Can't Vote for Mitt

My GOP Apprehension:
It’s Not All About Mitt


Some D and R Differences; Sorry Mitt, But I Can’t Vote For You


In the past few days, as the Romney and Obama campaigns charge after the White House, Senate, House seats and local offices, I heard smarmy Ann (“I’ll say anything for TV time”) Coulter call President Barack Obama a “retard.” Donald Trump again offered his “Obama is foreign born” bull pucky. Former New Hampshire Republican John Sununu dropped his thinly disguised “racial bomb” when explaining why General Colin Powell endorsed Obama (they’re both black). This prompted Powell’s former chief of staff, bravely to blast the GOP and Sununu calling them “racists,” with his longer more accurate statement, “My party is filled with racists.”

Indiana Republican Richard Mourduck--running for Senate--announced that his God welcomes babies born via rape of the mother. I won’t even bother to talk about the biologically challenged Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin, another Senate candidate, who assured the world that women have a hidden body switch to shut down baby making during a “legitimate rape.”

I can’t leave out, (according to his campaign) “right to life” advocate Rep, Scott Dejarlais (R-Tenn), a married medical doctor, who cajoled his mistress--one of at least four mistresses according to local news reports--into having an abortion.
Dejarlais now is running for re-election with an endorsement from a different mistress. (Can’t make this stuff up.)

Mitt Romney did not utter any of those comments, nor did he criticize the people who did, including the hypocrite Rep. Dr. Dejarlais, which is a major reason for the title of this blog?

Many, but not all, Republicans share common tenets. (My R friends will tell me if I am mistaken.)

Partial GOP List

Here’s is my not exhaustive GOP preferences list:

 prevailing disdain for the federal government;

 strong belief in right to life for fetus, but less support for babies once they are born;

 dislike and distrust of minorities;

 inherently not comfortable with minority group priorities

 dislike or distrust of feminists or other aggressive women demanding parity with men;

 oppose legislative efforts to deal with racism, sexism, sexism or other forms of inequality, since they question whether many of those conditions even exist;

 oppose most forms of gun control, including sale of combat weapons;

 oppose all but the most minimal regulation of commercial activity—at any level of government--no matter how risky or dangerous the practices;

 an overwhelming belief that the “market” is the best arbiter of any product, service, price or commercial activity;

 affinity for a large military and “muscular” foreign policy;

 fear of China’s business and military might;

 silent endorsement of “boys will be boys” behavior;

 engage in insensitive and occasionally inaccurate public dialogue about sex matters; (suggesting fixations or personal problems);

 admire the “law of the jungle” or “survival of the fittest,” but disdain for Darwinism/Evolution and much of the science surrounding it;

 not wildly supportive of environmental or “global warming” issues;

 support state voter suppression campaigns in the absence of any evidence of voter fraud;

 support tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, as a universal elixir for all ills;

 believe that the most effective government level is the government physically closest to the population;

 generally believe that the Bible and the US Constitution are sacrosanct and require little if any interpretation;

 generally opposed to activist judges and courts;

 strong advocacy for states rights over federal authority, except Florida in the year 2000;

 and few concerns about Church-State relations, believing that the US is a “Christian nation”;

 unfailing support for the society’s “haves”;

 not wild about the United Nations or its smaller members wielding influence;

 Want to believe that large commercial banks represent “private capital,” despite the fact that most of their $7 trillion in deposits/working capital spring from a $5.3 billion inadequately funded federal insurance fund, which can’t possibly cover all of the personal/family/business savings in banks, if there was a massive failure.

Not Universal and D’s Have Their Blind Spots

Now every Republican isn’t into all of those and I suspect I missed a few other shared beliefs, possibly some salient ones. But those I have noted provide a pretty fair profile of the “GOP gestalt.”

If I listed average Democrat descriptors--in the same categories--most items on the list would contrast with GOP traits, from a little bit to a whole lot.

D’s would believe in the federal government’s ability to manage or solve fiscal, social, and commercial problems; think the wealthiest among us should pay more taxes, because they have benefited more; D’s seem less fearful of diversity and change; are more skeptical of total faith in “the market,” since the latter has been responsible for some truly and costly diabolic behaviors, designed not to favor the least among us but concentrate wealth in the hands of the “haves”; most D’s believe in the efficacy of strong federal regulation and consumer protection; also they far less agitated over their fellow American diverse religious beliefs and choices.


What Mitt Does for the GOP and Why That Concerns Me


I have no personal animus toward Mitt Romney. I never lived in Massachusetts, never attended Harvard, am not anti-Ivy, and don’t care if he fantasized that if he was Hispanic he would be the next President. I don’t have the significant wealth the Romney family enjoys and don’t run in the social circles in which they move.

Through my entire Washington career, working in and with Congress, at two financial regulatory agencies, and at Fannie Mae, I have engaged successfully with a number of Mormon public officials and I have been exposed to the Latter Day Saints faith. I believe their religion (including mission and tithing) makes them just another positive variation of Christianity.

Romney also might be a decent President and I have written that Mitt Romney may have more success sooner than Barack Obama bringing back our national economy because he will have a supportive Congress to work with him. Obama won’t.

But……with the decided rightward tilt of the GOP and the purging of moderates, if Romney wins election next month, he would be forced with little alternative, to flood the Executive Branch with men and women who are very comfortable espousing and embodying that list of GOP positions I developed.

The Romney-Ryan team has not been straight or transparent with the American people, offering meager campaign platforms and pliable position papers, displaying a lot of venom but little substance.

On most major issues, Governor Romney has espoused both sides of the question.
Just what does he really believe about tax reform, deficit reduction, and immigration, let alone Medicare and Medicaid?

The sweetest plum that could fall into Mitt Romney’s hands is the power to appoint two and possibly three Supreme Court justices who will serve for life and buttress a Robertson, Scalia, Thomas SCOTUS majority possibly for the next generation.


Rove, Koch, Adelson Channeling Right Wing $$ Millions

I will vote for Barack Obama because I don’t want the Nation’s Capital or courts filled with acolytes of Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, and Sheldon Adelson, if not frequent WH consultative visits from those individuals.

I don’t believe “corporations are people.”
This “new Conservative cabal” is just the “old Conservative cabal,” who served George W. Bush 10 years ago.

It will try and push us—and the world—backward to an era which can’t exist anymore and can’t be recreated, the United States of 60 years ago, still pumped and bristling from leading and reshaping the world after our World War II victory.

In presidential Debate #3, Romney said that “we can’t kill ourselves out of our nation’s foreign policy problems.”


We already are the world’s greatest military power, spending more on our armed forces than the next 10 sovereign spenders. But who believes the “new” Republican Party jingoism--which wants to boost defense spending two trillion additional dollars in the federal budget--agrees with that logic? (“Nothing like a good war to get the economy…..!”)

The GOP calls for building more barriers to keep out “illegals” plus shipping many back to their countries of origin; standing up militarily to China in the Pacific; giving Iran, Russia, and other bothersome countries a little of our nuclear middle finger.

Sounds great on a campaign stump but it’s a very risky and destabilizing foreign policy.

An Obama victory won’t sanitize the Congress of all of its extremists, right and left, but it will keep most out of the Executive branch.

Barack Obama, warts and all, offers more to America and the world. He’s the better choice to be our next President.

Maloni, 10-30-2012

Happy Halloween to all of you "kids" and VOTE next week for which ever candidate rings your chimes!!