Yes, Romney Was the Problem

By Steve Baldwin - November 27, 2012

The GOP establishment and some conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter, are in full defense mode, claiming that Romney is not responsible for losing to an incumbent responsible for perhaps the most damaging fiscal crises in our nation’s history. Don’t believe it. Romney IS responsible for wasting a billion dollars to carry out an issue-free campaign full of simple-minded platitudes. Indeed, Coulter is leading the charge with her recent column titled, Don’t Blame Romney. It’s sweet to watch Coulter defend her darling Romney, but let’s get real.

The reality is that Romney was one of the worst GOP presidential candidates in modern times. He was not the first choice of most conservative voters but he managed to rise through the ranks in the primary due to conservatives being split 4-5 ways, but also due to a slew of endorsements from conservative leaders and groups that had no business endorsing him – such as Ann Coulter. Repeatedly, Coulter assured conservatives that Romney was one of us and that he would be the “best possible candidate” to face Obama. But as any conservative from Massachusetts knew, Romney was a liberal at heart who, as Governor, led the nation in passing three of the left’s most sacred issues: Same sex marriage, Cap and Trade, and government control of health care.

But the Romney forces were clever. Beginning in 2004, they created a half dozen PACs to give money to conservative and GOP entities all over the country. I’ve reviewed these disclosures and hundreds of GOP and conservative entities benefitted from Romney’s largess. In other words, he bought the support of many “conservative leaders” and used that support to give himself “cred” among conservative voters. It was a phony image though and it’s shameful that so many conservative leaders went along with this ruse.

As a result, Romney’s liberal record on taxes (yes, he taxed the corporate world in Massachusetts), Cap and Trade (first in the nation!), gay marriage, gay rights, quotas, gun control, immigration, etc, etc. was little known outside of Massachusetts because many of America’s leading conservatives decided to portray him as someone he wasn’t. Even a number of prominent right to life and national pro-family groups and leaders made a decision to remake Romney as a conservative even though they knew he was not. I should know; I briefed many of them about Romney’s record. Had the conservative leadership told the truth about Romney’s record as Governor, it’s likely he wouldn’t have won the GOP nomination.

And why is that relevant? Well, Romney’s liberal record so compromised him that he was unable to attack Obama on a whole range of issues due to fear of Obama using his own positions from just a few years earlier to make him look like a hypocrite. Whether its Cap and Trade, ObamaCare, gun control, gays in the military, religious freedom or even illegal aliens, Romney took these issues off the table because his own record on these issues was not dissimilar to the Obama record.

Coulter goes even so far as to claim Romney lost because “he was too conservative” on immigration issues.

What? Romney never even hit Obama on his unconstitutional action to grant amnesty to two million illegal aliens because, as governor, he endorsed McCain’s amnesty legislation. Indeed, despite his phony attacks on Gov. Rick Perry’s immigration record during the GOP primary, Romney’s actual record on immigration was quite liberal.

The fact is liberal Republicans do not win presidential races. The obvious reason for this is that RINOs do not offer much of a contrast to a Democrat, or at least a contrast so weak it does not motivate voters to support them. You would think we would have learned this lesson from the McCain and Dole debacles. To make things worse, Romney even agreed with Obama on numerous occasions during the debates, missing great opportunities to instead attack the president. With the economy collapsing all around us, voters were simply not looking for Obama-light.

Moreover, Romney’s strategy of looking presidential but saying nothing controversial was an asinine strategy. All one has to do is watch the old Reagan/Carter debates to see how Reagan strived to showed contrast with Carter at every opportunity. While Reagan was always civil in the way he stated things, he tore Carter’s head off every chance he got.

The list of explosive issues ignored by Romney goes far beyond those that Romney himself was weak on.

Take, for example, the Fast and Furious and Benghazi scandals, both of which involved the deaths of Americans and a subsequent cover-up by this administration. The latter scandal, especially, was ripe for Romney to exploit, given the new evidence that Obama refused to assist Americans under attack and then lied to the American public about the reason for the attack. This is an impeachable offense but Romney chose to ignore this issue altogether.

Romney also ignored, for the most part, a whole pattern of Obama cronyism that permeated TARP, the stimulus program, and many government contracts. Similarly, Romney ignored the details of exactly how Obama was destroying the oil, gas and coal industries. He stuck to generalities instead of hammering on issues such as how Obama gave millions of tax dollars to Brazil to drill for oil while harassing our own oil companies to the point they ceased operations in the Gulf.

The Romney team also chose to ignore the lessons of 2010. Here we have a number of stunning congressional upsets inspired by issues such as ObamaCare and the deficit, but Romney’s campaign team acted like 2010 never occurred. The movement that drove the 2010 victories was, of course, the tea party movement, but Romney decided he wanted nothing to do with this powerful movement.

Ditto for the Ron Paul movement. It was outrageous how the Romney team refused to sit a number of pro-Ron Paul state delegations at the convention, all because they didn’t want Ron Paul to be nominated so that Romney could enjoy an unanimous nomination. The stupidity of this move was astounding. Romney already had the votes to win the nomination overwhelmingly but his team was so fixated on the appearance of a perfect nominating convention that they decided to disenfranchise the entire Ron Paul movement. Romney lost tens of thousands of Ron Paul supporters for that action alone.

As someone who has networked with conservative activists for 35 years, I know for a fact that large segments of the tea party and Ron Paul movements did NOT vote for Romney and I also know that many evangelicals refused to support Romney as well. They knew that Romney was, deep down, a big government, socially liberal Republican and believed that electing Romney would set conservatives back decades. They believed that he would – under the mantle of “conservatism” – carry out a big government agenda instead of taking bold action to tame the deficit or get our economy growing again.

We can debate until we’re blue in the face about such a stance, but I believe their fears are legitimate and that their motives are sincere. They had many solid reasons to feel this way – Romney’s actual record being Exhibit #1.

This election was a turning point in American history and undecided voters were looking for new leadership but Romney’s history of flip-flopping on over 30 different issues didn’t give them the confidence they were looking for. Romney was a liberal Republican pretending to be a conservative and that phoniness was detected by the voters. So yes, Ms. Coulter, Romney does share much of the blame. And so do you. 

Steve Baldwin is a 35-year veteran of the conservative movement. He is the author of From Crayons to Condoms, the former executive director of Young Americans for Freedom, the former executive director of the Council for National Policy and a former California state legislator.

Real Clear Politics

Lesson to Future Republican Hopefuls Ignore the Tea Party at Your Peril

by Joel B. Pollak 11 Nov 2012

 
 In late 2011, long before the first caucuses and primaries of the 2012 election, I had the opportunity to speak with someone high up in Mitt Romney’s finance world, and warned him that the conservative base wasn’t warming to the party’s presumptive nominee. The longer Romney keeps the Tea Party at arm’s length, I said, the tougher his chances at winning the general election, presuming he can win the Republican nomination first. Nonsense, I was told. Those people will all come around in the general election. They will vote for Romney to get rid of Obama.

Perhaps, I answered. But don’t be so sure--right now there are some who would rather sit through another four years of Obama than endure a Republican who they imagine will sell them out at the first opportunity.

The time for Romney reach out to the conservative base is now, before it is too late.

In the end, Romney did not reach out. Many in the Tea Party grass roots did, eventually, back the Republican nominee. Many came to like and admire Romney, especially after his strong performance in the debates. The renewed enthusiasm of conservatives for the political fight encouraged many--myself included--to believe Republicans would see strong turnout at the polls. But there were millions who had checked out already.

The traditional pattern is for candidates to appeal to their party’s base in the primary and then to pivot to the center in the general election. The danger is that statements made in the primary will be used against the candidate later.

But the danger of not appealing to the base is that they will vote for other candidates, or stay home. Romney both feared association with the Tea Party and knew that he faced a weak field. So he held back.
Romney had bought into the mainstream media hype about the Tea Party--which reached a fever pitch of hysteria during the debt ceiling negotiations of July 2011. He saw association with the Tea Party as potentially toxic, and limited his contact with the movement. The suspicion was mutual, and there were a few early protests by Tea Party groups against him. He did little to heal the breach until he had won the nomination.

Contrary to mainstream media spin, Romney never really “ran right” in the primary. The one issue on which he took an awkwardly hard line was immigration. He did so partly to thwart challenges by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (whose reformist policy, while defensible, suffered from the assumption that those who opposed it were heartless). It was the one issue on which he felt forced to toughen up.

Romney likely paid for that hard line in the general election, bleeding Hispanic votes to President Barack Obama, even losing among Cuban-Americans in Florida, traditionally a solid Republican constituency. Had Romney solidified his bona fides with the GOP’s conservative grass roots, he may not have felt the need to overreach on immigration. He also might have enjoyed a shorter primary.

And in the end, Romney lost what were probably Tea Party votes, as well as a potential army of Tea Party volunteers (some of whom showed up anyway and were responsible for his strong showing in places like Roanoke, VA). The GOP even let CNN appropriate the Tea Party label, running its own “Tea Party” debate. A few Tea Party candidates did win--others lost badly--but the movement never really mobilized.

Lesson for the future: ignore the Tea Party grass roots at your peril.

Big Government

Exclusive: Rumsfeld Part II - on Watergate, Benghazi, and November's Election

by AWR Hawkins 1 Nov 2012

 

 

 Continuing where yesterday's post left off, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke to Breitbart News about the differences between Watergate and Benghazi-gate, as well as the what he sees as a key difference between President Obama and Gov. Romney. 

 Breitbart News: Yesterday, as we spoke of the President's inaction regarding Benghazi and the cover-up that followed -- the cover-up that continues -- the conversation naturally lent itself to Watergate comparisons. So let me ask, is it fair to say that Benghazi makes Watergate look like child's play, or is that going too far?

Rumsfeld: When I think about Watergate and contrast it with Benghazi, what immediately comes to mind is that people were killed in Benghazi. And it appears they were killed because of acts on the part of a government that failed to fulfill the responsibility of providing adequate security in the first instance. And also of not responding to security requests when they were made.

In Watergate, there was a break-in in a hotel in Washington and nobody was killed. The problem with Watergate was the cover-up. But there is certainly a cover-up going on at the present time; I don't know how anyone could describe it differently. You have people going out for days and days after the attacks, and they repeat this line about this video causing it. The President goes to the United Nations and Mrs. Clinton talks about this "hateful video," and it seems to me it's of a kind.

In the end, of course, the big difference is the loss of life in the Benghazi situation.

One other difference between the two was the way the press carried the Watergate story like no story had been carried before, and there were hearings in Congress, and it was pounded day after day after day. And with Benghazi, largely speaking, the mainstream media is ignoring it.

Breitbart News: With these things taken into account -- the loss of the life, the ongoing cover-up, the security denials, and more -- is there any way for President Obama to get past this? Is Benghazi so bad as to be inescapable for a politician in the President's position?

Rumsfeld: I can't speak to what the President may or may not survive politically. But I can say there is an election coming up in less than a week, and you have to ask yourself, "What would an undecided voter be thinking about?" Wouldn't an undecided voter be looking for a clear line of demarcation between President Obama and Gov. Romney?

For me that demarcation is honesty.

As I listened to the debates, and thought about Gov. Romney and his demeanor, and listened to him making his case, his honesty stood out. And one has to say that the lack of that same honesty by the current administration is something that should be telling for the undecided voter.

Big Peace

America Discovers the Republicans

October 31, 2012
By J.T. Hatter

Obama decided early in his re-election campaign to destroy his opponent, Mitt Romney.  The Democratic Party's mud-slinging ads, and the mainstream media newscasts, relentlessly painted Romney as an evil conservative who looks down on the 47% of Americans who receive government benefits.  Romney was a wealthy industrialist who outsourced American jobs, a greedy capitalist who murdered a steelworker's wife by taking away her health insurance, a tax-evader, a bad Mormon, and a racist.  Furthermore, he was waging war on women, on the middle class, on Social Security and Medicare, and on the planet.

Obama pumped in huge sums of money, carpet-bombing swing states with negative advertising.  The combined Obama campaign/mainstream media onslaught gave Americans a generally negative opinion of Mitt Romney.

But then something very strange happened.  The polling started to detect a slight trend towards Romney.  

Nobody in the Obama camp could understand it.  They couldn't believe it.

Last month, Barack Obama was leading in virtually all of the national polls and was confident of a win on November 6.  This month, the American people are telling the pollsters that they like the Romney/Ryan ticket better.  Romney now has a slight lead.  The Obama camp and news media suddenly find themselves in frenzied, panic-stricken, damage control mode.

Peering through the Muck

What happened to the mainstream media's drumbeat that Obama's re-election was in the bag?  Had the multi-media left-wing disinformation campaign lost its punch?  After enduring weeks of blitzkrieg negative advertising, the American people finally got a peek at the Republicans.  And they liked what they saw.
Kevin "Coach" Collins had this to say:

Have you seen some of those anti-Romney mud-slinging TV spots? If so, you'll be glad to know that Barack Obama's attack ads are not only falling short of their goal of tearing down Romney's character, but according to one survey are actually energizing Republican enthusiasm to vote against Obama.

Despite the torrent of negative attack ads, the American people wanted to see for themselves who Mitt Romney was and what he was all about.  The more people saw, the more they liked the man and his vision for America.  Romney has a five-point plan that is coherent and makes sense.  He comes across as a very decent fellow.

After a stellar first debate in which Romney roundly trounced Obama, making Obama look like a little child wearing Daddy's shoes, followed up by two more debates in which he looked presidential and held his own against the surly, dissembling Obama, many Americans decided that Romney is the man for the job.

Josh Jordan (National Review) wrote a piece titled "Romney's Not-So-Secret weapon: America Actually Likes Him," in which he said:

You might not know it from the day-to-day coverage, but America is warming up to Mitt Romney. A difficult primary left Romney bloodied by his primary opponents, and before he could establish his general-election footing Obama's campaign began a relentless assault on Romney's character with tens of millions of dollars of ads.

Americans might have warmed up sooner if they hadn't had to endure the punishing "day-to-day coverage" by the mainstream media and the Obama attack ads.  Stuart Rothenberg (Roll Call) said it this way:

After spending the summer defining and discrediting Romney in key states and nationally, the Obama campaign now finds itself facing an opponent who, in just 90 minutes, erased much of the image that David Axelrod and David Plouffe created in a series of negative ads over the summer.

Romney's new image and positioning in the race - moderate, reasonable and focused on problem-solving - make him a far more acceptable alternative than he once was, and that has made it easier for voters to focus their attention during the final month of the campaign on the president and his record, which remains mixed.

Barack Hussein Obama has always run his political campaigns to exploit racial, economic, religious, and political divisions.  The main thrust of his current political campaign is to demonize his opponent, not run on his track record.  Obama is playing his Chicago game.  The GPO has just released a graphic showing that Obama's October campaign ads were 73.3% purely negative, compared to 36% for Romney.  But Mitt Romney endured the mud-slinging, the lying, the misrepresentations, the race-baiting, the attacks on his faith and his personal and professional life.  He took it all and endured, smiling the whole time as he waited patiently for his turn.

Dawn's Early Light

Romney is American to the core, and people sense that.  In contrast, Obama is the first anti-American president, a globalist whose goals are to bring the USA into the fold of international socialism and to right the imagined wrongs of an oppressive state.  Romney wants to improve the lives of all people, or at least as many as he can.

Obama callously divided this nation after promising to bring it together and heal its divisions.  Romney actually has a record of uniting disparate groups and working positively with a Massachusetts legislature that was 84% Democrat.  He was a very successful governor in a state that is notoriously hard to govern.  He has a proven, fantastically successful track record in business.  Obama has never held a real job, run a business, made payroll, or ever held an executive position.  Not one.  He scooped ice cream at Baskin-Robbins and worked on a newsletter.  The rest of his life has been as a community organizer or in politics. 

 Obama's origins and family history have largely been kept secret from us.  Mitt, Ann, and their five boys look like a living Norman Rockwell painting -- quintessentially American.  You know they believe in America and all it stands for.  Not so with Obama.

Even the New York Times ran a generally favorable piece on Romney entitled "Romney as a Manager: Unhurried and Socratic."

Americans like Mitt Romney.  They trust him.  But most of all, Americans are coming to see --despite the inescapable disinformation to the contrary -- that Romney genuinely loves America and believes in her founding ideals: personal responsibility, limited constitutional government, religious freedom, and the free-enterprise system.  He has demonstrated exceptional understanding and capability in all four areas.  

What a refreshing change.

The Ryan Bump

When Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate on August 11, that sealed the deal for many.  But the media and the Democrats vehemently denounced the selection.
Obama has a great deal of personal animosity toward Ryan, who worked diligently to defeat ObamaCare.  

The media have echoed these ill feelings.  Michael Tomasky (Daily Beast) wrote that Romney's VP pick of Paul Ryan was a "terrible, stunning choice."  Andrea Mitchell (NBC), a leading Obama spokesman, wasted no time in her attack: "This is a base election. This is not a pick for suburban moms; this is not a pick for women."  Candy Crowley (CNN) claimed that unnamed Republicans felt "trepidation" that the pick "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish."  The media recognized the threat to their ideological standard-bearer and went on the attack -- and, in doing so, even further alienated themselves from the American public.

Paul Ryan was an astonishingly good choice and one that greatly impressed the citizenry.  Most voters considered the choice much better than the one the president had made.  Ladies wholeheartedly approve of 

Ryan and have been rallying to his side.  Ryan singlehandedly eliminated the so-called gender gap, taking millions of votes away from the Obama camp.

The liberal media largely denied that Ryan shifted the poll numbers at all, but many pollsters recorded a decisive bump soon after the August 11 announcement, especially among independent/undecided voters and in swing states -- where they hurt Obama the most.  Obama enjoyed a 5- to 7-point national lead, but Ryan's pick quickly closed the gap, bringing a surge of much-needed momentum to the conservative camp.  

Romney smacked one out of the ball bark with Ryan.  And patriotic conservative Americans cheered.  

Romney's picking Ryan -- and Romney's increasing likeability -- changed the political fundamentals, and we now have a tight race.

Decision Time

Americans have had the full measure of Barack Hussein Obama.  He may have 35% or 47% of the vote sewn up.  He will retain his hardcore yellow-dog Democrats and many of those who are dependent on government welfare programs.  But there are those of us who are convinced that the USA cannot survive another four years like the last.  We number at least half of the electorate -- hopefully more.

When decent, honest working people look at Obama, and then look at Romney, there is no hesitation to point to Romney as their choice to lead them into the future.  America's future does not belong to international socialism or to the collectivists who want so desperately to "fundamentally transform" our nation.  This nation's future depends on rediscovering our founding principles and values, fighting to preserve them, and teaching them to our children.  This hard work is necessary in this election and all future elections -- otherwise, we are lost.

Ronald Reagan once said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Despite the massive, mud-slinging, negative campaigning by the Obama administration, and the pervasive mainstream media anti-Romney propaganda, the American people have discovered Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.  And they like them.  The majority of American voters believe that Mitt Romney is the last best hope to save the USA.

J.T. Hatter is the author of Lost in Zombieland: The Rise of President Zero, a political satire on the Obama administration.  J.T. can be reached at jt@jthatter.com.

American Thinker

Obama Gets Military Tech All Wrong in Debate

by AWR Hawkins 23 Oct 2012

 

  President Barack Obama ended up revealing an astonishing level of ignorance about the state of military technology during the presidential debate in Boca Raton, FL Monday night. The U.S. Commander-in-Chief misspoke about bayonets. He misspoke about horses. He misspoke about the size of the U.S. Navy. He misspoke about the makeup of the Navy. And the whole time, he thought he was teaching his opponent Mitt Romney a lesson.
Obama mocked Gov. Romney's concerns about the diminished number of ships in the U.S. Navy by saying,

"I think Gov. Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time studying how our military works."

Obama continued, trying his best to make the GOP challenger look foolish: "[Romney] mentioned that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well... we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines." Obama added that it's not about "counting ships," it's about "our capabilities."

These comments rang out with a snarky condescension that was only surpassed by their complete lack of factual support.

While the Army discontinued traditional bayonet training in 2010, the USMC still trains Marines with bayonets and issues them as standard equipment. The Army has also begun training soldiers in a different style of bayonet use--not affixed to the end of a rifle but as a secondary melee weapon.

To make bayonet training relevant again, the Army got rid of the bayonet assault course, in which soldiers fixed a bayonet to the end of a rifle, ran towards a target while yelling and then rammed the bayonet into the target center. Instead, soldiers learn in combatives training how to use a knife or bayonet if someone grabs their primary weapon.

Some users on Twitter have claimed that, by virtue of the USMC still using bayonets, there actually are more bayonets in use than 1916, when the army had between 100,000 and 140,000 enlisted members. As of 2010, the Corps boasted 203,000 active duty members and 40,000 reserve marines.

Regarding horses, a statue of a member of the U.S. Special Forces on horseback was just unveiled at Ground Zero in New York City. When our Special Forces invaded Afghanistan post-9/11, many did so on horseback. I personally remember sitting for a lecture in Austin, TX in 2005, given by a member of one of the first Special Forces teams to arrive in Afghanistan. He talked at length about their reliance upon horses.

As to the size of the Navy, Romney's remarks about fleet size were centered around a concern that U.S. naval forces would in the near future be unable to operate in multiple regions of the globe simultaneously.

While Obama dismissed this out of hand, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mark Ferguson reached a similar evaluation months before the debate:

“Our role is really about the flexibility of forces, that they can move to various regions, both in this region in the Gulf and outside the Gulf... Should sequestration be enacted, the Navy would not be able to support the current national defense strategy and it would cause a reduction in the size of the fleet to the point that we would have to relook at the strategy,” Ferguson said. The Navy “would be reduced both in size and in its presence around the globe.”

Even at the beginning of Obama's term as President, the Navy had a goal of producing a 313-ship fleet by 2013. It wasn't until 2012, after three years of unfulfilled promises of economic recovery, that the target was abandoned. What happened between 2009 and 2012 that made the Obama administration decide that it could downgrade the size of the U.S. Navy further yet maintain its ability to operate in multiple arenas simultaneously?

Lastly, and most succinctly, submarines are boats, not ships. Obama got this one wrong as well.

Perhaps President Obama "maybe hasn't spent enough time studying how our military works"?

Big Peace

Final Debate: Obama Played for News Cycle, Romney Played for Election

by Mike Flynn 23 Oct 2012
 

 President Obama went into last night's debate with a pocketful of zingers intended to fire up his base voters.

He hovered over the debate table, eager for any opportunity to unleash practiced attack lines against Mitt Romney. He was very aggressive. If you were scoring the debate like a boxing match, assigning points for each punch landed, then Obama probably "won" the debate. But, presidential debates aren't boxing matches.

As the sugar rush Obama served the left and media wears off, Romney will emerge as the clear winner. If the President approached the debate like a boxing match, Romney played it like a chess match. He did two very important things. First, he projected an image that was calm, measured and, above all, responsible. He looked presidential. Obama had the demeanor of a challenger who is behind in the polls, looking for every opportunity to take shots at the incumbent.

Second, Romney's performance was very strategic, playing directly to specific voters in swing states.

Romney obviously made a big deal about the looming, draconian defense cuts. But, he specifically focused on problems with our Navy. He cited detailed numbers on the size of our naval fleet. That resonates most with voters in Virginia and Florida.

The media and the left are snarking over Obama's "horses and bayonets" quip in response, but was that really such a great zinger? Obama obviously meant "horses and bayonets" as antiquated components of our modern military. Does he really want to suggest that a 300 ship naval fleet is antiquated? Democrats in New York may chortle at Obama's line, but Democrats in Hampton Roads, Virginia probably came close to a stroke over the line.

The Democrats have struggled to define Romney as someone who would reassert the Bush Doctrine, the mere mention of which gives Independents heart palpitations. They want to convince voters, especially Independent women, that Romney would get us mired in conflicts throughout the world. Romney put any fears of that to rest last night.

Are there things I wish Romney had done differently last night? Oh yes. I thought he let Obama off the hook on Libya and wish he had at least condemned the looming use of drones in the US. But, I'm not the audience the Romney campaign is targeting. Most Americans don't want to know about foreign policy and don't want to have to care about it. They just want to know that there is a responsible adult in the Oval Office who pays attention to that stuff and will keep the country out of trouble.

Last night, Mitt Romney was that person.

Big Government

Fact Check: Top Ten Worst Lies of the Second Presidential Debate

by Joel B. Pollak 17 Oct 2012

  The Second Presidential Debate featured repeated claims by each candidate that the other was not telling the truth--as well as at least one claim of fact by the moderator that turned out to be false. There were even questionable claims by the audience itself. Here are the top ten worst lies told during the Second Debate:  

10. "I told you I would cut taxes for middle-class families, and I did. I told you I’d cut taxes for small businesses, and I have." President Barack Obama has made this claim repeatedly during the campaign, but it is not true, as even the liberal Huffington Post acknowledges. The few tax cuts that Obama did enact--such as the temporary payroll tax holiday--were short-term, or conditional. Furthermore, as the Romney campaign has often pointed out, Obama has raised many taxes on the middle class, including the infamous Obamacare "penalty," and his taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" would hit small businesess.

9. "...[H]e was asked, is it fair for somebody like you, making $20 million a year, to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse or a bus driver....And he said, yes, I think that’s fair." Obama was referring to Romney's recent 60 Minutes interview. But the transcript reveals Obama was not telling the truth. Romney was not saying it was fair that higher income should be taxed at a lower rate. He was referring specifically to the principle that capital gains should be taxed lower than other income because it has been taxed once already--a principle, incidentally, that Obama agrees with in his own tax policy.

8. "He called the Arizona law a model for the nation." Obama tried to knock Romney's immigration policy while at the same time accusing him of flip-flopping on the issue. But as Romney pointed out, he was referring specifically to the e-Verify part of the law--the requirement of instant verification of workers' legal status. That provision is even favored by unions. Obama made it seem Romney praised the law as a whole--which he had not. He went on to say that he himself objected to the provision that allowed police to check suspected illegal immigrants' documentation--but that provision survived a challenge at the Supreme Court.

7. "I want to make sure our timekeepers are working here." For the third debate in a row, the Democratic candidate complained that he was not receiving as much time to speak as the Republican. And for the third debate in a row, the Obama/Biden ticket actually spoke for longer--much longer--than the Romney/Ryan ticket, a testament to the ability of the incumbents to pressure the moderators, and the susceptibility of the left-leaning moderators to such pressure. Obama received a full three minutes more time in last night's debate--and the percentage difference was even higher at one point in the proceedings.

6. "They rely on it for mammograms." Obama attacked Romney's proposal to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood by claiming that the organization provides mammograms to women to help prevent breast cancer. It's been a repeated claim made by the left for months. The problem is that it's just untrue--and even left-leaning mainstream media fact-checkers have acknowledged that. What is perhaps worse than Obama's misleading claim about mammograms is the unsupported implication that Romney wants to deny life-saving health care to women--a cheap shot to which Romney was given no chance to respond.

5. "You can ship jobs overseas and get tax breaks for it." We have heard the same lie for eight years from Obama. In 2004, he ran for U.S. Senate from Illinois on a promise to end such tax breaks. He did it again when he ran for President of the United States in 2008. And yet he has never done anything about it--because there are no such tax breaks. There is merely a deduction that companies can take for moving, even within the U.S.--and which helps offset the double taxation of U.S. businesses abroad, which would make American companies less competitive. Repealing it would ship jobs overseas, actually.

4. "And the production is up....What you’re saying is just not true." Obama contested a claim by Romney that production of oil and gas is down on federal lands. He even accused Romney of not telling the truth. But Romney was right--exactly right, down to the percentage decline. Furthermore, Obama's claim that he has been increasing oil and gas production on federal lands flies in the face of recent policy decisions, such as closing off a large part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to further development. Obama has tried to take credit for expansion on private lands, while opposing expansion wherever possible.

3. "In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?" The false premise from a member of the audience was especially egregious because her question had been selected in advance by the moderator. The supposed wage gap between men and women for the same work is largely a myth. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth pointed out: "Women make about 95 percent of what their male counterparts earn, if the male counterparts are in the same job with the same experience."

2. "He wanted to take them into bankruptcy without providing them any way to stay open." After Obama accused Romney of wanting American auto manufacturers to go bankrupt, Romney pointed out that Obama had, in fact, taken the auto companies through bankruptcy. Obama's retort was to accuse Romney of wanting to take the companies bankrupt in order to put them out of business--a blatant lie. Romney actually suggested in his famous 2008 op-ed: "In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check."

1. "He did call it an act of terror." The worst untruth told by a moderator in presidential history. Candy Crowley's intervention in favor of Obama caused the president's cheering section to burst into applause, in violation of the rules, and there was little that Romney could say in response. But she was wrong--Obama's reference to "acts of terror" in his Sep. 12 statement was in a general, abstract sense, and came long after he had described the 9/11 attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions as demonstrations against an anti-Islamic video. Even Crowley seemed to realize what she had done: it wasn't long before she walked back her own comment.

Big Government

Romney's Secret Blowout

by Ben Shapiro 16 Oct 2012

  While the left cheers President Obama’s second debate performance with the excitement of Chris Matthews on a prom date with The One, the fact remains that this was not just a bad debate for President Obama. It was a disastrous debate for President Obama. He may have achieved firing up the base, but the base had already been fired up by Vice President Joe Biden’s bizarre performance in the vice presidential debate. He may have achieved not looking comatose, but instead he looked angry and puerile.

Actually, Obama lost in three major ways.

Economy. The first loss is the most obvious. Mitt Romney absolutely dismembered Obama on economics. Obama wasn’t merely outclassed. He was out-leagued. Take, for example, the Romney-Obama exchange on gas drilling. After Obama blathered on about how he’d been great for oil supply (false), Romney gutted him with a single line:

The proof of whether a strategy is working or not is what the price is that you're paying at the pump. If you're paying less than you paid a year or two ago, why, then, the strategy is working. But you're paying more. When the president took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about $1.86 a gallon. Now, it's $4.00 a gallon.

Obama’s response was perhaps the worst economic gaffe in modern debate history:

Well, think about what the governor -- think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney's now promoting. So, it's conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.

This is perhaps the dumbest economic argument ever. Obama is essentially arguing that gas prices were low four years ago because low gas prices cratered the economy. He even says that if Romney brings down gas prices, it would crater the economy again. This is pure insanity.

The highlight of the debate was Romney’s thorough, two-minute dismantling of the Obama record on the economy after Obama gave a tepid defense of his awful record. Never has the case against Obama been made so eloquently:

I think you know better. I think you know that these last four years haven't been so good as the president just described and that you don't feel like you’re confident that the next four years are going to be much better either. I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you're going to get.

You're going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can't afford four more years like the last four years.

He said that by now we'd have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work. I wasn't the one that said 5.4 percent. This was the president's plan. Didn't get there.

He said he would have by now put forward a plan to reform Medicare and Social Security, because he pointed out they're on the road to bankruptcy. He would reform them. He'd get that done. He hasn't even made a proposal on either one.

He said in his first year he'd put out an immigration plan that would deal with our immigration challenges.

Didn't even file it.

This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he'd do. He said that he'd cut in half the deficit.

He hasn't done that either. In fact, he doubled it. He said that by now middle-income families would have a reduction in their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It's gone up by $2,500 a year. And if Obamacare is passed, or implemented -- it's already been passed -- if it's implemented fully, it'll be another $2,500 on top.

The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again. He keeps saying, "Look, I've created 5 million jobs." That's after losing 5 million jobs. The entire record is such that the unemployment has not been reduced in this country. The unemployment, the number of people who are still looking for work, is still 23 million Americans. There are more people in poverty, one out of six people in poverty.

How about food stamps? When he took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps. How about the growth of the economy? It's growing more slowly this year than last year, and more slowly last year than the year before.

The president wants to do well. I understand. But the policies he's put in place from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank to his tax policies to his regulatory policies, these policies combined have not let this economy take off and grow like it could have.

You might say, "Well, you got an example of one that worked better?" Yeah, in the Reagan recession where unemployment hit 10.8 percent, between that period -- the end of that recession and the equivalent of time to today, Ronald Reagan's recovery created twice as many jobs as this president's recovery. Five million jobs doesn't even keep up with our population growth. And the only reason the unemployment rate seems a little lower today is because of all the people that have dropped out of the workforce.

The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked. He's great as a -- as a -- as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That's wonderful, except we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just hasn't been able to cut the deficit, to put in place reforms for Medicare and Social Security to preserve them, to get us the rising incomes we need. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans out of work. That's what this election is about. It's about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve.

This is the sort of monologue that gets people elected. Blaming your predecessor, channeling Occupy Wall Street, and whining about Mitt Romney’s specificity on tax deductions does not.

That’s why the polling universally showed a vast gap in favor of Romney on the economy last night.

Libya. At first glance, this issue looked like a loss for Romney. Romney’s attack on Obama’s Libya policy was anything but smooth, and he allowed Obama to play the wronged man of honor – even though it is Obama who refused to take responsibility for a month, lied for weeks about whether Benghazi was a terrorist attack, blamed a YouTube video, and threw the intelligence community under the bus.

But the exchange drew light to the Libya issue. And not in a way Obama liked. When Romney called out Obama for not labeling the murder of our ambassador in Libya and three other Americans a terrorist attack, both Obama and moderator Candy Crowley wrongly claimed that Obama had immediately labeled it a terrorist attack.

If that were true, why did Obama appear on The View on September 25, a full two weeks after the attack, and refuse point blank to call it a terrorist attack? Why did he show up at the UN and mention a YouTube video 12 times, but never describe the Benghazi assault as a terrorist attack once? Now we’re going to spend another week or two hashing out just why this president, who wants to claim he’s tough on terror – and a quick labeler of terror – has trotted out administration official after administration official to deny that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Even Candy Crowley admitted that Romney was basically right, and that Obama had not called Benghazi a terrorist attack for weeks.

The Media. The greatest threat to a Romney victory after a good debate tonight was the mainstream media.
It was obvious before this debate that they would spin anything but a full-on catatonic episode from Obama as a full-on Obama triumph. And it was also obvious that they’d jump all over Mitt Romney as a liar, a cheat, a fraud, a racist, a murderer, and a genocidal maniac. A desperate media with the patina of objectivity would have been Romney’s worst nightmare.

Thanks to abysmal moderator Candy Crowley, however, the mask is gone. Crowley handed Obama three minutes of extra time. She interrupted Romney far more than she did Obama. She stacked the questions two-to-one in favor of Obama-friendly questions. And she jumped into the Libya question to save Obama when he was on the ropes. Even Crowley recognized what a booboo she’d committed with that one.

Meanwhile, as Obama played his class warfare card, media types cheered – literally cheered – in the other room.

The media is out of the closet. We know who they are. As the details of Crowley’s catastrophic intervention hit the airwaves, the American public will be wide awake to the mainstream media’s agenda. And they won’t believe them.

Here’s the bottom line: Mitt Romney got everything he needed from this debate. Obama didn’t. He got everything he already had: a devoted media and a vitriolic base. There are no independents who will turn his way after that debate. He turned them off with his aggressive style and his failure to even bother defending himself on his record.

Mitt Romney was the big winner last night. And he’s an even bigger winner if the media continues to pretend that last night was an Obama victory, even as the American people ignore them and move toward the Republican challenger.

Big Government

Mitt Romney Calls Out Obama For 'Misleading' On Libya

by John Nolte 10 Oct 2012

  Just hours after the Obama Administration (obviously attempting damage control) finally decided to come clean with the truth surrounding what happened that fateful night in Benghazi, and hours before Rep. Darrell Issa's Congressional hearings on the attack gavel into motion today; GOP nominee Mitt Romney came right out and said what is obvious to all  -- that the White House spent day after day after day "misleading" the American people.

When asked by the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin  if the White House's initial response to the Sept. 11 anniversary attack, that left four Americans dead, was due to confusion or an intentional desire to mislead, Romney pulled no punches:

“I think there was misleading on the part of the administration.” He continued, “It took way too long for the president to acknowledge that there had been an executed terrorist attack on September 11, 2012.”

Rubin calls this Romney's "most definitive statement to date," and she's right. This also gives us a glimpse into the future of the campaign, especially when the third and final presidential debate is based solely on the issue of foreign policy.

As I wrote last night, with rare exception, the corrupt mainstream media has been nothing more than a co-conspirator in the Obama's Administration's eight-day cover up of what's come to be known as Benghazi-Gate. The media is as eager to protect Obama as the president is to protect himself.

And that media cover up will extend into however long Issa's hearings last. Certainly, the media will cover the hearings, but in no way will the Administration's breathtaking security failures and eight days of lies be allowed to dominate The Narrative in the closing weeks of the campaign. Nothing will take priority over the media's desire to see Obama win a second term.

But Romney's comments today indicate that he seems to understand this. He had to be asked for his opinion on the matter, which tells me he's saving his fire for the one time the media can't filter or spin or cover up or lie -- a national presidential debate watched by tens of millions of Americans.

Whether the corrupt media likes it or not, for the sake of our country, this matter needs to be fully litigated before the election. The last thing an already polarized Washington DC needs is an administration crippled for years by investigations into a scandal as troubling as this one.

Big Peace

Romney, GOP Establishment stage a coup at the RNC; Update: Michelle Malkin on the aftermath

by: Doug Brady

I’m not trying to be overly dramatic, but if this isn’t a coup, I don’t know what is. For background, Mary Beth, Ian, Steve, and Stacy have been all over this story about the Mittster’s henchmen attempting to change the rules at the RNC in order to facilitate a power grab by Romney and his beloved Establishment.  (See here, here, here, here, and here.) The result of the Mittster’s new rules will be to centralize power in the hands of the Republican Establishment in Washington at the expense of the grass roots. It will also have the effect of making a primary challenge to Romney from the right in 2016 (if he wins) more difficult, given that he will control the party apparatus to an unprecedented degree given his new rules.

During Governor Palin’s interview with Mark Levin, the Great One mentioned something about John Boehner bringing up the rules change for a voice vote. Levin said that Boehner ignored the “nos” which were at least as loud, if not louder than the “ayes” so that he could give Romney surrogate John Sununu what he wanted. I wanted to believe this couldn’t be true; that the Republican Party to which I’ve given so many votes over the years couldn’t possibly stoop to this kind of Soviet-style maneuver. I was wrong:

This is nothing short of appalling, and is indistinguishable from the kind of thuggery we’ve come to expect from Democrats. They didn’t have the votes to ram Romney’s self-serving rule changes through the convention, so Boehner and Sununu (standing next to Boehner in the above video) simply circumvented the vote by declaring ”the ayes gave it” despite all evidence to the contrary. What has the Republican Party become? How is this any different from Nancy Pelosi’s “deem and pass” gambit in 2010? More importantly, how are we supposed to support a party and candidate who demonstrate such utter contempt for their voters? If anyone has an answer, please let me know because I can’t support a party or candidate for whom this kind of behavior is acceptable.

Update: Michelle Malkin on the aftermath of Team Romney’s power grab in Tampa:

There were several inspiring speeches delivered at last night’s Republican National Convention. Talk of “unity” filled the air. Many GOP leaders praised the “grass-roots.” But behind the scenes, the RNC power grab has exacerbated distrust between a diverse group of rank-and-file activists and party bosses.

I have no patience for the Republican party-bots telling these front-line soldiers to shut up in the name of unity — and to hide “in-fighting” because the Left will publicize it. It should be publicized. Conservative activists and Tea Party members have worked their asses off within the system, doing the groundwork of righting the wayward GOP ship from the inside. These are the door-knockers, sign-makers, phone-bankers, and message-spreaders who fueled the Tea Party revolution and who enabled the 2010 GOP midterm victories. They fought for and earned their place at the table.

I also have no patience for the sideline-sitters who gripe that rules fights are booooooring and meaningless. The Tea Party conservative activists are doing what an effective movement is supposed to be: They’ve moved on from protests and rallies to the nuts and bolts of party politics. These battles matter, because exercising grass-roots muscles makes them stronger.

Finally, I have no patience for the addled critics who think we are unable to multi-task. Yes, you can criticize bad GOP maneuvers AND maintain the fight against Obama and the progressives at the same time! It’s easy if you try.

Below, I’m reprinting the after-action report from veteran conservative blogger and South Carolina GOP activist Drew McKissick, who first alerted me to the battle earlier this week.

The bottom line: Get organized, get loud, and stay vigilant. No matter who ends up in the White House in January, no matter what letter follows the names of the people in power in Washington, the grass-roots conservative movement must be prepared to stand its ground. Forewarned is forearmed.

RNC Rules Fight – After Action Report:
First let me say thank-you, thank-you to conservatives everywhere who spoke up and started a national firestorm over this issue. If you’re like me, you know just how important it is to the future of the conservative movement.

With the Rules meeting itself, the first problem was attendance. Many, many of our supporters simply didn’t make it there do to buses that were up to an hour late to pick them up, (Morton Blackwell of Virginia had this problem). Many of them who didn’tmake it would have been additional signatures to our petition. But they started the meeting anyway, introducing a motion to ratify the final report of last Friday with the exception of the rule 16 compromise language taking out candidate veto power over delegates. This final motion passed.

As the meeting was going on, we were circulating our minority report petition. At one point, the male delegate from Massachusetts snatched it out of the hands ot the lady from North Dakota, refusing to give it back after repeated demands, resulting in a shoving match when the delegate from Colorado came to her defense.

After the final vote was over, according to party rules, we had one hour to file our minority reports, and, according to Rules, they have to be filed with either the committee chair, secretary, or convention secretary. Of course, after the meeting, they were no where to be found.

We continued to pick up signatures after the meeting, getting up to 24 our our Rule 12 minority report…but 4 shy of what would have been needed. Again, many people simply weren’t there.

Others had their arms twisted. And others, as I learned, were simply “replaced” on the committee by their delegations.

On the Rule 16 issue, we had enough – IF we could have submitted something on paper – but again, no one there…or to be found. So our only option was to re-submit, via email, the pdf of what we submitted last Friday. We emailed this to Sununu and the convention secretary. The problem however would have been that it had 29 signatures, but since Friday, 2 members asked to have their names removed, so it would have been a no-go.

After the vote on the convention floor, it occurred to me that we probably should have just told everyone to “vote no” on the rules entirely…and yell “division” to force a head count…if the rules failed, a new motion substituting the old rules may have been in order…but hindsight is 20-20.

The upside is that as a result of shining a light on what was going on and alerting everyone to it, we were able to force a compromise to get the worst part of the proposed changes removed, (the change that would let campaigns have veto power over delegates).

The downside is that all of the rest of the garbage went through, (i.e. letting the RNC change the rules between conventions, removing a March proportionality rule that will result in a massive front-loaded national primary in 4 or 8 years, forcing some caucus/convention states to bind delegates against their own rules and state law, etc..)

Worst yet, due to the RNC’s new power to change the rules, the [genie] is out of the bottle and, who knows, a proposal for candidates to have delegate veto power may yet be in our future.

This whole debacle verifies what I call “Drew McKissick’s unified theory of political power” – Those who get involved and stay involved have the power. Even idiots eventually get promoted up the chain to their level of incompetence if for no other reason that there is so much apathy that “somebody” has to fill xyz position and “hey, this guy always shows up, give it to him”. And there you go.

The takeaway for conservatives is this: GET INVOLVED – AND STAY INVOLVED. Yes, those boring old precinct meetings matter. Going to county party meetings matters. Running for delegate matters. Who your delegates pick for Platform and Rules Committees REALLY MATTERS. Show up…support good people who can’t be bullied.

Right now we have a campaign – or many campaigns – to win this November. And conservatives should do everything they can to win. But after Election Day remember, the candidates represent the party, not the other way around.
Keep the heat on, and keep them honest. This shook people up. Keep them that way.
Thanks again for all of the support. You have no idea how much it meant.

Sincerely,
Drew McKissick
Delegate, SC

***
More from Dean Clancy here and here:

At a minimum, the effect of the new rules will be to empower insiders over the broad party electorate and to discourage grassroots activists from taking part in the process. They will thus have a chilling effect on intra-party debate, including debate over the National Platform and, of course, on future rules changes. The “Inner Circle” has scored quite a coup.
…Governor Sununu chaired the meeting. Governor Barbour strongly urged “unity” and the need for everyone to set aside “differences” to “defeat Barack Obama.”

The rules package, containing the insider’s compromise, passed by a decisive vote of 78 to 14. Unfortunately, the Rule 12 change (permitting the RNC to change the rules between conventions) remained in the package, unaltered.

The package then went immediately to the full Convention for approval. On the convention floor, Governor Sununu offered it as a “strong governing framework” for the party over the next four years, and with no debate or even mention of the controversy over Rule 12, Speaker Boehner then called for the ayes and noes. The crowd roared loudly, on both sides of the question. Despite the “noes” being (in this hearer’s estimate) louder than the “ayes,” Boehner hastily gaveled the matter closed.

Apparently — and to our surprise and disappointment — the delegates’ did not have the power to call for a recorded vote from the floor. So we had no recourse from Boehner’s declaration that “The ayes have it.” Had we been able to force a roll-call vote, it would have delayed the day’s proceedings by several hours. We had been counting on this fact to provide us with leverage, since we knew Team Romney would have done almost anything to avoid such an embarrassing logistical foul-up on the Convention’s first night. But alas, it seems, that possibility had been foreseen, and the grassroots revolt was forestalled.

After the disappointing outcome, FreedomWorks released the following statement from Matt Kibbe:

I believe that the Republican party has made a huge mistake by effectively disenfranchising grassroots activists who want to be a part of the party process. If the party sincerely wants the support of citizens, shutting them out of the process is not the way to do it. Sooner rather than later the Republican establishment needs to come to terms with the decentralized nature of grassroots organization circa 2012. The terms of engagement can no longer be dictated from the top-down.

The new rules strongly suggest the insiders don’t think they need the grassroots to win in 2012, despite the critical role grassroots voters played in the historic 2010 wave election.

Despite this setback, we’re proud to have come so close to victory on such short notice and while operating under such severe disadvantages, relative to the insiders. This episode confirms just how powerful grassroots action can be in today’s world — and we hope the party insiders are taking note of this fact.

Conservatives 4 Palin

Malkin: Grassroots Activists Battle Attempt To Rig GOP Convention Delegate Rules; UPDATE: Mark Levin Weighs In. Update II Crisis Averted?

Posted by: Mary Beth House | Follow Mary Beth on Twitter!

Michelle Malkin has posted an urgent call to action for all conservatives concerned with preserving the integrity of who has the power with regard to state delegates:

Drew McKissick is a longtime conservative activist and blogger who is in attendance at the Republican National Convention’s Rules Committee meetings. He and others on the ground are sounding the alarm over rules changes that he and many other attendees believe will hurt grass-roots movement conservatives. The battle is being cast by some observers as a narrow fight between Ron Paul advocates and the rest of the party. Drew says that’s not true. And many other state delegations who oppose top-down delegate choices are chiming in.

First, here’s Drew’s call to arms (my emphasis added in bold):
Fellow conservatives,

Those who are in Tampa working to maintain the influence of grassroots conservatives in the Republican Party need your help!

This past Friday, the RNC’s Convention Rules Committee voted – after several contentious votes – to change the party’s rules to allow future presidential candidates to have veto power over who can be delegates from any state – in other words, take power away from the grassroots and their ability to elect fellow conservatives as delegates.

This represents a brazen move by several Washington Beltway consultants and party insiders to diminish the power and influence of conservatives over the party.

At least 29 members of this committee are filing Minority Reports to the full convention to try and make sure that these changes are NOT adopted into the final changes the full convention will approve on Tuesday. But we need your help to spread the word. 28 members are required to issue a minority report for the convention to even consider…and you can be sure others are working behind the scenes to peel some of them off before the meeting…so we need to create pressure for others to join!

Let me stop here and say that this is NOT…REPEAT NOT a move by a bunch of disgruntled Ron Paul supporters. This is a group of long-time conservative activists, even “party regulars” and lots of Romney supporters, many who go back to the Goldwater days.

We need to generate enough PUBLIC PRESSURE from grassroots conservatives that they will back off before Tuesday meeting and withdraw their changes so that we can avoid the need for a minority report and floor fight [altogether].

Here’s what we need before Tuesday’s session of the convention:

1) We need all conservative Republican grassroots supporters to contact their state GOP and let them know that they OPPOSE the rules change that will give future presidential campaigns control over who gets to be a delegate (current RULE 15, but is being renumbered to 16)…and OPPOSE the new RULE 12 which allows the RNC to change the rules at any time between conventions.

2) We need them to contact any DELEGATES to the convention they may know and tell them they OPPOSE the rules change and want them to support a move on the floor to amend this change via the MINORITY REPORTS – and support a demand for a ROLL CALL VOTE if necessary.

3) We need them to contact the CONVENTION RULES COMMITTEE members for their state (each state has two) and tell them they want them to SIGN THE MINORITY REPORTS before Tuesday’s session at 2:00PM. You can find a copy of the list here.

4) Finally, we would like them to help us spread the word that this is an insider power grab by a bunch of DC Beltway types who want consultants to be able to pick who the delegates are from their respective states in the future – AS WELL AS FUTURE PLATFORM COMMITTEE MEMBERS. Post a link to this page on Facebook and Twitter…spread the word on the media…COMPLAIN. Let everyone know this is wrong, and that it is ANTI-GRASSROOTS!

Click here for more details and additional updates.
Michelle also posted a list of the State Republican Party phone numbers:

Please locate the phone number of your State Republican Party Headquarters below, call them immediately, and tell them to oppose Romney’s new rules that strip grassroots activists of the ability to participate in the Republican platform process:
Alabama (205) 212-5900
Alaska (907) 276-4467
Arizona (602) 957-7770
Arkansas (501) 372-7301
California (916) 448-9496
Colorado (303) 758-3333
Connecticut (860) 422-8211
Delaware (302) 668-1954
District of Columbia (202) 289-8005
Florida (850) 222-7920
Georgia (404) 257-5559
Hawaii (808) 593-8180
Idaho (208) 343-6405
Illinois (312) 201-9000
Indiana (317) 635-7561
Iowa (515) 282-8105
Kansas (785) 234-3456
Kentucky (502) 875-5130
Louisiana (225) 389-4495
Maine (207) 622-6247
Maryland (410) 263-2125
Massachusetts (617)-523-5005
Michigan (517) 487-5413
Minnesota (651) 222-0022
Mississippi (601) 948-5191
Missouri (573) 636-3146
Montana (406) 442-6469
Nebraska (402) 475-2122
New Hampshire (603) 225-9341
North Carolina (919) 828-6423
Oregon (503) 595-8881
South Dakota (605) 224-7347
Vermont (802) 223-3411
Wisconsin (608) 257-4765
Nevada (702) 258-9182
New Jersey (609) 989-7300
North Dakota (701) 255-0030
Pennsylvania (717) 234-4901
Tennessee (615) 269-4260
Virginia (804) 780-0111
Wyoming (307) 234-9166
New Mexico (505) 298-3662
Ohio (614) 228-2481
Rhode Island (401) 732-8282
Texas (512) 477-9821
Washington (425) 460-0570
New York (518) 462-2601
Oklahoma (518) 462-2601
South Carolina (803) 988-8440
Utah (803) 988-8440
West Virginia (304) 768-0493

In summary:

Step 1:  Call your State GOP Headquarters and let them know you oppose the rules change.

Step 2:  Contact any delegates you might know and urge them to act regarding the rules change.

Step 3: Contact your state’s Rules Committee members and tell them to SIGN THE MINORITY REPORTS before Tuesday’s session at 2:00PM. This is where you find the list of all the state Rules Committee Members.

Time is of the essence so do your part by following the above simple steps and share this everywhere.
Let’s make some noise, barbarians!

UPDATE:  The Great One wrote about this earlier today on Facebook:

Damn it, defeat this RINO power grab!
Conservatives of all stripes, especially Tea Party activists, this is an attempt to destroy your ability to influence the presidential and vice presidential nomination process in the Republican Party.  It is an attempt to eviscerate the input of state parties.  It is a brazen assault on the grassroots.  And it is sleazy to the core.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Obama was behind it.  Instead, Romney’s operatives are orchestrating it.

He also discussed this issue in great detail on his radio show tonight.  CLICK HERE to listen via The Right Scoop.

UPDATE II:  According to this report, a compromise has been reached:

Republican leaders moved Monday to quell an uprising by Texans and Ron Paul supporters that threatened to steal the spotlight from GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and expose rifts in the party right as its nominating convention got under way.

Under a compromise reached late Monday, Romney supporters and GOP leaders agreed to back down from a proposed rule change that effectively would have allowed presidential nominees to choose what delegates represent them at national conventions.
…
Republicans who sought the rule change had tried to quash the uprising by Texas, Louisiana, Virginia and other states, for fear of a damaging, public battle erupting on the convention floor Tuesday, just before the party formally names Romney its candidate.
Ultimately, they backed down.
…
“This will allow Republicans of all stripes to come to the convention united and focused on defeating Barack Obama in November,” they said.

Under the deal, delegates who are bound to a presidential candidate that hasn’t bowed out of the race or released them to vote for another contender are barred from casting a vote for a different person. During this convention, the change effectively would mean a delegate bound to

Mitt Romney could not instead opt to throw his or her support behind Ron Paul, who has not freed his delegates.

Any vote for another candidate would be voided and the delegate would lose his or her position.

But under the compromise, states would still able to select individual delegates under their own laws and party rules. GOP leaders agreed to remove the rule change provision that would have allowed state-party-selected delegates to be disavowed.

Spokesmen for the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee did not respond to requests for comment.

Conservatives 4 Palin