If you’re looking for the Romney speech…

…and you probably should, because it’s likely to spark an avalanche of a bunch of badly-spelled Tweets by both Trump and his more energetic supporters, well: CSPAN is going to cover it. It should be quite the stem-winder; whether or not it moves any votes is a matter of some debate. I suspect that it will move more than the putatively right-leaning folks on the Internet (who are largely still collectively aggravated at Romney for losing the 2012 election) care to admit. Besides, I don’t think Romney cares. Press reports on motivations for his speech suggest that his primary concern here is that he wants to be able to still look his grandchildren in their faces, which is a sentiment that I understand perfectly.

22 thoughts on “If you’re looking for the Romney speech…”

  1. It was on Fox News, I listened to a bit of it, some quick notes.

    1. With a history as a corporate raider at Bain, he’s exactly the last person who should be chastising someone for losing jobs for people by his actions. Which is more positive, more American? Starting many businesses, with some successes, big and small, and a bunch of failures or looting the not-quite-dead-yet corpses of corporations in distress?

    2. Where the frak was this Romney in the campaign against Obama?

    Note, once again, I’m not a Trumpkin. I’m not particularly happy with him as nominee. But I haven’t been happy with a nominee since before I could vote, in 1984, when I was 15. It bears reminding, though, that America is strong. We survived Obama, we would have survived the disaster that a McCain presidency would have been, and we’ll survive the next one.

    1. As with anything else, it’s worth noting that “America is strong.. we’ll survive the next one” is a statement of past performance, not a guarantee of future results.
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      At one point, after all, “Rome is strong, we survived the disaster of Elagabalus, and will survive Severus Alexander” would have been a thing too.
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      To Moe’s point, I will note that I was not pleased with Romney as the nominee, nor with Romney as a campaigner, but I have never doubted his integrity as a person. I find his opinions, therefore, ones I should listen to .. although not necessarily heed.
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      ..and no, that doesn’t make me a Trumpie either.
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      Me

    2. The big difference between McCian and Obama was that, although I thought McCain would be an awful president, he wouldn’t deliberately try to break the country. And our biggest problem isn’t Obama, it’s that we have an electorate that would put such a man in charge (ht: Vaclav Klaus).

      1. To your last point: Any culture that allows the Kardashians to be a thing deserves Trump as its president.
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        I had inklings during Clinton, but have come to the full realization that this country is no longer what people(i.e. my God-and-Country SoCon parents) told me it was as a child.

        1. I have bad news for you .. it never was.
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          That said, it can get better, but .. that’s going to take work, not – as you note, Kardashians.
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          Mew

      2. That difference, and Republican leadership’s seeming inability to combat it, or maybe even recognize it, is what’s angering the Republican base. That anger then combines with other events here and abroad to drive people into a panic; there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, but people realize we’ve already absorbed a lot of ruin, and are worried that we’re running out of it.
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        It doesn’t matter that there are limits to what Republicans can actually do to stop Obama, and perfectly rational reasons for going along (namely that if they don’t, Obama will do something worse, and they know it), but that doesn’t matter when the population is saying “STOP HIM!”, and they don’t.
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        I’ve been struggling, as I’ve written replies and deleted them, to come up with the appropriate allusion to describe the situation, and I’ve found it. Obama is replaying the story of Solomon and the two mothers. Specifically, as it was decoded in the Cartoon History of the Universe, in this panel: https://41.media.tumblr.com/83922aa426c0da60e55229396f322ff2/tumblr_mha060dJB61rq6112o1_500.png
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        To update it, Obama is the false mother, the Republicans are the true mother, and the baby is America. Obama has been perfectly happy to cut the baby in half to get what he wants, and Republicans, who actually do love the country, have been willing to surrender to save it from that fate.
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        This combines with a certain denial of reality; they seem to be thinking that Obama can’t *really* be that ruthless. He *can’t* be! The base has realized that yes, he can, and yes, he is.

        1. I was torn between Rubio’s oft-repeated “Obama’s Evil Plan” theory and the general “Inexperienced One-term-Senator” theory.
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          I have come to embrace the Healing[?] Power of “And.”

          1. It’s definitely a case of the healing power of And, but part of it illustrates the potential problem of Rubio. On domestic issues? We’re definitely in ‘Evil Plan’ territory, he’s pushed the domestic social Overton window hard to the left. On foreign policy? Inept one-term senator. Now would a Rubio foreign policy be better than Obama? Well, it would hard to be worse, so probably not, but it probably would be almost as inept. My head says that Cruz would be better, just because he’s a lot smarter than Rubio, but there’s definitely some risk there as well.

            1. The advantage of any candidate not named Trump over Obama in foreign policy is threefold. First, more foreign policy knowledge coming in can be assumed. Second, none of the three sane candidates left have spent their formative years being treated like demigods. And third, the three decent candidates left all have a much better cut of advisors and policy wonks surrounding them than Obama typically has surrounded around him.

          2. The key virtue you’re after there is humility.
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            Of the four .. based on what I know of their records .. Obama is the least humble .. and Cruz is the most.
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            I place Rubio and Trump somewhere in the middle .. mostly because Trump didn’t get where he is without knowing that sometimes you pay to bring in an expert, and sometimes you listen to what that expert tells you.
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            Please note, this should not be construed as a defense of Trump in any way .. in keeping with the Zen Flowchart, it’s using one pile of pig excrement to describe another..
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            Mew

  2. I have less animosity towards Mitt Romney than most in the GOP do. If it hadn’t been for the IRS knee-capping the Tea Party groups, we’d likely be in his re-election campaign right now.

    1. I don’t know enough about the scandal to understand the impact, but whenever a liberal shrugs or dismisses the IRS corruption I tell them that they have made my case about the dangers of big govt. have I changed anyone’s mind? Nope, but sometimes ending the conversation is reward enough.

  3. Oh, hey, apparently Trump has indeed not had a personality transplant and is currently fulfilling all of Romney’s prophecies in near-real-time at his presser.

    1. Romney is good at predicting the future with regards to vindictive, thin-skinned narcissists.

        1. Look, I’m sorry that you’re supporting a pig, but Mitt Romney himself said today:

          If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement

          …And if RedState had known that Trump was going to be a filthy-mouthed demagogue he would have never gotten that invitation to the Gathering that we later rescinded. I mention this solely so that you understand that this line of trouble-making of yours is offending your host. Which I suspect that you already know very well.

          1. Moe, I’m not trouble-making. Who thought this was a good idea? Didn’t Romney realize that Trump’s endorsement would be dredged up?
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            I have no doubt RedState did the right thing, so why didn’t Romney?
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            If while at Bane Romney knew Trump was a dishonest, failed businessman, why did he seek/accept his endorsement? As to Trump’s offensive behavior, it’s not as if Trump hasn’t been making an ass of himself for years. Romney knew exactly who and what Trump is/was.
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            However, I do not believe that this speech was Romney’s idea, it’s very uncharacteristic of him. He was prevailed upon, by whom and in exchange for what one might ask; a brokered convention?
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            However, what Romney knew and when he knew it is really beside the point. This is exactly the wrong tactic at the wrong time, it will make Trump stronger with GOP LIVs and attract disaffected Bernie crossovers.
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            Jonathan S. Tobin has it about right:
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            h ttp://tinyurl.com/je5y8r3
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            BTW-as I’ve said previously I support Cruz, the only candidate the GOPe hates more than Trump.
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  4. Slightly off topic ..
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    I wonder what kind of an alternate-history tale it’d be if a young Barack Obama hadn’t left New York after graduating Columbia ..
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    Mew

  5. *running, ducking & hiding from the ban hammer*
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    Oopsie!
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    h ttp://tinyurl.com/jre49aq
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    The last graf is a pip.
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    This would be funny if the stakes weren’t so high.

  6. :sigh: I *really* dislike banning people [here], folks. And I realize that I was in a dark mood for a while back there. But it’s my site, so don’t push my damn buttons like this guy did.

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