VP Buzz: Romney's Strong New Leadership

There's been a lot of rumors that McCain might decide soon about V.P. so I thought I'd reprint my arguments for Mitt Romney and against Jindal, Crist, Palin, Pawlenty & Huckabee.  For a lot of reasons, the VP choice for McCain is critical and I trust McCain will give Romney serious consideration.

McCain has some weaknesses that Romney fixes as VP:

• McCain's having trouble raising money - Romney raised lots of money (more than McCain) and has lots of money.
• McCain's weak on the economy - Romney's fantastic.  Romney's a private-sector superstar who successfully counters Obama's populism with free market solutions to people's everyday problems.
• McCain lost big time to Romney in 5 of 10 states with less than 5% margin of victory for Bush in '04: IA, NV, MI, MN & CO
• McCain’s been in Congress (lowest approval ratings ever) for 30 yrs. Romney’s been successful outside the belt-way his whole life.  
• In FL, 600,000 voted for Romney - those votes could be crucial in a general election.  Bush won FL by less than 1000 votes in 2000.
• Net, net - Romney on the ticket may add 47 to 61 electors.  Bush beat Kerry by only 34 electors.

Romney for VP over Jindal, Crist, Palin & Pawlenty because:

• Romney has the judgment, character and experience to be a better President now - the others are a few years away.
• Romney raised over $100 million across the country from California to Utah to Texas - they haven't.
• Romney has had great success managing large companies, the International Olympics and Governor of the 13th largest state - the other candidates have been Governor, that's it.
• Romney has experience running a strong, organized national campaign - they have experience running a one-state campaign. 
• Romney has tens of millions of supporters - they don't.
• Romney can help deliver IA, MI, MN, ME, CO, NV, UT & probably NH - they deliver one state each
• Romney’s great success in the private sector makes him the perfect VP to help McCain help America win the global economy (having both a Harvard MBA & Law degree doesn't hurt either). 

Romney for VP over Huckabee because:

• If a chair dropped during one of his speeches, Romney would never say anything as stupid as:   "That was Barack Obama...somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor".
• Had Romney been selfish enough to stay in the race, Romney would have won three times the votes & delegates Huckabee got.
• The few states Huckabee brings to the ticket will be GOP anyway.
• Although Romney graciously left early, he raised 6 times more money.  
• Huckabee plays Clinton-style politics - such as running an ad saying he’s the "Christian leader" in evangelical Iowa and pulling the ad in NH - did Huckabee convert over New Jersey?

The only knocks on Romney are that he’s another "flip flopping Northeast liberal" and he lacks foreign policy experience. 

The “flip flop” charge is misleading.  Romney is actually very conservative, born and raised in Michigan, but moved to Massachusetts to attend Harvard.  During a very successful business career, Mitt and his wife Ann raised their kids and put down roots.  Later, he ran for office and had to make compromises to get elected, and govern, in the bluest of blue states. 

Would his critics prefer that Romney had uprooted his family and moved to Arizona, so he could run as a conservative?  Or that he had stayed in Mass, not compromised and not get elected?  Thankfully, Mitt pulled that liberal state a little to the right and Mass, and America, is better off for it. 

Let’s celebrate blue-state conservatives, not chastise them when they run for national office.

Regarding Foreign Policy experience, most of our greatest Presidents, and most of the other V.P. candidates, lack foreign policy experience.  At least Romney has some experience with foreign leaders during his global business career and as International Olympics CEO.  The alternative is to get a VP candidate out of the US Senate, now experiencing record low approval ratings.

Mitt 4 VP = Win 4 McCain! 

     

Rush Defends Clinton on Rwanda

I called Rush Limbaugh on Friday about Rwanda. You can read the transcript and listen to the audio here:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_050908/content/01125115.guest.html

I was a first time caller and a little nervous talking to a man I’ve admired for most of my adult life, and still do.

As such, I did not engage him about some of the things he said that were a little off the mark.  Rush's overall answer was fine but he made a couple mistakes in his comments & I know he'll want to correct the record as soon as practical.

Rush's 1^st mistake: “Clinton was busy at the time saving Haiti.” 

Even if the Haiti intervention happened during the genocide (Apr-Jul, 2004), the US military had the capacity to return Aristide to power and intervene in Rwanda.  Bush proved this later when he fought two wars (Iraq & Afghanistan) with over 400,000 troops deployed.  Clinton himself estimated in 2003 that he would only have needed 5,000 – 10,000 troops to “save half of those killed in Rwanda”

So, Haiti is not a legitimate excuse. Christopher Hutchens suggested that Hillary asked Bill not to intervene in Bosnia, as he had promised he would in the 1992 campaign to Elie Wiezel, because a messy intervention might jeopardize her health care reforms. Hutchens estimates that about 250,000 died before Clinton finally intervened in his second term. I believe this also explains why the Clintons abandoned Rwanda. The Clintons did not want another Somalia. The Hutu commanders in Rwanda knew about Clinton's mistake in Somalia and knew if they killed a few soldiers the West would leave and not come back. They were right.

Rush's 2^nd mistake:   “Clinton squared it all …took responsibility.  He was a big man.  At least Bill Clinton admitted a mistake”.

Clinton's apologies on Rwanda were late (in 1998 - well after the 1996 Presidential Election) and, well, Clintonesque.  He suggested he was not fully aware of the genocide and he wished he could have done more. 

    

In 2004, documents were released that show Bill Clinton, and Vice-President Al Gore, were kept well-informed of events in Rwanda and, in fact, began using the term “genocide” privately within 3 weeks (150,000 dead) but chose not to get involved, or allow others to send rescue teams (that would embarrass us) until three months later – after 800,000 had died.

Even if he really apologized – that doesn’t “square it all”. No apology or singing in black churches or African charity work can make up for letting 800,000 humans die needlessly.

So, given these facts – why is Rush sticking up for the Clintons? Is this part of Operation Chaos?

The Clinton /Rwanda controversy is rich with conservative talk radio material about liberal hypocrisy:

1. Hundreds of thousands of black women, young and old were raped and mutilated. Where were the feminists then? Why do they support Hillary now?
2. Over 800,000 Africans were butchered to death? We should all be outraged but why is there not outrage from African-Americans like Obama, Sharpton, Clyburn, Jackson, etc? Hours and hours about all the terrible things whites have done to blacks in Rev Wright sermons and nothing about Rwanda?
3. Democrats and their activist groups are outraged about 4000 dead soldiers – “Bush lied, they died”. Of course, we should honor every soldier’s sacrifice but they died fighting a noble cause. The victims of the Rwanda Genocide were largely innocent – many women and children. So many were slaughtered that the Kagera River ran red with blood and clogged in some places because of the volume of bloated & hacked body parts. Democrats are outraged about 4000 soldiers who died fighting a noble cause but not a peep about 800,000 innocent people are butchered to death at a murder rate 5 times the Holocaust?

I believe the Clintons made a political calculation that, in the end, no one, not even African-Americans, will care that America let 800,000 Africans die needlessly, horribly.

They were right.