My Chat with Mitt Romney - Another Republican That's Out of Touch?

“The young people, do you think they have any idea what (Obamunism, destruction of the country,  etc) is going on?”, I asked.

“They have no idea of what is going on”, replied Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, as he sat across from me this afternoon at the local Starbucks in San Antonio, Texas.

From the looks of things being on his way to some event in Nevada, he and his entourage, all with Blackberrys , had stopped in for a break from some activities in San Antonio. TX.

Looking as someone who just stepped out of a GQ magazine, he sat down in the overstuffed chair, and bantered with his posse, telling stories such as one normally tells when they are decompressing. At first, I thought that I was going to hear tales of intrigue and plotting to wrest control from those evil Obamunists, but such was not the case and the stories were of normal people talking about vacations and telling jokes about how people who want to live in a Socialist country are leaving the United States for France because the food is better there than here . (Followed by sincere guffaws all around.)

Looking around at all the people coming and going, none seemed to recognize him. Yet ,there he was, not 8 feet from the table where I was sitting.

Seeing as he was contender for the presidency in 2008, and thinking surely that he must still be on the go for the office, I figured that it was my chance to have direct contact with somebody who may be our future president. Thus it was that I ambled over, to see directly and in real-time, if someone high up in the Republican Party, as a candidate, instead of a mere functionary or talking head mouthpiece of the party administration, was in tune with the ground level state of things, and in particular, in tune with the population at large and how they felt about certain things of which any reader to this site can well imagine had to do with the growth of government - and the role that the Republican Party machine has had itself  in promoting such growth and expansion of the State.

Thus my question which is at the lead to this piece. Continuing, I asked if he thought they (the young people), or others, knew what was at stake for the country?

“Absolutely not” is my recollection of his reply “ they have no clue”. Continuing, Romney said, “Our generation will be OK, but they (the young generation) will be the ones that have to pay the price as all the costs later fall on them.”

Thinking “Wow, that is a great reason why no office holder would want to do anything about things”, I replied that it is really sad that so many people seem clueless. I continued, however, that many of us that have voted Republican in the past, do have a concern, and that concern is that there will be really no change in Washington - even if the Republicans take the 2010 or 2012 elections.

As example, I continued that my elected representative (Lamar Smith - a Republican ) voted FOR the TARP bailout - a program that was at about $785 billion and spreads itself at about  $3,000 a person for each man woman and child in the United States. (OK maybe I am off a bit but the point is made.)

Now, this mention of the TARP was intentional as I wanted to see if he, one of the standard-bearers for the Republican Party, was clued in to the fact that there are a good many Republicans that are no longer Republicans, instead calling ourselves simply conservatives or Constitutional Conservatives, and that indeed many of us voters feel sold out by the Republican Party and that some even sat out McCain’s run.

Of course, the hidden point that I was trying to broach with Mr. Romney was that the Republican Party may be in for a rude awakening if they think that they can appear to be “just be a little bit better than the Democrats, (i.e., be seen as the lesser of two evils”) and that the Republican voters will "fall in line" with party officialdom. Perhaps that happened in the past, but the voters are angry this time - and not just at the Democrats.

My take on Romney’s reply and reaction, is that he completely missed the point which was that the Republicans need to consider that they are to blame for their own loss in 2008, not having lost to Obama, but having lost all on their own by disaffecting enough voters by their mendacious acts such as shown by the TARP vote where, for example, the Texas Republican contingent of Sen. Cornyn, and Sen. Hutchison, and Rep Lamar Smith all voted in favor of the thing instead of letting the Democrats have the entire thing in their hands, and in doing so showing themselves to many as RINO’s,  despite the hue and cry of their constituents NOT to cave in.

My take on Romney’s reply and reaction, is that it is completely off his radar that that the Republicans need to consider that it ( losses at the polls) might be about to happen to them AGAIN. 


(Yes, it was a test to see if he, too, was a RINO. Results at the end of the article)

Also, a point that he apparently is NOT clued in on is that the disaffected, are NOT disaffected only because of Obama, but are disaffected because of the way government under either party, Republican Party included,  has become a government of intrusion, statism, handout and entitlement,  and are disaffected because the Republican Party is out of touch with the people. 

I mentioned to Mr Romney that, by design, everybody is on some kind of  "entitlement" these days and that accordingly, nobody seems to want to “give up theirs” as they grunt at the government trough. To his credit, he indicated that there are a host of "them" that are doing whatever they can to keep themselves in a (government) job (power) and then to his discredit , after telling him that I was an ordinary Joe, but not a plumber, and that I wrote a political blog and that I was concerned, as many of us are, about the Republican complicity in keeping the status quo, and how the Republican Party is not listening to the people, he changed the subject - which is a first thing one does when they do not want to listen.

Perhaps I should have asked,  “The Republican Party Machine (and you), do you think they have any idea what is going on in the mind of the people that used to call themselves Republicans. Do you think that the Party Machine (and you) knows that the people now feel un-listened to by the Republican Party, and that indeed they are NOT listened to. The Republican Party Machine, do they realize that these people have the power to bring the hammer down. The Republican Party, does it realize that it works for the rank-and-file and not the other way around., and that (not to beat a dead horse to death) that there is a growing slice of normal-folks voters that are pissed off that they are not listened to, and that all the Tea Party agitation is NOT just about evil Democrats, but about the business-as-usual big-government attitude in Washington by BOTH parties?

Perhaps I should have further asked - Does the Republican Party machine (and you) realize that the Tea Party attitude is:

"McCain reaching across the aisle??" - Give us a break.

"I create jobs, not the government - So get the hell out of every nook and cranny of my life"

 " Local Problems, Local Solutions"

"You, the Federal government are out of control, and we are angry that you have made us have to come out of our farms, and out of our fields, and our homes, and our factories to rein you in and curb you to your proper function."

"We're Coming .... and we're coming for YOU"

SCORECARD/Assessment

The Good
Romney knows that the younger folks are clueless.  (Props for that.)

Romney knows that they and many in the country do not know what is really at stake with the Obama policies. (Props for that)

Romney is personable. Good handshake, looks you in the eye, energetic and animated. Doesn't seem to be the type that would have a problem looking Putin in the eye either. (Props) 


The Bad
Romney, like the Republican machine, does not have a clue that there are a lot of folks out that are on to the fact that the Republicans are in it for big government and keeping their jobs and status as part of big government - just as the Democrats are in it for big government and back scratching and job security for themselves, and that to either party we, the people, don't really matter except as a vehicle  to get them elected.  (Uh, Oh)

Romney, even after his loss at getting the nomination, and even after McCain's loss, does not understand that many of us feel that we have not really heard anything that gives us an animating reason to get fired up about them (him), as opposed to getting fired up about the message of the Tea Parties, that message being that the people feel that the Republicans - and the Democrats - are both taking us in the same direction, and that a contingent of people, perhaps large enough to swing another election, would feel just fine if the slate was cleaned entirely so we, the people, can start over with a government that “does the right thing”, instead of persisting in the mindset that we are a people  - of the federal government, by the federal government, for the federal government. (Double Uh Oh)

Thus ended my conversation with another Republican that is out of touch with the people. And they wonder what it is that is animating the Tea Parties. Well, here is a clue Republican Party -  The Tea Party is composed of reasonable and rational people that are tired of being not listened to.


Dear Republican Party,

We are tired of listening to YOU. You need to be listening to US. If you do not, you will again feel it at the polls as more and more of us who have awakened and unplugged from the matrix find it in our power to keep YOU out of power until you do listen rather than phoo-phoo and patronize and put us to sleep with your trite platitudes.

And no Mr. Republican Party, we are NOT the message of Bill O’Riley, we are NOT the message of Sean Hannity, we are not the message of Michael Savage, we are NOT the message of Glenn Beck. Nor are they our messengers.

We are our own message. We are our own messenger. We are us, we are many, we are growing, and we are fed up not only with the Democrats - but with YOU.

Yours Truly,
One of the awakened

P.S. You saw what just happened in Delaware?? Have you considered that it will happen in other places. You treat us, and ignore us, as if we are little kids sitting in the back seat of the car yammering on about "when are we going to get there", when the truth of the matter is that what we are "yammering about" is that the lid of the trunk has just blown off and all the suitcases are on fire!

Real People - Real America

I was driving down the street the other day and this caught my eye. I do think that this is what mainstream America thinks, yet that those in Washington, including even the Republican delegation simply do not care to hear.

Hopefully, that will be at their own peril, and hopefully, after 2010, those newly ushered into power will not turn their own deaf ears to those that put them there.

THAT is what I mean by Hope and Change.

Stupid Newt - Stupid Republican Machine

For the life of me I cannot understand why in the world Fox Network has Newt Gingrich (and Karl Rove) on as political commentators, ostensibly as mouthpieces of Conservatism.

I was listening to Newt on the Fox Morning Show (Monday 1/18/10) and in talking of how the Democrats have made mis-steps Gingrich cited the lack of any modification by the Democrats of their proposals so as to to bring Republicans on board and get Republican support.

As example, Gingrich cited the first stimulus, saying that if the Democrats had taken, say a couple billion dollars of that $750 billion and set it aside for Republican programs, then they could have gotten 30% of the Republicans on board and voting with them for the stimulus. [Translation - If the Republicans could have gotten a piece of the graft, then they too would have happily participated in it.]

And Newt, and the Republicans wonder why the people are fed up with the Republican Party and why John McCain did not get elected.

Newt, "your guy" and your party are currently sitting on the sidelines, because for years the people have known that while there is political backscratching and duplicity both by the Democrats and the Republicans that their path of least resistance was to simply endure such shenanigans and try as best they could to get on with their lives.  Never though did the conservative base expect to be sold out so systemically by their own party machine and here in your statement is the proof of what many republican voters have long known - that their party is nothing more that a different version of the Democrats with the only real difference being that the Democrats spend and tax, while the Republicans tax and spend, both parties being on a spending binge and both parties (machines) being bent on an increase in the power and scope of the government because that means an increase in the scope and power of the machine.

When the Republican machine starts talking, not about limiting the growth of government, but instead starts talking about reducing the size and scope of it, then THAT will signal the revival of freedom in America and indeed signal the revival of America.  As it is now, however, a sufficient portion of the Republican voters (like me), knowing that in voting for a Republican they are really voting for a Democrat, will simply sit out the elections or indeed (again like me) will vote for a real Democrat so as to do their part to bring the point home by blocking seats to Republicans until such time as the Republican machine demonstrates that they get it.

Now some may say that I should vote Republican so as to vote for the lesser of 2 evils. To this, I say that voting for the lesser of 2 evils is voting for evil, and that indeed, the reason we have things as we do in government is because it -  Evil or Evil Lite  - is still Evil.

Wish that I would that every person that voted for McCain but were doing so because McCain represented the lesser of 2 evils would have sat out the election. Now THAT would have been a real eye-opener and perhaps would jolt the Republican machine into realizing that that most Republicans were not voting for "their" man, but instead were simply voting against the other guy and realizing that if a stray dog had been posted against Obama then the stray dog would have gotten pretty much the same Republican vote counts. Such a resounding defeat would have sent shock waves through the Republican machine and indeed properly, and well deservedly, run its train off the rails so that another better train, more in line with the ideas of liberty and freedom, could be built to take its place.

As it is now though, no such derailment has occurred and the Republican machine actually chugs along thinking that they speak for those that voted McCain and that the mind of the machine represents the mind of the conservative base. It Doesn't.

For the people, there is a danger in all this however, because if the Republican machine can post a slightly better candidate than the Democrats, then there will be no derailment and that slightly better candidate will swing the election and the Congress to Republican control, but still perpetuate the same corruption in government that both party machines are giving us now  - only this time it will be branded Republican instead of Democrat.

Make no mistake, under the current political system, if you vote for a Republican candidate, you are voting for the Republican machine and until you force the machine to change it will simply use YOU so as to put itself, little unchanged, back into the seat of power.

Some will think that I propose a third party. I do not. What I do propose is taking over the Republican machine from within and using the political primary to do it. This is what the tea parties should try to effect. Will they be able to do it? Only time will tell.

11 Year Old that Gets It.

Gee, this girl may even come to understand that all liberty and freedom is based on my right to exclude others from taking or using my property. Remember, the first draft of that pesky Declaration of Independence  said "..  life, liberty, and property... ".

Signs Of the Times

When ordinary people take time to make up signs like this and get off the couch, and "community organize", then you know that a nerve has been touched. Let us all hope that the both the Republican and the Democrat parties take notice. People are plain fed up with government intrusion (from both parties).

~sign sent in by Chester

Republicans Just Don't Get It - Part 1

April 17, 2009
Starbucks - Bulverde Texas

I saw a fellow reading "The 5,000 Year Leap" and since we had just come off the TeaRally, I stuck up a conversation by asking if he liked the book. He said the he did and told me that it was amazing how far off the tracks the country has moved from the ideals that made the country in the first place.

Now, here is where it becomes distressing, for these preliminaries lead to a discussion of Statism and Big Government, and in that vein, I mentioned how the "Big-Government Problem" is not confined to the Democrats, but that the Republicans are helping hand-in-hand to expand the power of the Federal Government over our lives. Essentially, it being that the Democrats come from one direction while the Republicans come from the other - with the pocket book of the citizen in the middle.

To try and drive the point home that "our" party is power hungry just as are the Democrats, I mentioned that the thing that was the straw that broke my back was when our Republican Senators Hutchison & Cornyn, and my District 21 Representative Lamar Smith, ALL voted for the first TARP bailout - over the objections of their constituents.

Now, think of it. I had just told him that the Republicans were ½ the problem. Was there any light that went off in his head? Was there any nod of agreement? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Even though that I was telling him that his Republican Senators and his Republican Congressman sold him out, he was going to avoid that ugly fact and continue to think that it is all Obama and those evil Democrats.

I am so saddened that even the people that go to the tea parties, when led by a celebrity to "boo" the Republicans and the Democrats, do so with gusto; yet in their heart of hearts, when you get them "one-on-one" to look inside, you can see that they feel that it is all the Democrat's fault, and think that if the Republicans can boot them out then things will be all good and fine. They completely ignore that it was BUSH that came to Congress and wanted a $700 billion appropriation in 3 days.

Wake up people. It will not be all good and fine if the Republicans with their current brand of Corporatism and Statism come to power, because a boot is a boot and feels the same on my neck whether it is worn by a Democrat or a Republican.

In sum, I think that it is appropriate to remember - It's Not Left vs Right - It's the STATE vs YOU.

Tea Party San Antonio

April 16, 2009

When I heard Santelli's rant and his idea of a tea party in Chicago, I remarked to my wife that I would go to something like that, as it was about time that people spoke out about the craziness that has infected BOTH the Republican and Democrats.

Little did I know that it would become a movement and that we would end up going to the one in San Antonio. On hearing that Glenn Beck was going to come, we made our contribution to the fund raiser and got to see the man up close. He is just as he seems on the show - passionate, lover of his country and lover of a Republican form of Representative Government whose hands are tied by the Constitution and where those that are elected continue to represent the American Way as opposed to the Beltway-Way.

I include pictures.

A Letter to a Tea Party Oganizer

Name Redacted,

Thank you for your work (and everybody else's) on the event (Tea Party) and for your speedy reply to my letter about prohibited signage. Welcome to the world of herding cats.

OK here goes -

I understand that some feel that "the cause" should attempt to end run the Catie Couric's of the world, but running away from the liberal's propaganda machine is equivalent to trying to negotiate with them. THEY will not negotiate with us, and until we learn that we should not negotiate with them, we are stalled. We should speak our mind and should stop being afraid of how others in opposition want to paint us.

Fear of confrontation, I think, is the problem with "conservatives" and the reason why they are at a disadvantage whenever they engage the left. The left is NOT afraid of confrontation, nor are they interested in debate or civility. Indeed, confrontation and Orwell Speak is THE tool in their very effective arsenal, and confrontation has ALWAYS been their tool of change. Is Carvill, or Obama thru his minions, afraid of confrontation??? Not hardly.

Concerning "debate", the left's idea of debate is where the other side stays quiet and listens to whatever venom the left wants to spew. Indeed, part of the left's agenda is keeping the other side "pacific" and nice, and your attempts to de-Obamanize the Tea Party event plays nicely into their hands.


So then, regardless of how many "Obamanuism" signs are kept out of the event, it WILL be painted however Couric et. al. has to paint it so as to get an anti-obama "juice" onto the story. I reiterate, an anti-Obama slant of the event WILL be made by the media and in a broad sense of things, until the media gets the message that we, the majority of Americans, indeed have the stones to voice it to the rooftops that We DO Want Obama To Fail, then we are going to have a hard road to walk.

BTW - Obama (the personification of his ideology) IS the problem and to "walk across the aisle" or be non-partisan is fatal. Obama (individually and thru his group of counselors) sets the agenda and is a radical Communist/Socialist/Collectivist. He is the figurehead for the "spend your money so as to reshape society into his image" ideology. He is Wilson and Roosevelt and Bush all rolled into one. He is the one that proposes the budget and he is the one that signs the appropriations bill. It was not Pelosi, Reed, or Congress that told Joe the Plumber that he intended to '.... spread it around". Don't get me wrong, it is not just Obama, as the congress and millions of others are lockstep with the Obamunism ideology, and it is they that constitute the vast left wing base that is pushing all this stuff though, but, back to the signage, that does not mean that Obamunism should be off limits.

In this regard on the signage, I find it odd, if you do not want "negative play", for it to be OK for the logo for the event to be the Alamo wrapped with a snake threatening to strike. Gee - if that image is not filled with emotional overtones of "... let's make sure the government knows that We the People are ready, and will strike in rebellion if they push us too far", I do not know what is. Frankly, I am surprised it made muster, for it is much more threatening to the government eyes that will be at the rally than any "Obama Lied - The Economy Died" signage, and I venture to guess that the group is now, because of the connotations of the event being near the Alamo, and because of this "militia-ish" logo, on some government watch list - and that I am going to be photographed into some database along with you and all the other attendees.

Returning to the spending - You say congress actually spends the money .... Actually, Congress does NOT spend the money. Essentially, all they can do is to appropriate it. Yes, it is appropriated for various broad based initiatives but after that it is spent essentially as the president and his executive branch wishes, mostly because the appropriation is made pretty much according to what the president proposes.

That (the imperial presidency) is one of the things that WE the People are fed up with. THAT - resistance to Obamanomics and Obamunism - is what is embodied in the "prohibited" signage and THAT is what We the People are Resisting - Obamanomics, Obamunism, Statist, Collectivism, etc. We are not hacked off about the spending (spending is just a proxy), we are hacked off about the underlying philosophy that gives rise to the spending (and we are hacked off that this philosophy is found in the Rebublicans and the Democrats.) Making it about "spending" is deflection from the real issue.

I do agree that the Congress Republicans & Democrats are the problem and I go further in saying that many of them need to be changed out. For example, when we have the likes of Lamar Smith, John Cornyn, and KB Hutchison voting for the first $700 billion bailout then we have a problem. That one practically put me in my grave.

As to the last part of your reply - the "Please go somewhere else ...". That is not in comportment with the American spirit and reeks of the same problem that we all have with the left - they use every attempt to silence and shutdown and do not want to listen to, or allow, the expression of any divergent view. How do they do that?? - by exclusion and by claiming ownership and thus control of the idea. Not to put too fine a point on things, if it does not get partisan (via signage like what you "prohibit", good vs evil, then the collectivist juggernaut will not be stopped. Our American system is all about partisan and the sooner we start knowing that fact, then the sooner we will be able to stop the infection. Do we really think that the collectivists and statist, when they say bi-partisan, mean it. NO, bi-partisan to them means that you have agreed with them, and your eschewing of expression of views not your own seems a bit in the same vein that is practiced by the leftists.

As to the second of the last part of you reply ".... that we all agree on the spending problem." Agreement on the spending problem covers up that the problem is not a spending problem. The problem is an infective, cancerous ideology.

Focusing on spending also covers up the fact that until we address the real issue we will never be able to change things. For example, if we all agree on the spending problem, will we be OK with the administration running GM as long as they do not do it using too much money??

THIS is what Beck is trying to say - that the overarching problem and cancer is corruption of thought as to what the American system is supposed to be. It is not spending, it is collectivism and Statism. - Beck calls it Fascism - Statism is a better term in my view. Spending is but a symptom of the disease.

Anyway, rest assured, I am not out to rain on the event, I am not an agitator for the other side, and I laud what is being done. It needs to be done. You are making a good difference.