{"id":9393,"date":"2012-01-11T00:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T06:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=9393"},"modified":"2012-01-10T22:50:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T04:50:21","slug":"republicans-edge-closer-to-inevitable-choice-of-romney-to-face-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=9393","title":{"rendered":"Republicans edge closer to inevitable choice of Romney to face Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve never met a Mitt Romney fan in person. They obviously exist — because I see evidence of them on TV and they show up to vote for the man — but I don’t talk to real people who admit to having any enthusiasm for the guy. So why is he going to win the GOP nomination?<\/p>\n

The short answer is that he’s the guy who most Republicans see as the least-offensive available candidate who can defeat Barack Obama. That’s not a very high standard to set, but given what most voters believe, it was almost inevitable for Romney to win.<\/p>\n

The question I have for Romney voters is what they would hope to achieve by replacing Obama with Romney. Other than the color of their skin and their party affiliation, what are<\/em> the substantial differences between the men? They certainly pander to different people with their rhetoric, but on the issues of substance, I can’t see that they’re much different. Can you?<\/p>\n

The question I have for supporters of the social conservatives in the race — Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry — what do you<\/em> hope to gain by supporting Romney as your eventual nominee? Does he stand for what you believe? Or do you simply hate Obama so much that you’ll support anyone else?<\/p>\n

Most importantly, I have a question for Ron Paul supporters. What are you going to have to show for all of the time, money and effort you’ve poured into this campaign? The overall percentage of people who believe what we believe (or some form of it) isn’t going to change as a result of the campaign. It’s still going to be around 10 percent. When are you going to be ready to give up on the coercive state?<\/p>\n

I’ve regularly had Paul supporters tell me — very confidently — that I’m wrong to say Paul can’t win. I’ve outlined my reasons why he can’t win<\/a> and I’ve also outlined why I won’t be voting for him<\/a> (or anybody else). But I’ve given up on trying to argue with Paul believers about the issue. Some tell me honestly that they know he can’t win, but they believe it’s worth it to “educate” people. (That doesn’t work in any substantial numbers, even though you won’t believe me about that, either.) But many of his supporters have honestly believed that he could win. It was always fantasy.<\/p>\n

I’m only bringing this up to ask if it isn’t time to accept reality. The reality is that the vast majority of people don’t want a libertarian society (or any version of an anarchist one). Seriously. They don’t. They don’t trust us when we tell them that it would be better than what we have. They think we’re crazy for believing it would be. All of your high-powered logic isn’t going to change their minds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So are you going to spend the rest of your life begging people to choose individual liberty as a political path? Are you going to keep thinking that this time it might be different<\/em>? If the majority don’t get<\/em> why freedom is better and more moral, they’re not going to suddenly change their minds — at least not in substantial numbers. The democratic system is only going to produce one thing. It’s going to keep producing people who want to control your money and control your life<\/em>. That’s what the majority want. Honest.<\/p>\n

So since we know what they want — and it’s clear that your beautiful logic and hard work and begging aren’t going to change that — why not consider searching for an alternative? Why not at least consider that maybe — just maybe<\/em> — there could be a future that doesn’t involve elections and coercive governments telling people what they must do?<\/p>\n

I believe there are<\/em> alternatives — multiple ideas that different ones of us are going to try. (Many of us are trying to figure out which one works best for us.) But even if you don’t believe there’s a workable alternative, since it’s obvious that other people don’t want what we want — and it’s obvious that your political work is all in vain — wouldn’t it be smart to withdraw from the system and concentrate on real life? Wouldn’t it be smarter to be figuring out how to protect yourself and your family as things get worse?<\/p>\n

There’s no return on a political investment. There is<\/em> a return on the investments you make in real life — your family and in your financial future. Aren’t those investments worth more than whatever time or money you’ve wasted on a campaign that’s not going to change a things?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never met a Mitt Romney fan in person. They obviously exist — because I see evidence of them on TV and they show up to vote for the man — but I don’t talk to real people who admit to having any enthusiasm for the guy. So why is he going to win the Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-2rv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9393"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9411,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9393\/revisions\/9411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}