One Conservative's Case For Romney

Much ado has been made about a recent editorial in National Review that essentially says nominating someone like a Newt Gingrich would be a disaster. Said editorial says that there are only three serious candidates. One is former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. One is the former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney. And the last and disqualifying one to me is the former Utah governor, Jon Huntsman, Jr.
That last one to me makes the otherwise thoughtful editorial a joke. Again, anyone that believes in Globaloney Warming, and Mr. Huntsman, Jr. does, can never be seriously considered for the Republican nomination for Dog Catcher.
So, I read a good piece by another National Review writer, Rameseh Ponnuru, and strong conservative case for Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential nominee.
Before I continue, this is not any endorsement of Mr. Romney. I think if Republicans do nominate him, he will be an excellent antidote to the poison that is the Dear Leader, President Obama, and the left in general.
Mr. Ponnuru makes a very good point. That while Mr. Romney was governor of Massachusetts, while probably too conservative for many, he was to the left of the national Republican party. And he has moved right since then. But here is the more important point made by Mr. Ponnuru:

It’s true that Romney took a sharp right turn when he moved from state to national politics. But it’s also true that in 2008 he was the candidate behind whom Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, among other conservative notables, said that the conservative movement should rally in order to stop John McCain from getting the nomination. He has not moved left since that time. His positions on policy questions are almost all the same as they were then. On a few issues he has moved right: He now favors a market-oriented reform to Medicare, for example.

If Romney was to McCain’s right then, he is still. He’s to George W. Bush’s right, too. Bush never came out for the Medicare reform Romney has endorsed. Bush never said that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, either. Romney has. Romney’s long list of policy advisers includes people who are, within their fields, roughly in sync with the politics of the Bush administration or to its right; almost nobody is significantly to its left.

What Mr. Ponnuru points out is that in many ways, George W. Bush was not all that conservative. I will point out the whole No Child Left Behind scam. It was the federal government overreaching in nationalizing primary school education. Not a good thing whatsoever. There are others, as Mr. Ponnuru points out. But on many very important issues to conservatives, Mr. Romney is to the right of Mr. Bush and one Sen. John "F--- You" McCain. That is reassuring to me.
And Mr. Ponnuru makes a good point that the congress a potential President Romney will be dealing with will be a Republican one. A conservative Republican one. One that will send legislation overturning Obamacare. To cut and or reform taxes. To reform entitlements. These are things that a Republican governor in Massachusetts can not do on a good day. Yet at the national level with the Republicans in control of the legislative and executive branch, these things can and would be done.
Lets face it about this whole campaign.
Conservatives want to be able to actually govern as conservatives.
While the Republican party did control congress and the presidency much of 2001-2007, it was not a conservative one. It was one that gave a moderate president like George W. Bush way too much leeway on issues that it should have never let get out of the station. This congress and the next one will be decidedly conservative. It will set the agenda. Not the Republican White House. That will be a serious shift.
But Mr. Ponnuru does offer a rightful caution.
While I and many others believe that anyone can defeat the Dear Leader, President Obama, it is not a given. One should not write him off.
I agree with that assessment.
And Mr. Ponnuru makes the obvious point. That the whole caucus/primary campaign season is to air all this out.
But once it ends, we conservatives unite behind the Republican presidential nominee. Because he, or she, will need all the stops to be pulled out to defeat the Dear Leader, President Obama, and the Democrats any and everywhere throughout the United States.
It begins by having this campaign within the Republican party. It will end, God willing, with a new Republican president. And that may just very well be Mitt Romney.