would be your legislative agenda to put a conservative agenda for smaller government, lower taxes, elimination of waste, etc into effect in the U.S.?”
I would eliminate the DOE outright, as well as any federal funding for non-military education.
I would propose a privatized Social Security system that would eventually lead to the dissolution of the program.
I would support a three year income tax increase (across the board, no exceptions) to pair with leftover Tarp/Stim funding to pay down the debt. I would work with congress to landmine it, meaning I would call for a tax deduction after the fourth year, such that any member of congress calling to make the increase permanent can be charged with raising taxes.
I would support a line-item veto.
I would make it very clear that our government is more than willing to carry out assassinations, if it serves our interests. I also wouldn’t hesitate to facilitate liberation in Iran, though I would demand compensation in terms of natural resources for such an endeavor. I would understand that those on the left who subscribe to an intellectually untenable sort of pacifism would cry foul. I would not care.
I would remove the tax incentive for employers to provide health insurance, but create a tax deduction for the purchase of health insurance. To facilitate the transition, I would provide an incentive for employees to transfer benefits compensation to dollar compensation. From what I understand, Sen. Wyden proposed something very similar.
JonF // Feb 19, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Re: and, famously, against the Obami’s return to a pre-9/11 mentality on terror.
Meanwhile in the real world Obama has done his own version of the surge in Afghanistan (you know, the pace where the Al Qaida big wigs hang out) and he is lobbing missiles into suspected Al Qaida sites in Pakistan. I realize GOP talking points will be repeated on a site like this, but could we at least have some that are not blatantly false?
sinz54 // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:20 am
GOProud: I think you’ve got a problem of association, here. Voters didn’t elect Brown to repudiate MA health care programs; they voted for Brown for a whelter of reasons… to oppose ObamaCare, the harsh partisanship in DC, to rebel against the Democrat Party machine that thought it was a Kennedy seat… and, famously, against the Obami’s return to a pre-9/11 mentality on terror.
I live in MA, remember.
I listen to the local talk shows.
I do a lot of discussing with my neighbors and with the health care staff at my dialysis center.
I know what people in MA were worried about.
You’re right about the concerns about Obama’s counter-terrorism policy; I forgot and I should have mentioned that.
But Brown explicitly promised to go to Washington to oppose Obama’s agenda. He promised to oppose ObamaCare, period. He did NOT promise any of that mushy post-partisanship or bi-partisanship or any such thing.
sinz54 // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:25 am
GOProud: And stretching Brown’s election as a repudiation of MA Health Care plan is one that also stretches reality.
I keep explaining to the Dems I come in contact with,
that the Brown position (and it’s one that MA voters agreed with) was: We’ve got health care reform in MA already. We don’t need ObamaCare because RomneyCare was actually better–and because we’ve already got one of the finest medical complexes in the world, right here in the Boston area. So why should we pay Federal taxes to support a national program that we don’t need? All we will end up doing is subsidizing the states, like Nebraska, that didn’t bother to elect their own health care reforms.
And THAT is a consistent conservative position: If each of the states can act as a “social laboratory,” devising successful health care reforms, then the Federal Government’s role in health care reform can be made smaller–and cheaper.
My advice to Ben Nelson of Nebraska: Your state doesn’t have the social pathologies of a bicoastal state. You don’t have vast numbers of illegal immigrants, or urban slums filled with the underclass. If you implemented “NelsonCare” for your own state, it wouldn’t bankrupt your people. So what stopped YOU from enacting your OWN health care reforms, as Romney did in MA?
sinz54 // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:33 am
debs:
You missed my point entirely.
Some MA residents approve of RomneyCare, some don’t.
But all agree that it’s here to stay, paid for with our state tax dollars.
And we have no need to pay for ObamaCare as well through our federal tax dollars.
Since we have RomneyCare, but Nebraska has no health care reforms of its own,
ObamaCare will force us MA residents to subsidize the health care of Nebraska, with no benefit to ourselves.
Q.E.D.
sinz54 // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:36 am
ratgov:
Take a look at this chart of past and future deficit spending:
http://i47.tinypic.com/b62dn6.jpg
According to the CBO, every single one of the projected deficits in the Obama administration are higher than those of the Bush Administration.
And this chart doesn’t also show the imminent explosive rise in entitlement spending for SS and Medicare, as the baby-boomers finally retire.
Paul Ryan, to his credit, has made fixing that explosive rise in Medicare spending into a centerpiece of his reform proposal.
No other politicians, Dem or Repub, have had the guts to suggest such a thing.
JonF // Feb 20, 2010 at 11:45 am
Sinz,
Medicare is a huge problem. But SS is not. There is no “explosive rise”on the horizon for SS. There is a slow, steady increase for a few years, then a flattening out.
SS can be made sustainable indefinitely with some small bore changes: raise the income taxation cap, increase the retirement age, and redo the COLA formula. To be sure there may be political issues with each of those, and I too worry that we lack the will for these and other problems we face. But there are no economic problems that cannot be surmounted in regards to SS.
msmilack // Feb 20, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Republicans are so mean.
sinz54 // Feb 21, 2010 at 11:59 am
JonF:
I agree about increasing the retirement age for both SS and Medicare. I’ve been advocating that myself for quite a long time.
But Medicare, unless SS, is not sustainable without fundamental restructuring of the program. We can’t have a shrunken cohort of young people paying for the medical care of baby-boomers, some of whom (thanks to modern medicine) will live till they’re 100.
GOP Rep. Paul Ryan at least has the guts to tackle the problem. There isn’t anyone on the Dem side, from Obama on down, who will even discuss it publicly.