Romney’s Gaffes Show He Doesn’t Believe He Can Win

There were times when Romney seemed to make something of an attempt to win over the conservative voters, and even the Ron Paul supporters. He’d say a few conservatively-sounding words when he felt he was before the right audience. He’d say he was pro-life (ha ha). He’d say he was anti-establishment (ha ha again). He’d refer to Ron Paul as “The Constitutionalist.” He’d mention something about “traditional marriage” – without specifying, of course, traditional for whom. (Could it be the traditional marriage for Mormons? Or for Muslims? Or for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?) He’d say something about “tax-reform,” whatever that means. His staff knew from the very beginning that Romney has no substantial support within the Republican Party – and certainly none among the independent voters – so they tried to use the same old tricks to woo them by saying the things they expected these people to hear.

Until a couple of weeks ago. Then Romney suddenly took a new course. And the new course is putting his foot in his mouth every time he had the chance to do so. So deep in his mouth that his older gaffe of the $10,000 bet pales in comparison.

He went to Israel and praised their socialist health care system the venus factor which is based on individual mandate just like Garcinia Cambogia Obamacare. That was just a few days after Romney vowed to start working for the repeal of Obamacare his first day in office.

He refused to openly support Chick-Fil-A’s President Dan Cathy. That was a low-hanging fruit for a Republican politician; after all, the whole thing was started by Mike Huckabee, another Republican establishmentarian, and millions of Christians and conservatives responded. If Romney wanted to get his prospective voters where they were most open to listen, he didn’t need email lists, he just needed to go to those miles-long lines of cars and standing customers who depleted Chick-Fil-A’s food stores within a day. It would take one sentence to raise his reputation before them by a few notches; and it would take one sentence to destroy it completely. He made his choice quickly, within the same day. It wasn’t part of his campaign, y’know. But you can still get some iherb coupon codes by following the link.

In the same day, as if the damage was not enough, he decided that part of his campaign was to speak for the sodomites who were bullying the Boy Scouts of America for their stance on sodomite leaders. The mothers of those boys had to hear Romney’s beliefs that anyone, irrespective of their sexual orientation, should be able to sleep in the same tent with their sons. These mothers are mainly Republican voters. In the wake of the Penn State scandal, one wonders if Romney is actually mentally stable. No amount of imagination can explain what exactly Romney was thinking at that moment.

Then, to make sure Romney wasn’t honest when he said he was going to repeal Obamacare, his speaker defended Romneycare at a press conference. And that right when Obama’s campaign was using the connection anyway, to Romney’s detriment.

To cap it off, Romney picked for his VP Paul Ryan, the establishment’s poster boy who has specialized in talking the talk but never walking the walk. Ryan has learned all the right language of a conservative, but for his whole career he can’t point to a single instance where he voted conservative when it really mattered. While using conservative rhetoric, he voted for the bailouts, for raising the debt-ceiling, for indefinite detention of American citizens, for the Patriot Act, for unending war, etc., etc. Romney has enough problems with his own flip-flopping; now he has added another heavy case of flip-flopper’s reputation to deal with.

As if that wasn’t enough, in the very same day the neocon publications started touting Ryan as a “bridge” to the Tea Party and the anti-establishment forces in the GOP. But Romney tried to present himself as an anti-establishment candidate during the primaries and especially in the debates. Why does he need a “bridge” then? Was he lying all along? And if he needs a “bridge” to the Tea Party, does that mean Romney officially admits that his values are opposite to those of the Tea Party? It surely looks like it.

And, of course, the biggest misstep of all: The refusal of the RNC to let Ron Paul speak at the convention in Tampa. If any of the attempts Romney made to attract young voters, or those who are genuinely conservative, had any success at all, it got cancelled right there, with that single decision. The Republican Party just lost a significant voting bloc, now and in the future, and doomed itself to remaining on the battlefield with a small group of blindly faithful, but powerless group of voters of quite advanced median age.

At every step, Romney is making one gaffe after another, in just a couple of weeks, alienating all those whom he seemed to be trying to woo in the previous months. And those who are principled conservatives are beginning to notice, and it doesn’t work well for Romney. Even with Obama’s record low approval, Romney can’t seem to be able to catch up with him in the polls. The problem is so severe that the editors one of the flagships of the neocon establishment, National Review Online, found it necessary to publish Friday a soothing piece to the neocon voters under the telling title, “Don’t Panic.” The fact that they needed to mention the word “panic” at all shows the desperation. Yes, they are trying to show that nothing is lost yet, but the assurances are not very convincing; the dynamics don’t speak in favor of Romney. Even Mark Steyn was forced to admit that Romney’s campaign is incredibly boring and lacks momentum and is “vapid.”

One wonders, with all the money Romney has, what’s wrong with his campaign? Can’t he hire the best campaign managers, advisers, campaign pundits, etc.?

He obviously can. But what is gradually making its way to the surface is that Romney’s campaign seems to be going half-pace, half-hearted, if it is going at all. It seems as if he is just automatically doing something because he must be doing something, not because he believes in it anymore. It is very difficult to explain the fact that his guard is so low when it comes to words and decisions.

Obviously, Romney doesn’t believe he can win. And neither does his campaign. Nothing else can explain the flow of gaffes and “foot-in-the-mouth” episodes of the last couple of weeks.

That should have been expected. Romney was forced by the GOP establishment on the conservative voters in a time when the grass roots movement within the GOP was picking up speed. The Party leadership misjudged the situation gravely enough to predetermine the defeat of its own party even before the campaign has started. Romney has never had any serious support, and he can’t do anything to gain that support within the GOP or among the independents. And there is no time for him to get it.

Which brings us to the conclusion that the Republican Party has one valid option remaining: Nominate Ron Paul. He can beat Obama.