Flashback 1980 – GOP Calls for Brokered Convention – Reagan Too Conservative! Santorum receives Reagan Treatment from Establishment GOP

40 Years Later, National GOP uses Same Tactics on Candidates Considered Too Conservative to Win Nomination - Ronald Reagen - Rick Santorum - image nomblog.com

From ABC News: ”A Top GOP Senator Says If Romney Loses Michigan We Need a New Candidate” – a headline that came out on the 17th of February The Senator declined to give his name, but insisted that Romney (the establishment GOP choice of Candidate from the beginning – he is a moderate to the left of moderate – would be best positioned to wrest the Presidency from Barack Obama. That, of course, depends on how blind a Romney supporter one is, and if one understands that the Daily Match-ups by Rasmussen Polling are fluid at best and meaningful only in terms of entertainment at this stage of the game.

The latest “buzz” comes from a Reuters article ” Romney’s struggles fuel talk of brokered convention” where the standard line is that should Romney lose Michigan, then Santorum is too conservative to best Obama in a general.

“Many senior Republicans do not think Santorum, a social conservative caught up in the U.S. culture wars over issues like abortion and contraception has a chance to beat Obama if he wins the party's presidential nomination.”

(Reuters)

However, prior to this recent spate of “brokered convention chatter”, there has been a feeling of foreboding coming out of the establishment due to the lack of enthusiasm over their Choice (Romney) and the willingness of the voters to look at candidates who are, darn it, more conservative than they would like.

The names bandied about as replacements? Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, and Jeb Bush, the former Governor of Florida and brother to George W. Bush, son to Herbert W. Bush – otherwise known as the “Bush Dynasty”.

The unmitigated gall of those who are so ridiculously childish as to think they have the ability to usurp the voters inside the Republican Party reminds one of the Democrats! (See the 2008 convention – where Super Delegates elected Barack Obama)

Establishment Republican’s may think that they are Democrats, and they have in the past. The perfect example is Ronald Reagan. Yes, the one man that the entire Republican Party holds in such high esteem, and where one candidate attempts to out-Reagan the next, was in the same position as Rick Santorum!

No kidding: From the archives of the Christian Science Monitor Is Defeat Probable for GOP if Reagan wins Nomination?” The premise was the Reagan was too Conservative to win the nomination over Jimmy Carter (are we seeing similarities here between all candidates – yet) – and so the Establishment GOP wanted to go to a brokered convention and put up Gerald Ford!” (Complete article below).

Therefore to all the pundits, and the mystery senators, and the establishment GOP who have their panties in a bunch (including – shock – Sarah Palin), perhaps they need to take a short trip down memory lane (otherwise known as history) to 1980 and do some math. As far as polling by state for Obama versus Carter (Gallup) they are about equal at this point, with Obama carrying over a 50% approval in 10, count them 10 states, Carter was invested in appeasement, the Iranian situation was increasingly volatile. One must give Obama his due in killing Osama Bin Laden, however the situation with Iran among in the Middle East, is eerily familiar to those who lived through the Carter Administration and well, it is more dangerous. In addition, the gas crunch under Carter is about to hit Obama – at the same time frame – the summer – as gas prices are expected to hit $5.00 per gallon. (Due to tensions in what part of the world?)

One might suggest that Santorum is a Catholic, (already a negative, the Democrats had a problem with John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism), and that his personal lifestyle choices are somehow too conservative (he is a practicing Catholic – Lion’s Tiger, Bears, oh my!), and that somehow, every President since Washington has allowed their personal religious preference to affect how they ran the nation. Wait that didn’t happen! Therefore there is little more than the following fact. Since Santorum had a fairly decent record in the Senate (Thomas.gov, the Congressional Record – do the search), as a conservative who also was supportive of contraception in his voting record, as well as labor (which riles some on the too far right), He lost only one election, to a Blue Dog Democrat whose father was a favorite Politician of the State of Pennsylvania, in a year when being a Republican meant that you were about to get placed back in the Private sector. Why? Bush was about as popular as Pee Wee Herman – and the establishment GOP wants to go to a brokered convention and put up Jeb Bush? If these people we’re not so serious, this would be taken for satire.
Unfortunately, what they don’t realize, is that Reagan was being called out for being too Conservative and unable to best Carter in March of 1980 – he then went on being a screaming scary Conservative to win Massachusetts (along with the rest of the states – twice).

Therefore, one suggestion would be to cut funds immediate to the RNC and let them know why – paws off the election – let the chips fall where they may, be it Santorum or be it Romney – but let the voters decide.

Then, should Santorum win, and be not Reagan, but (here’s the heretical statement) better than Reagan, (as he has the potential in both his values as well as his record (emphasis on record), he would become the litmus test for future generations of Republican GOP Candidates. Those very same mystery Senators and Sarah Palin would be calling again, for someone like Rick Santorum, and a brokered convention should that person not arrive in March! Let the chips fall where they may, one might be pleasantly surprised, and then take the credit for knowing all along that Santorum was the right choice.


History repeats