NY grand jury indicts former President Trump
Now that Mitt Romney is likely done with electoral politics, he has been anointed by the Washington Establishment as the chief elder statesman of the Republican Party.
Naturally, as the ubiquitously-known Stupid Party, Republicans seek advice from the man who failed to defeat an unpopular president. And the media is all too eager to provide him with a megaphone.
Yesterday, Romney appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and echoed the new GOP establishment talking points on blocking Obama’s amnesty. He said, “There are more productive ways” to block Obama’s amnesty than a budget showdown, which he falsely referred to as a government shutdown. Romney did not directly address the more productive solutions, but proceeded to parrot recent party-line bromides about the need to heed Obama’s extortion by passing amnesty legislatively.
First, Romney is continuing to help the messaging of the lawless administration by framing this as a battle over a government shutdown. Republicans have the ability to send the president spending bills that fully fund all areas of government. It’s only the bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security that would contain the rider defunding Obama’s lawlessness.
If Obama chooses to veto these bills; if he chooses to place the priorities of illegal immigrants above the needs of our veterans and national parks, that is his doing.
Moreover, as we’ve noted before, there is no greater government shutdown than a sitting president unilaterally changing our immigration policies without the consent of Congress. Obama has already shut down our system of governance that has been in place since the days of George Washington.
By using the power of the purse to restore the rule of law, Republicans will be preserving our government and system of checks and balances. And based upon the polling and election results, Democrats would get slaughtered for their immigration policies AND for shutting down the government.
Republicans were in worse shape last year and had much less leverage in fighting Obamacare. Yet, they never lost ground because of the shutdown. D.C. pundits repeat the theory that Republicans lost with such conviction that they think it’s true. In reality, there was only one legitimate poll following the shutdown – the exit poll in the Virginia gubernatorial election between Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe – immediately following the shutdown in November 2013.
What were the results?
In the state most effected by the government shutdown, voters were split down the middle over which party was to blame for the shutdown. And based on the lopsided polling against Obamacare in Virginia, there’s not doubt many who felt Republicans caused the shutdown still agreed with their reasoning. Is there any doubt that Republicans would crush Democrats over illegal amnesty nationwide, especially given the current political climate?
But therein lies the problem. We are relying on the man who completely misread the politics of the two greatest issues of our time – Obamacare and immigration – to give us advice on the path forward.
Romney lost the election, in part, because he took Obamacare completely off the table. Romneycare was so similar to Obamacare that the very man at the center of the latest scandal – Jonathan Gruber – was the Godfather of Romneycare. Thanks to Romney’s lack of moral and intellectual clarity against Obamacare, Obama was reelected, and we are now at the cusp of making the law immutable.
So which issue did Romney champion during the campaign? Did he run against Obama’s amnesty?
The media would have you believe that Romney ran strong on the issue. But his fight for our sovereignty and the rule of law went no further than a couple of pandering remarks during the primary debates with more conservative candidates in order to outflank them and win the primary. Romney never ran on the issue in the general election and refused to confront the president.
In fact, the reason Obama feels so emboldened about his impending unilateral action is because he already implemented the illegal DACA program in the summer of 2012 – during the heat of the presidential campaign. And Romney refused to run with the issue. What’s worse, when he actually did confront the issue of DACA in 2012, he went so far as to say that he would honor the program under Obama and amnesty for illegal aliens.
Is this the man from whom we should seek advice in combating the new illegal amnesty?
To rational people outside of Washington, this is a rhetorical question. But to the supercilious elites in D.C., this is no worse than running the grandfather of Obamacare against the father.
Daniel Horowitz is Senior Editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on twitter @RMConservative.
Editor's Note: This piece was originally published by Conservative Review.