Silent Romney

By Mr. Curmudgeon

It’s desia vu all over again. The presidential campaign of 2012 is starting to look a lot like the campaign of 2008. As you may recall, that’s the one where Republican voters were told they needed to nominate a safe, bipartisan Republican for president – the kind of politician, we are told, independent voters lust for.

Right on cue, accommodating Republicans nominated Sen. John McCain, a man with a hint of a vague inkling bordering on an indication of an idea. Much to his credit, the clueless candidate picked a vice presidential running mate that was a better man than he could ever hope to be – Gov. Sarah Palin.

When appearing together publicly, Palin sucked the oxygen right out of the room and McCain’s wheezing lungs. That’s what happens when a person with ideas and passion is positioned next to a sack of old potatoes.

If recent polls are to be believed, Romney and the president are neck and neck. The press credits multibillion-dollar Democrat super-PAC ads, which paint Romney as a greedy corporate suit with offshore bank accounts who takes vacations while the nation is neck deep in an economic depression, for the Republican candidate’s inability to connect with average voters.

That, of course, is a load of eyewash.

Obama has spent more time hitting golf balls into sand traps than any president in modern memory; he pours billions of taxpayer “green energy” dollars into crumbling wind and solar businesses – who export jobs to Mexico, Europe and China – before going bankrupt; his Justice Department sells weapons to Mexican drug cartels to gin up violence and murder in that tortured country as a pretext for imposing draconian gun legislation on law-abiding Americans; and the president recently let the camel’s nose in the tent by offering amnesty to college-attending illegal aliens, giving American college graduates a run for their money in a shrinking job market.

Romney refuses to mention these obvious facts. He likes to play it safe – just like John McCain in 2008. Many exasperated Republicans want Romney to nominate a conservative running mate to energize the GOP’s base – just like John McCain in 2008. Are you beginning to see an old familiar pattern here?

Many Republican politicians obviously believe we live in a bygone century, leaving the heavy lifting of presidential politics to their surrogates while they sip lemonade and enjoy the view from their front porch. Obama, on the other hand, understands that modern American politics is about community organizing. Progressives like Franklin Roosevelt started that process in 1933. Establishment Republicans have yet to notice.

The Tea Party, on the other hand, understands this reality.

Romney can’t export his candidacy overseas. That means he has to roll up his sleeves … maybe get his hands dirty … and engage in the battle of ideas on the one hand while simultaneously throwing mud with the other.

It’s either that or end up like McCain in 2008 … a good loser.