donkeyhotey |
Ramesh Ponnuru: Romney’s the One "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.
""If Mitt Romney becomes president, he will almost certainly be dealing with John Boehner as speaker of the House and Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader. While they, too, have their conservative detractors, they are the most conservative congressional leaders Republicans have had in modern times, and they will exert a rightward influence on the Romney administration. If they send him legislation to repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, or reform entitlements, he will sign it where Obama would veto it. If at some other point in his presidency a liberal-run Congress sends him tax increases, he will veto them where Obama would sign. Compared with President Obama, a President Romney would do more to protect the defense budget.Newt unwilling to say life begins at conception
Charles Krauthammer: Mitt vs. Newt; Republicans must choose between two significantly flawed frontrunners. "My own view is that Republicans would have been better served by the candidacies of Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, or Chris Christie. Unfortunately, none is running. You play the hand you’re dealt. This is a weak Republican field with two significantly flawed frontrunners contesting an immensely important election. If Obama wins, he will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return (which is precisely his own objective for a second term).
"Every conservative has thus to ask himself two questions: Who is more likely to prevent that second term? And who, if elected, is less likely to unpleasantly surprise?"
However: Bret Baier to Romney: Didn’t you used to have basically the same immigration position as Gingrich? "If he wants to attack Newt, he should be hitting him on the strange idea of using local community boards to decide legalization issues instead of a national standard to ensure that more liberal jurisdictions don’t become magnets for longtime illegals. Or maybe that’s the whole point of Newt’s plan, to get illegals to flee to blue areas for more forgiving treatment? Bottom line: There’s really no reason to strongly prefer one of them to the other on this issue." (video)