The former Governor of Massachusetts and semi-declared candidate for President, Mr. Romney, has the Massachusetts health care “solution” called now “RomneyCare” (a plan upon which the widely unpopular “Obama Care” plan is based) to discuss with the American people. For some on the Left this provides Mr. Romney with a strong gravitas, but how will RomneyCare play on the Right?
“RomneyCare’s” association with “ObamaCare” and the rampant unrealistic, excessive nanny-statism (and legislative strong-arm process that passed the national plan) combines to create a difficult marketing/public relations challenge for Mr. Romney in the upcoming election should he decide to run.
Michael Graham in the Boston Herald of April 12, 2011 writes,
As a health care plan, Romney care is an unmitigated fiasco. It has caused costs to skyrocket, insurance premiums to soar and nonprofit providers like Blue Cross to suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
Illustrative of the deep rift across the country about RomneyCare/ObamaCare and too many other contentious issues to discuss, Graham cites a new Suffolk University poll showing dissatisfaction with the Massachusetts Romney Plan.
But after five years of actually experiencing this new universe, even the Kennedy Democrats have had enough. A new Suffolk University poll showed that nearly half of Massachusetts voters say the law isn’t helping, while just 38 percent say it is. As Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute pointed out, Romney care is almost as unpopular here as Obama- care is across America.
Confirming the democrat/republican, conservative/liberal divide, the Huffington Post published an article in mid- March, 2011 which cited a different poll with opposite results.
A large majority of Massachusetts residents are satisfied with the commonwealth’s subsidized health plan, which has components similar to the Obama administration’s federal plan, according to a poll released on Thursday. The poll by Market Decisions, a research and consulting group, found that 84 percent of residents are satisfied with the Massachusetts plan, which requires most adults to have health insurance.
Even worse for both Mr. Romney and the current administration is the AP poll of April 13, 2011.
The Associated Press-GfK poll showed that support for Obama’s health-insurance expansion has slipped to 35 percent, while opposition stands at 45 percent, and another 17 percent are neutral. Among seniors, support has dipped below 30 percent for the first time.
As 2011 is the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, that catastrophic conflict to retain the Union is in the thoughts of many. Its lessons, and many apparently still unsettled conflicts/issues, are the subject of discussion across the country and will continue to be for as long as the Union remains.
California Governor Jerry Brown suggested recently that the current political and civil conflicts are reminiscent of the Civil War era.
‘We are at a point of civil discord, and I would not minimize the risk to our country and to our state. It is not trivial,’ said Brown. ‘I’ve been around a long time, I’m a student of history, I’m a student of contemporary politics. We are facing what I would call a “regime crisis.” The legitimacy of our very democratic institutions are in question,’ he said.
This week Brown has been using Civil War metaphors at his public events to describe the deep divisions in California, and the entire country for that matter, preaching with the passion of a born-again that the country is dangerously polarized.
If the current political milieu in the United States is truly one in which “our democratic institutions are in question” the upcoming presidential election may be the most important since 1860.
The election of 2012 is about nothing less than radical change. It seems strange to suggest that a return to traditional values, functional government, a rational foreign policy, economic growth, international respect, and a diminishment of nanny-statism and federal encroachment on the lives of citizens could be considered “radical” – but it is.
Those who suggest that history does not influence the present are mistaken – history matters. The case of Romney and Tavares and its unpleasant reminders of the 1988 Dukakis/Horton horrorshow certainly proves the point. It is entirely appropriate that the American people critically examine the records of all the candidates, including Mr. Romney, an examination they failed to do in the case of the current resident of the White House.
Mr. Romney’s performance as Governor of Massachusetts is both important and pertinent. His judicial appointments, the decisions of those appointees, and his leadership of that state (inclusive of RomneyCare) all should be reviewed. As concerned citizens we should learn from the past as best we can. Will 2012 be a rewind of 1988 with Mr. Romney in the M1-Abrams tank-role of former candidate Mr. Dukakis?
If the 2012 presidential election becomes an updated version of 1988 the renewal of the country, and its rescue from decline, deconstruction, economic failure, and international loss of respect, authority, and power could be abrogated with disastrous consequences.
The new radicalism is the old conservatism and, as we wrench the pendulum of our political culture back from the extreme left where it has been driven by the Obama administration, the American electorate should be as sure as possible that whoever replaces Mr. Obama at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is much more than slick marketing and deconstruction but a person of character and wisdom who can both lead, and unite the country with a belief in the importance and value of the United States and a firm foundation in the Constitution of the United States.
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