The Case For Romney

Romney’s not a conservative. He’s hardly exciting or inspirational. He’s flopped around so much it’s just not possible to say what he really believes. But strangely, the more I think about it, he is the Republican candidate who would probably make the best President. Here’s my take on the strange case for Romney (since I can't have Cain.)

Let me start by pointing out that other conservatives are now making a case for Romney.

● Charles Krauthammer invokes the William Buckley rule: vote for the most conservative candidate who can win. He says that’s Romney.

● Ann Coulter argues Romney is the only candidate we can trust to both repeal ObamaCare and stop illegal immigration. Her point about ObamaCare is an “electability” argument, but her point on illegal immigration is solid. Only Romney and Bachmann actually oppose amnesty. The others claim to oppose amnesty, but really support it in hidden form. Some go even further. Perry wants to give illegals more rights than Americans. Newt wants to grant illegals all the rights of citizens without the name “citizen” and thereby hand the Democrats a double victory -- new voters through amnesty plus a political charge that Republicans want Hispanics to be second class citizens. Santorum actually opposes voluntary use of the e-Verify system because his Big Business friends want the system gone so they can hire cheap illegal labor.

My take is different. Not only do I believe Romney is most electable -- in fact, he may be the only electable candidate -- but I think Romney may turn out to be an excellent President, something I cannot say about the rest. Here’s why:

Most Electable

The electability case is simple. This election will be an referendum on Obama. And as such, Obama is doomed. No President has been so low in the polls so consistently for so long. This tells us the public has reached its verdict and will not change its mind. In 2010, we saw the result of this when the public punished Obama’s party with an historic thrashing. Even now, Democrats see the writing on the wall so clearly that people like Barney Frank and Ben Nelson are quitting before they get tossed out. The Democrats know they’re doomed.

The only thing that can save Obama would be if we pick a Republican who makes the race about themselves rather than a referendum on Obama. Egomaniacal loose-cannon Newt Gingrich, gay-baiting Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann, corrupt Bush-clone Perry, or the terrifying Ron Paul, would all make the race about themselves and the public would need to decide if it can trust these Republicans before it ever looks at Obama. That’s the only kind of race Obama can win because it distracts from his record. But Romney is mild, bland, and inoffensive. His background is competent and shows the right kind of experience. He isn’t someone the public will worry about. That leaves the election as a referendum on Obama’s record, and in that election, Obama goes down in an historic landslide. Thus, not only is Romney the most electable, he may be the only electable candidate on the Republican side.

The Best Potential President In The Bunch

But electability only goes you so far. The real question is, what kind of President would Romney make. In that regard, I’ve come to believe that for a very strange reason, Romney may end up being a really good President. Here’s the thing. Our two best Presidents in recent memory were Reagan and Clinton (after his disastrous start). What they had in common was a form of conservatism that just isn’t on display in any of the other candidates or in any of the recent Presidents. I think Romney has that.

The best way to explain what I mean is to first point out the problem with the other candidates: they all think they have magic bullets to fix the country. Santorum and Bachmann think they can fix America by ridding it of gays. Santorum now adds a new-found populism which mixes socialist ideas like favoring manufacturing with the middle-class-destroying policies of Big Business. Rick Perry thinks he can fix America by handing it over to his corporate donors. Huntsman thinks he can fix America by taking the partisanship out of politics. Newt thinks he’s God and can fix America by issuing grandiose ideas. And Paul thinks he can fix America by turning the clock back to an idealized 1776 that never was.

This is all destined to fail because it misunderstands why America and conservatism work. Genuine conservatism does not try to run an economy by fiat. It does not pick winners and losers and it does not look for magic policies to kickstart the country. Genuine conservatism recognizes that the government cannot fix America, only Americans can fix America. And Americans can only fix America if the government stops trying to organize the economy and lets people do their own things.

Reagan understood this. His goal in office was not to find some clever policy to spur something specific. His goal was to eliminate regulations and lower taxes and unleash the public to make their own choices. None of the candidates except Paul (who fails for other reasons) understand this because they aren’t genuine conservatives. . . they think they can tinker America to greatness by making its choices for it.

Unlike the others, I suspect Romney understands this. For one thing, Romney’s background as the hamstrung governor of a liberal state tells us that Romney knows the limitations of political power. Secondly, his business experience is critical. Since he didn’t just run a company, but was instead involved in buying failing companies and turning them around, he is familiar with the vagaries and uncertainties of the business world and the degree of latitude business needs to function. Those are exactly the kinds of lessons that underlie Reagan’s beliefs.

But even if Romney doesn’t get this, there’s another reason to suspect he would make an excellent President, and believe it or not, it’s his lack of principles. Clinton was an awful President when he first arrived. His people were far-left radicals who planned to remake America. The backlash against their hubris gave us the first Republican Congress in forever. That’s when an interesting thing happened. Clinton, who apparently had no values of his own, decided the best way to govern would be to stick his finger in the wind and do whatever the public wanted. Since the public was leaning right, Clinton ended up moving right and became one of the better Presidents in history because the public pushed him in the same direction Ronald Reagan had gone -- toward getting the government out of the way.

One of the concerns people have with Romney is that he lacks principle. This is true in a specific sense as he has been both liberal and conservative on almost every issues. But there is one overriding principle Romney does follow: he does what the public wants. Right now, the public is sending highly conservative, Reaganesque signals. Romney has adopted these and presents a platform that is easily the most conservative of any of the candidates. And there is good reason to believe he means it, because he thinks this is what the public wants and, thus, that is what he intends to deliver.

In other words, as strange as it may sound, Romney’s lack of principles may be what make him the most trustworthy candidate because he will do his best to please us, the public. And since the public is conservative in a Ronald Reagan sort of way, there is significant reason to believe Romney will adopt Reagan's principles. I don’t see that in any of the other candidates, each of whom seems more interested in legislating their own pet peeves.

That’s why I think Romney deserves support. Not only is he the most likely to beat Obama, who simply must be beaten for the sake of the country, but he also has the potential to become an excellent President. I understand the fear that a man without principles is unpredictable and that RINOs have too often lied about their views to sneak through the elections, but I think Romney is a different case because Romney isn’t a principled RINO who has adopted a conservative cloak, he’s a principle-less mirror who adopts whatever the public currently wants. And with the public channeling Reagan and Romney signaling that he understands that, I think he could well become a President in the conservative mold of a Reagan or the good-Bill Clinton years.

That’s my take on it. I guess we’ll see what Iowa thinks tonight?