I've written about politics from time to time on this blog going back to the last presidential primary in which my favorite candidate, Mitt Romney, was defeated by John McCain after some Huckabee-McCain shenanigans in South Carolina. I shook off defeat easily then, confident that Mitt would run again in 2012, when I felt certain his financial expertise would be in even greater demand. The disastrous outcome that November, of course, was the election of Barack Hussein Obama who has been a dismal failure in every respect, a few terrorist corpses notwithstanding. (Don't get me started!)
Now we are in primary season again and the choice for many people is not an obvious one. Pundits on television say the Republicans must put forth a Romney and an anti-Romney, because Romney is not conservative enough. Enough? Enough? Enough for whom?
I would describe myself as an arch-conservative - so conservative, in fact, that I do not want to do away with our entire monetary system in one fell swoop by eradicating the IRS and adopting Cain's 9-9-9 plan. If I favored such a move, I would call myself a radical, not a conservative.
Imagine the upheaval! 9-9-9 is not the price of a pizza, as Huntsman suggested, but a crapshoot with the American financial system on the line. Middle class Americans would not be able to deduct mortgage interest or charitable donations or receive child tax credits. The poor who are mercifully exempt from income taxation would suddenly have to pay as much as everyone else in relative terms, and many of them simply could not do it. They are barely getting by as it is.
I am conservative enough to say tweak the current system 59 ways (Romney's plan), but don't reinvent the wheel. And don't give Congress in perpetuity the new revenue stream of a federal sales tax. No one likes state and local sales taxes -- who would want a federal sales tax added to what we already pay for every purchase? What an awful, awful idea!!!
Like everyone else, I like Herman Cain. I think he's brilliant in many ways and refreshing in every way -- but this 9-9-9 plan is not a good idea.
There are things I like about all of the candidates, but Romney is clearly the best option.
Most people do not know much about him. Every media story about Romney is at least partially negative. Pundits even disparage his good looks, which he has never commented on in my recollection. As though being good looking were, in itself, elitist or a liability or an indication of one's depth.
Until recently, I had no idea a man could be jealous of another man's appearance. It's as if the talking heads on television will not accept a president who is better looking, effortlessly, than they are. In my view, Romney's good looks are simply God-given. He did not do anything to deserve them. They are neither a plus nor a minus. In choosing the leader of the free world, looks should not be a factor, but polls show they inevitably are because of people who focus on such things.
The anti-Romney media (and there are very few of any other kind) would have us see through a glass darkly when it comes to Mitt Romney. I consider it my civic duty to illuminate facts about Mitt Romney that many people do not know:
1. Mitt has led a conservative life. He married his wife Ann over 40 years ago and had a large family of boys, who have all married and had children of their own. There is nothing in Mitt's personal life that would be considered anything but conservative.
2. Mitt speaks French fluently, which is the language of diplomacy.
3. Mitt has experience living overseas. He lived in France for two years and was declared dead there following a traffic accident in which he was not at fault.
4. The media would have everyone believe that Mitt was born of blue blood parents with a silver spoon in his mouth, but that isn't true. His father was an apprenticed carpenter and lath worker who never graduated from college but worked his way up to the top of American Motors and then became governor of Michigan and a presidential candidate. For most of Mitt's life, they were well off, but he attended public schools until junior high. Romney did not inherit his wealth from his father - he earned it in the private sector working in multiple industries.
5. Mitt attended Stanford for one year, then served as a missionary in France, then graduated from Brigham Young University. He and his wife had their first child while living there in a basement apartment. Mitt received dual graduate degrees from Harvard -- an MBA and a law degree.
6. Life for the Romneys has not been perfectly easy despite financial success. Ann has suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years and recently had a bout with breast cancer. She is usually by Mitt's side on the campaign trail.
7. Romney has experience with homeland security issues, having led the Winter Olympics a few months after 9/11 followed by four years as governor of Massachusetts.
8. Romney received an Honorary Doctor of Public Service from the very conservative Hillsdale College in 2007.
9. Romney knows how companies work, what they need to succeed (and hire new people), and what dooms them to failure, necessitating layoffs. He helped to launch or rebuild hundreds of companies, including Staples, Domino's Pizzza, and The Sports Authority. No amount of education or government service can provide that kind of experience.
10. It is well known that Mitt Romney is a 6th generation Mormon. Some evangelical pastors do not consider Mormons to be Christians, but Mormons regard Jesus Christ as the head of their church and partake of the sacrament in the name of Jesus Christ each week. For Mormons, Jesus Christ is not a mere prophet. They revere Him as the Savior of mankind and the only begotten son of God. Jesus Christ himself gave the formula for identifying true Christians when he said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Also, Mormons celebrate traditional Christian holidays, including Christmas and Easter. (I added that last sentence because I heard a reluctant Romney supporter in the last election lamenting the fact that there would be no Easter egg roll at the White House if he were elected.)
11. Romney's detractors. including many whose opinions I had previously respected, choose to focus on what they call his flip-flops. They are leery about electing a man who previously seemed to compromise on issues such as abortion and gay rights. I would remind them that he was seeking public office in the most liberal state in the nation at the time. He would not have been elected to serve in any capacity if he had held a hard line on such issues. The farther he gets away from Massachusetts, the more conservative he becomes not because he is changing but because the electorate can accept his natural conservatism. Parallels with Ronald Reagan in this regard are remarkable.
12. Romney has turned around businesses, a collapsing Olympic effort, and one state. He will not require a team of economists to interpret financial information. He is uniquely qualified to turn around our current economic situation and help lead the world out of crisis.
I'm sure there are dozens of other points I could make if I had more time, but I keep thinking of Esther in the Old Testament and the phrase: "who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
Mitt Romney is a man for our time, and quite possibly for all time -- a man in the mold of our country's founders, who were accomplished in their own right before seeking public office.
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