Monday, October 11, 2010

First Thoughts on 2012

Count me with National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru on why Mitt Romney won't be my candidate in 2012:
I never liked his Massachusetts health-care plan and said so at the time, but it didn’t render him unacceptable to me. He wasn’t running on a federal version of that plan, which would have rendered him unacceptable in my eyes.

He still isn’t. So what’s changed? Only the political context, which is to say: everything. It seems to me to be pretty important for conservatism that Republicans run on a platform of repeal-and-replace in 2012, and Romney does not seem like a credible carrier of that message. . .

The fact that Romney had supported a state-level policy that resembled Obamacare would still have been a mark against him, in my view, but the issue would not have had the importance it now has.

In my view, then, Romney’s health-care record is and should be a much bigger hurdle for him to overcome this time.
As for who to support, John Hawkins of Right Wing News recently polled conservative bloggers for their 2012 choice (and least favorite). The outcome: Sarah Palin led the pack, with Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie as alternatives; Mike Huckabee got the downcheck.

I was among the bloggers polled. I voted for Mitch Daniels and against Sarah Palin. So other bloggers halfway agree with me.

BTW, no more posts today: Columbus Day!

1 comment:

OBloodyHell said...

I've said this before, and I'll say it again -- At this point, it's a total crapshoot as to who will even stand a chance at getting the nom. Speculation is thus wild and irrelevant -- the most one should do is to discuss the pros and cons of those one might consider, largely without regard to "electability".

Anyone else remember Gary Hart?

And how many of you, in 2005, would have said The Big 0 would have had a serious chance at the PotUS spot? The Veep, perhaps -- clearly they were grooming him for that, either in 2008 or 2012 -- but PotUS?

...And that's pretty much the situation we are in, now.

At this point, it's resume collection time, not resume evaluation time.