{"id":93,"date":"2008-01-06T09:38:57","date_gmt":"2008-01-06T09:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/castingstones\/2008\/01\/does-romney-even-get-his-oppon.html"},"modified":"2008-01-06T09:38:57","modified_gmt":"2008-01-06T09:38:57","slug":"does-romney-even-get-his-oppon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/castingstones\/2008\/01\/does-romney-even-get-his-oppon.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Romney even get his opponent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading Rod’s<\/a> and Dan’s<\/a> posts together and keeping this in mind:<\/p>\n

His aides are wary of New Hampshire. \u201cIt\u2019s all no tax, no government there,\u201d said Bob Wickers, a top strategist. \u201cIt\u2019s not ideal.\u201d But they believe that the message of economic anxiety that he preaches will help in Michigan\u2019s primary on Jan. 15 and in states in the South, which have high poverty rates in addition to strong groups of social conservatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Along with this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I only could stay for Huckabee’s 15-minute opening remarks at a packed\u2014I mean packed\u2014event at a gym in a Londonberry middle school this morning, but it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. It was one of the most stirring and persuasive defenses of self-government and limited government\u2014including the doctrine of subsidiarity\u2014that I have heard in a long time. This guy is very good, and very shrewd\u2014after playing the evangelical card in Iowa, today he was saying how America is all about “live free or die.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Romney camp doesn’t understand what type of politican they’re running against. Even though Huckabee ran as a Christian populist in Iowa that doesn’t seem to have stopped him from running as a small government advocate in NH. Huckabee is doing what Romney can’t: change his position without looking obviously smarmy (though I find it disconcerting that a “Christian leader” would run his campaign this way). Will it fly? Will NH get that they’re being spun? If they don’t, then they won’t be accused of being savvy and informed again.
\nIn the long run, if it works and we are left with Huckabee and Obama, and Obama preaches a message of hope and change but it’s really a message of the same old big government solution to the nation’s problems and we turn to Huckabee and he is also preaching a message of hope and change (you know that’s going to happen) but again it’s just a message of big government solutions to the nation’s problems, who will the nation choose? Given the direction of this election so far I assume the one whose rhetoric soars higher and who says what the voters’ itching ears want to hear.
\nBut in the end the voters won’t be getting change, they’ll be getting exactly what they’ve been getting over and over again. In Obama they’ll be getting the same failed socialist policies that don’t work because they encourage dependence and in Huckabee they’ll get four more years of George Bush’s compassionate conservatism — big government spending without the means to pay for it.
\nSince Romney has co-opted Obama’s change message, he should go even further and point out that it would be a change if the federal government were more fiscally responsible and that Huckabee won’t get us there and neither will Obama. It would be smart if he reminded people of the end game (a big government Obama against a big government Huckabee) and pulled them back from falling for persuasive rhetoric at the expense of common sense (can a populist really be an advocate for smaller government?). Someone better do it or Huckabee might continue expanding his base beyond the evangelicals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Rod’s and Dan’s posts together and keeping this in mind: His aides are wary of New Hampshire. \u201cIt\u2019s all no tax, no government there,\u201d said Bob Wickers, a top strategist. \u201cIt\u2019s not ideal.\u201d But they believe that the message of economic anxiety that he preaches will help in Michigan\u2019s primary on Jan. 15 and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes Romney even get his opponent? - Casting Stones<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/castingstones\/2008\/01\/does-romney-even-get-his-oppon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does Romney even get his opponent? 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