As you all know, I live in the great state of South By God Carolina. I am not a native of the state but moved here of my own free will and have grown to love it here. It took a while but I am really finally embracing the mind-set of the South Carolinian: fiercely independent of the Federal government (or as I call it the Feral Gummint) while still maintaining strong Conservative values and pride in being Americans. Sure, the Civil War started here and we were the first state to secede from the Union, and I used to deride that & look down upon those facts, but when I start to compare my disgust at the actions of the clowns in Washington with bloated bureaucracy and over-reaching control over the citizenry, the more I can sort of understand why the Carolinians of 1860 really felt that secession was their only option to maintain states' rights and individual liberties.(Now, that said, I must also say that I do NOT agree with their major bone of contention in slave ownership; that practice is abhorrent and could not stand.) I think that is why the Tea Party had so much success here in SC.
So, here we are in 2012 and after much ballyhoo & mud-slinging, one by one the Presidential candidates on the Republican side were whittled down. Many of them were front-runners at one point and tripped over themselves or stepped on land mines laid by those on both the Left and Right.
Michelle Bachmann with her grating accent and helmet of hair... I liked her but her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, like Sarah Palin's... The Old Boy Network sank her early on, with help from that terrible Newsweek pic that the Left purposely used...the Left and their media lackeys turned her into the new Palin.
Jon Huntsman...all I could think was John DeLorean and a white linen suit and the Miami Vice theme, like he was just there to be on TV and be pretty...
Gary Johnson & Tim Pawlenty.....who? And seriously, there were runs by Fred Karger & Buddy Roemer? Again, who?
Rick Perry sounded too much like GWBush if you closed your eyes, and had just as much trouble speaking publicly; contrary to popular belief both are smart guys but just not very articulate. The Air Force doesn't let dumb people fly fighter jets. A great guy but the Left feared him so much they torpedoed him as soon as they could.
I liked Herman Cain, too. A non-politician, a businessman who was more interested in the economy than in golfing. However, as a novice surrounded by political sharks, his baggage (true or not) came back to overshadow his message.
And then there were four.....the final four cards we were dealt to defeat Obamunism in 2012....Mister Rogers, Big Government Republican, The Kook, and Ritchie Rich.
Rick Santorum....another great guy & a staunch Conservative but too rigidly religious in his message to reel in the independent voters and those on the Right who are simply not religious people. The Left sank him via his anti-abortion and anti-gay righteousness and Romney sank him with negative ads once he started losing states to Rick. Dude came across as a sweater-vested Mister Rogers to me though, too nice to defeat the Left in 2012.
My man, Newt Gingrich....I admit I was a Newt supporter from the get go. I saw him speak at a Tea Party event in April of 2011 before he announced his candidacy and we all knew right there that he could be The One to defeat Obama. He was on fire. He had a way of mesmerizing & rallying the entire room to cheers and ovations. I saw him speak again the night before the SC Primary and it was an exciting event with reporters from all over the world. I voted for him in the state primary; the only primary he won, and I don't regret it at all.
Why did Newt appeal to SC voters? He came across as a firebrand ready to take on the administration without backing down, and he'd have dismantled Obama in each & every debate, of this I am certain. We appreciate that sort of passion here, the passion that said "We want more state freedom to govern ourselves with less interference from Washington". The closest thing we had to a firebreathing Tea Party guy. BUT....his own baggage came back to haunt him. That fiery bluntness translated to a certain unlikeability with many voters. His own past as a big government progressive establishment Republican, his ethics investigation, and his marital woes with his ex wives poisoned his campaign. I was willing to look past his past failings & hope that he would lead us back from where we are today but folks like me were few & far between.
And then there were two....
Look, I know a lot of Conservatives who are Ron Paul supporters. One of my best friends from high school was a Paul supporter on the Libertarian ticket in 2008. They get called Paulbots and Ronulans and Paultards. The farther right you are the more you think he wears a tinfoil hat & looks for UFO's while he listens to Coast to Coast AM on the radio at night.The guy has some decent domestic ideas but as far as foreign policy goes, the guy's basically a freakin' kook. I have friends who can't wait to get to the RNC and see all the Paul banners & flags and cry their support for Ron Paul as he sweeps the convention and steals the nomination from the guy who already bought it....and yet the only race he's won was, what, Puerto Rico and that ain't even a state. Dude, give it up.
Mitt Romney. Our last resort. The only thing standing between us and four more disastrous years of Obama and even more draconian Socialist government is a guy who comes off as an effete,smarmy, insincere elitist jellyback.. The Left is attacking his personal wealth and his wife while neglecting the fact that most Liberal icons are filthy rich in ways that make Romney look positively blue collar (Yes, I'm talking to you, Oprah, and you, Warren Buffet, and you, George Soros.) and that the First Family is either golfing or vacationing on our dime more often than not while most of us can't even afford to go to a movie let alone go on a vacation.
It's hard to attack Obamacare when it's allegedly based on Romneycare. It's hard to appeal to the average working class Joe when you're worth 250 million bucks, have offshore bank accounts as tax shelters, and spent millions to drag your fellow Republicans through the mud. It's hard to accept a guy who tucked tail & dropped out of the last race so early. But this is what we've got and I guess as a collective whole we can only blame ourselves.
On the positive side, Obama is a failure and a disaster. His approval ratings are in the toilet. Even Democrats are tired of his lunacy. The problem is, so many blind, ignorant sheep voted for him in the first place that they'll just keep on doing it because they don't know any better. The ones who voted for him because he's black will do so again for the same reason. The ones who voted for him because he's a Democrat, or because he's a union-loving Chicago commie will do so again. The ones who voted for him because they thought they were voting against Bush will sadly still be allowed to vote. The ones who are dead and voted for him will hopefully not be able to keep voting from beyond the grave as these mysterious dead Democrat voters are prone to do.
The Left is going to bash Romney for being a Mormon and for being rich and bash his wife, saying she's never had a job. Well, I give less than a squirrel fart that he's a Mormon; how he worships his chosen deity is his affair and as long as he isn't knocking on my door during the hockey playoffs with two kids in white shirts & black ties on bikes we're all good. So he's rich; most people asking to be President are. He made his money honestly like a good capitalist. That's the American dream in action, baby. And Mitt's wife never had to give up a law license on court orders, unlike a certain world-traveler Vacationista.
Romney has a solid chance to turn the economy around. He has business savvy and economic sense. When he became Governor of Taxachussetts, he closed a 3 BILLION dollar budget gap without raising taxes and the state ended up with a budget surplus. The healthcare law that is called Romneycare was a private, market-based reform that ensures every Massachusetts citizen
will have health insurance, without a government takeover and without
raising taxes (unlike Obamacare). When he took the helm of the organizing committee to put together the Olympics in Salt Lake, he erased a $379 million operating deficit, organized 23,000 volunteers,
galvanized community spirit and oversaw an unprecedented security
mobilization just months after September 11th,
leading to one of the most successful Olympics in our country’s history. Unlike Obama, he's had real jobs, created real jobs, and turned real profits, instead of being a paid agitator for a political party.
He may not have been your first choice, or mine, but right now he's the only choice we have unless you wanna see the country we grew up in disappear completely. I for one am NOT better off than I was four years ago, and I aim to change that come November. Let's take back America.
