We Can't Wait

To borrow the 'newest' trite catch phrase from our President's arsenal of trite catch phrases…."We Can't Wait" and he is right. We in the Tea Party can't wait…. His campaign is running full speed ahead and our campaigning candidates are still in the sort-out-phase.

We need to decide very soon who will be the candidate we support. I haven't talked to anyone in the Tea Party that is happy, gung ho, or ecstatic with the current slate of candidates…. Even when Reagan was running, at this point in his campaign, there wasn't a happy, gung ho, ecstatic group of voters either. BUT something begin to happen. As we listened and watched him speak we began to sense the depth of understanding and beliefs Reagan held about our government, America, and our people. His understanding and beliefs resonated in us… We began to trust the man and somehow knew he held the same principles and values we did. He not only talked them but walked them.

In looking back over that campaign, you can't really put your finger on the turning point in voter's minds. Carter was just being Carter in the campaign and Reagan was just being Reagan…It was as if some silent hand moved across the nation. There wasn't some big moment but a simple growing awareness that Reagan understood the depth of the problems facing the nation. He was the one we needed as our leader. It turned out that Reagan beat a sitting president by the greatest landside in history. The fact is it was we who selected our new leader and it was we who fired a sitting president…

Now, with the obvious said, know that we are less than sixty days from our first state primary for our group of presidential candidates. These first few state primaries often set a pattern that will be followed in other states. It is for that reason these early primaries are so important.

Clearly the upper core of the GOP wants to see Romney as 'their' candidate. That by itself is not such a bad thing but when you couple their push with the liberal media also giving Romney lots of attention, the two together become a really a bad thing.

When Romney ran against McCain, what were his highest poll numbers? IF Romney couldn't make a better show against McCain, how could he possibly be a competitor against Obama? After all this time and after all the years he has worked at becoming president, look at his polling numbers that hang around 25% I don't even know where the 25% is coming from. Certainly not from the people I know.

Watching Romney it seems that his claims on his personal business experience can be questioned. His ideas on social programs are almost nonexistent. His notion about taxes and the IRS in general is a nonstarter. When he speaks of his business abilities it is likely that most voters do not know what he did in his investment company.

Rather than trying to explain Romney's business acumen read a good description of how and what kind of business he did through which he made a lot of money and seems very proud of what he did.

Bain Capitol

"By the green-hued yardsticks of Wall Street, the 1990s buyout of an Illinois medical company, Dade International, by Mitt Romney's private equity firm was a spectacular success.

Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital, which he owned and ran as chief executive, is a cornerstone of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination — a credential, he argues, that showcases the management skills and business acumen that America needs to revive a stalled economy. Creating jobs, Mr. Romney says, is exactly what he knows how to do.

Mr. Romney’s company, Bain Capital, sent in a team of 10 turnaround experts from Boston to ferret out waste, motivate executives and study untapped markets.

By the time the Harvard M.B.A.’s from Bain were finished, sales at the medical company, Dade International, had more than doubled. The business acquired two of its rivals. And Mr. Romney’s firm collected $242 million, a return eight times its investment.

But an examination of the Dade deal shows the unintended human costs and messy financial consequences behind the brand of capitalism that Mr. Romney practiced for 15 years.

At Bain Capital’s direction, Dade quadrupled the money it owed creditors and vendors. It took steps that propelled the business toward bankruptcy. And in waves of layoffs, it cut loose 1,700 workers in the United States, including Brian and Christine Shoemaker, who lost their jobs at a plant in Westwood, Mass. Staggered, Mr. Shoemaker wondered, “How can the bean counters just come in here and say, Hey, it’s over?”

From 1984 to 1999, Mr. Romney and his deputies made fortunes by investing in, acquiring and then selling about 150 companies. It was high-stakes work that shaped Mr. Romney’s values and views, taught him the art of salesmanship and negotiation and took him deep inside the boardrooms and factories of American business.

Because financial data for many of the acquisitions are not publicly available, it is difficult to fully tally the wins and losses, the jobs created and the jobs eliminated on Mr. Romney’s watch. But the experience with Dade, Bain’s biggest transaction at the time, shows how Bain managed its investments, structuring deals so it would be hard for Mr. Romney and his partners not to come out ahead.

Bain and a small group of investors bought Dade in 1994 with mostly borrowed money, limiting their risk. They extracted cash from the company at almost every turn — paying themselves nearly $100 million in fees, first for buying the company and then for helping to run it. Later, just after Mr. Romney stepped down from his role, Bain took $242 million out of the business in a transaction that, according to bankruptcy documents and several former Dade officials, weakened the company."

Writer: Michael Barboro's article in the NYT (today…..)

During this same period of time there were many companies like Brian Capitol doing the same kind of business…So the business ethics are not what is being questioned but the substance of the idea that Romney created companies, ran companies, and created jobs… He bought and sold companies along with a small army of Harvard business school graduates. Jobs always get lost in mergers and acquisitions. It is the nature of that kind of business. Also, this business model is not so unlike the Obama business model for this country. So if Romney starts sounding a little like Obama to you in terms of how he would fix the problems of this country you can better understand why.

Romney's heath plan as governor is as much of a direct step towards a socialist form of health service at a state level as the Obama's health plan is at the national level. He has been able, it seems, to do a 'two step' around this health bill issue every time it's raised.

The polls are telling us that Romney is the front runner in the Republican party and will be the nominee. However, no matter what he does, his poll numbers don't go up or down much…..It seems that most of the candidates will barely get through the two early primaries.. Huntsman may hang in because, like Romney, he looks to the national GOP like a vice-presidential candidate and has international experience. ( To me, both appear to be both shallow and slick and I'm sure I'm misreading both men.)

I like what Perry has done in his state of Texas and I like what he says but he doesn't quite understand what he is up against and is not prepared. I really hope he can get his campaign on the road...Also, no one would imagine him in second place on the ticket. So, it would seem that he must be the top of the ticket or nothing.

The question for us is, who is the best qualified, most experienced, trustworthy candidate for us to pick ? ….. I may be over reading this but what is beginning to happen for Newt Gingrich is similar to what happened for Reagan. People are beginning to listen to what he is saying. I think we all knew or assumed he is the only candidate in this bunch who has the knowledge and experience to actually get things done in Washington from the get-go.…. The incredible thing that has happened and it has happened so few times in our lifetimes, is we have a candidate who we have known and watched for twenty plus years who has not waivered in his conservative views or actions. If this situation was not confounded by the political process, common sense would tell us this is a candidate the Tea Party can trust to guide our country. However, this is politics and common sense doesn't often play a part.

For all we know Obama, like Bill Clinton, might wake up in his second term in office and become a better president. For all anyone knows Mitt Romney might make a great president….. If you were down to your last dollar, which we seem to be as nation, which of these two would you bet on?

If we talk about Newt possibly becoming our presidential candidate then we must also look at his history outside of government and the focus moves to his marriages.

In watching the polling numbers and looking at the questions being asked by the polling organizations, it appears that many women look at Newt's personal history with wives and find him unacceptable as a candidate. If this is so, then that is where the story will end…..He nor any other candidate can win this coming election against Obama without the women's vote.

Marriage is important to the well being of societies. Every society has laws and rituals concerning marriage. Clearly they differ depending on culture and religion but are there in one form or another. Mexico has introduced a new legal marriage contract that is outside religious sanctions. More of our young people are choosing to live together instead of marrying. This is not new news.. What, if anything, is important about any of this is that attitudes and customs are changing with close to fifty percent of marriages falling apart…This trend in marriages ending is not going to change in any foreseeable future. We have had a president and a good number of presidential candidates who were into their second marriages. Ronald and Nancy turned out to be a pretty good president and first lady.

Now the challenge for women who find Newt unacceptable as well as the rest of us is, 'If not Newt - then who?".

1)Who can we find that meets our criteria of a conservative leader?
2)Who can we find to possibly beat Obama in the coming election?
3)Who has the statesmanship qualities and experience to lead this nation?
4)What candidate can we trust to keep his/her promises?

Let us invest a little time listening to Newt outside of simple sound bites in the news media. Below is a link to a speech he made in Iowa where he begins to lay out the new contract with America. Besides the conservative ideas in this contract his call to the country and challenge to each of us to participate is a far cry from any other politician in recent memory.

Even if Newt does not become the presidential candidate his ideas of what needs to happen to set the country on a better path reflects most Tea Party beliefs and hopefully whoever may become the candidate will be able to incorporate the ideas in their campaign. (Click - listen - write him…..)

http://www.newt.org/contract/videos

Ron
 
docnick37@gmail.com
 
http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/