Romney’s High-Profile Speech: Like Guggenheim Putting On His Dinner Jacket To Die Like A Gentleman Aboard The Titanic

Today was a stunning day in the body politic.  The man who twice failed to win his bid for the presidency took to the dais at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute to gun for the GOP’s front-runner.

As someone wrote, “The living, breathing, immaculately coiffed human embodiment of the same Republican establishment that Trump publicly reviles and of the economic currents that he exploits but claims to despise—tried to convince the reality star’s supporters that they are ‘suckers’ being taken in by a dangerous con man.”

Watching him speak, it was not hard to compare Mitt Romney to Benjamin Guggenheim.  Guggenheim, heir to the Guggenheim family fortune, returned to Room B-84 of the Titanic to change into his finest evening wear and was last heard saying, “We’ve dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”

Romney provided the fodder that launched the blitzkrieg waged by Marco Rubio, and to a lesser extent Ted Cruz, in last week’s debate before the Super Tuesday primaries when he intimated there may be a “bombshell” in Trump’s tax returns.

It is too soon to tell if Romney’s charge is true, but it is clear that his devilment is no less sleazy than the cheap shot taken which then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leveled at him on the floor of the Senate in 2012.

“Donald Trump is phony, a fraud.  He’s playing the American people for suckers.  He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat,” said Romney.

The people in this country have been betrayed by the GOP leadership ever since The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer took office.  They’ve watched as oppressive regulations, out-of-control spending, sequesters, CRomnibus bills, the “fundamental transformation of America”, executive orders, bailouts and universal healthcare have been rammed down their throats. 

In 2010, 2012 and again in 2014 the people voted to fire RINOs who perpetuated that betrayal in the hope that their duplicity would end but it did not.  They’ve watched helplessly as their hopes and dreams of a better America have been crushed.

Trump may well be a snake oil salesman, but can he be any worse than The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, a woman who is currently under investigation for possible espionage and a milquetoast socialist from Vermont?

I believe that the entrenched Republican establishment which has lined its pockets off the sweat and blood of honest, hard-working Americans should let this election cycle play out.  This is supposed to be about the will of the people, not about what Reince Priebus, Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell want.  People are tired of the national decline and foreigners disrespecting America.

Dear Mitt: We were never that into you.

— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) March 3, 2016

If only Romney talked like this four years ago about Obama...or Trump. Too freaking late and too freaking lame.

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) March 3, 2016

Defeated U.S. politician Willard "Mitt" Romney emerges from gutter for suicide mission to destroy candidacy of Donald Trump.

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) March 3, 2016

The Governor vs. “Talent On Loan From God”

Mike Huckabee is a pleasant enough guy with a preacher-man façade.  Cumulus Media Networks is sending him, unarmed, into the Roman Coliseum to be devoured by ravenous lions.

This Monday, the former Arkansas governor will launch a three-hour show that will play on about 200 stations nationwide in the same time slot as Rush Limbaugh. 

“In the supermarket, there’s an aisle for cereal, and there’s probably more than one box in the cereal section. Not everybody wants Cheerios. Some people want Frosted Flakes—though I’m not saying that I’m the Frosted Flakes, maybe that’s a terrible metaphor,” said Huckabee.

The slogan for the new show is “More conversation, less confrontation.”

Cumulus is hawking Huck’s gig as a “safe, non-dangerous alternative to Rush,” adding, “If you are looking for conservative content, we want you to consider our guy instead of theirs.”

I’ve got a newsflash for the Dickey Brothers and Cumulus:  Politics is not a playground, it’s a battlefield.  There will be blood.

The New York Times admits that Limbaugh has been the most powerful talk radio host in the United States for two decades. “Other news media personalities, like Bill O’Reilly, have tried to go up against Mr. Limbaugh and failed, but Mr. Huckabee has the advantage of his political credentials and Mr. Limbaugh’s own weakened position.”

Political credentials?  You’ve got to be kidding.

Maurice Clemmons was facing 95 years in prison for a lengthy list of crimes, but was pardoned by Huckabee over the objections of prosecutors and family members of his victims. 

Citing his young age when he committed those crimes as the reason he commuted his sentence, he showed up in Tacoma, Washington killing four police officers.  In effect, his pardoning of this criminal wound up being his “Willie Horton”.

His nickname, “Tax Hike Mike”, is not undeserved.  The Tax Foundation makes no bones about the fact that during his 10-and-a-half years as governor of Arkansas he “presided over $505 million worth of tax increases.  Sales taxes were raised.  So were gasoline taxes and the per capita tax burden on the state’s residents grew by 50 percent.”

On October 26, 2007, Pat Toomey (then-president and CEO of Club for Growth and now-senator from Pennsylvania) said of Huckabee:

“Huckabee makes no secret of his desire to turn the GOP leftward, calling himself a ‘different kind of Republican,’ adopting protectionist positions, and peppering his campaign speeches with the kind of class warfare rhetoric one expects to hear from John Edwards. No doubt, this is the reason that the liberal media is so smitten with him.” 

“Instead of talking about curtailing government spending, Huckabee refuses to endorse President Bush's veto of a vastly expanded S-CHIP. He is an unabashed fan of No Child Left Behind and an opponent of private school choice. Huckabee is also quickly becoming the labor unions' favorite Republican, recently gaining a union endorsement along with Hillary Clinton.”

“…the liberal media is so smitten with him.” [Emphasis mine]

Jeffrey Lord, writing for The American Spectator, opines:

“What do you think our far-left friends over at Media Matters think of all this? They, after all, have spent weeks now trying—and failing abjectly—to strip Rush Limbaugh from every one of his 600-plus stations in a phony, ginned-up hate campaign designed to intimidate Rush's sponsors.” 

“Media Matters loves Mike Huckabee! And the New York Times hasn't loved a ‘conservative’ with such fervor since it regularly lathered over the pre-2008 John McCain. Speaking of which, when will Cumulus sign RINO devotee Megan McCain?”

Rush has his warts too, but the blemishes on the charming preacher-man are too ugly to ignore.