-By Warner Todd Huston
Only days ago Mitt Romney was saying that the Occupy Wall Streeters were dangerous. But, true to his penchant to “grow” in his opinion (“growing” is what the rest of us call flip floping), Romney is now beginning to accept the OWS theme of “the 99%.”
The OWSers — I call them the Occupy-Whatevers because they really have no idea what they want or what they are doing — have taken to calling themselves the “99%.” This class warfare battle cry casts anyone with a few shekels to rub together in the role of the eeeevil rich.
As I mentioned, during the first week of October Romney was pounding the Occupy-Whatevers as “dangerous.” He was right about these anti-Semitic, anti-American protesters, too. At the same appearance Romney also said that the whole series of protests were exercises in “class warfare.”
But that was then.
All it took for Romney to begin his flip flopping… er, I mean “growing”… this time was one week because now, at a townhall in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, suddenly Romney is all about “understanding” the plight of the “99 %.”
I don’t worry about the top one percent. I don’t stay up nights worrying about, “gee we need to help them.” I don’t worry about that. They’re doing just fine by themselves. I worry about the 99 percent in America. I want America, once again, to be the best place in the world to be middle-class. I want to have a strong and vibrant and prosperous middle-class. And so I look at what’s happening on Wall Street and my own view is, “boy I understand how those people feel.” Because with median income down 10%, with unemployment at 9% plus, with the president having run saying he would keep unemployment below 8% if we let him borrow almost a trillion dollars and then having failed to do so. With chronic unemployment, long-term unemployment worse even than during The Great Depression the people in this country are upset. And I understand middle Americans saying, “Wait a second, what’s going on? This wasn’t the deal! How can this be?”
So, now Romney is employing the Occupy-Whatever’s own terminology and accepting their premise? How long before Romney goes form “dangerous” to “I am with you”? He’s already half way there, after all.
This is why this man is wholly unacceptable as the GOP nominee for president. He’s been on Obama’s side at one point or another in his political career. So, how does Mitt Romney successfully defeat that notion that all he is is a flip flopper, a liar?
Why would people want to vote for Romney who will be successfully portrayed as Obama-lite when they can get full-blown Obama and just vote for the real radical in chief?
Now, It has been claimed by some that Romney has already beaten the rap I saddle him with here. But that is not the case. In fact, his flip flops have been wholly absent from the debates as well as the media discourse of his primary campaign. He hasn’t already beaten this rap because the media is holding its powder dry waiting until he wins the nomination so that they can pound him with it when the only thing between Romney and the White House is Obama and his sold-out, Old Media establishment.
Romney is not a conservative in any way. He is a finger-in-the-air politician that will say and do anything he thinks he needs to do to win. If the Tea Party cannot stop this man from winning the GOP nomination, we will have another 4 years of Barack Obama and the country may not emerge from that four years intact.
Now, on the other hand, is Romney worse or even just as bad as Barack Hussein Obama? Of course not. Romney is not driven by the hatred of the United States that Obama is. Romney does not have the hard and fast left-wing principles that Obama has. Romney was not brought up on Alinskyite tactics aimed at destroying this country. Romney will be a bad president, sure. But he won’t be the destroyer that Obama is and will continue to be if he wins a second term.
A vote for Romney in 2012 won’t be a vote for Mitt Romney. It will be a vote against Barack “Spread the Wealth” Obama.
But that Romney is but the lesser of two evils is no succor to a country bleeding as badly as the U.S. is right now.
Pick Perry. Pick Cain. Heck, pick Santorum or Newt, even. But don’t let the left-leaning, GOP country club establishment pick another McCain/Dole/George H. W. Bush with a Romney nomination. This election is too important.
The only GOP candidate running against himself if Mitt Romney.
Last but not least, let’s not forget how Romney praised one of the most vile partisans in recent congressional memory, the killer, Senator Edward Kennedy…
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.