The Right Attacks Romney for Being Rational

    

Imagine the U.S. as a car, with a driver's and a passenger's side: right and left. Now imagine that car is traveling down a bumpy mountainside road (call this the road of recession, if you will), and because of some wonky alignment the right wheels have gone over the edge and are now spinning over the abyss. Now imagine that the left tires are slightly deflated and bald (no pun intended)? How long can that car continue to travel before the right side pulls the whole thing off the road and tumbling down the escarpment? This is a fitting analogy of what I feel is in danger of happening between now and 2012.

     More evidence that the right has "gone off the road"? Mitt Romney has endured major criticism for his "invention" of Obamacare, a conservative buzzword for President Obama's healthcare overhaul. The reforms were largely based on the healthcare system created in Massacheusettes while Roney was governor, and is one of the most efficient and well-run state healthcare plans in the country. Though, to deflect criticism and appeal to his now radical reactionary base, he's distancing himself form it.

     This week Romney has received renewed criticism, this time for his views on climate change. In fact, the conservative right seems so enflamed by his remarks that they've called it "political suicide" and Rush Limbaugh stated, "bye-bye nomination", then went on to declare, again, that the last year has proven the climate change is a hoax. What did Romney say that so incensed his own party? “I believe the world’s getting warmer...I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world’s getting warmer, and I believe that humans contribute to that.” Pretty banal statement if you ask me, and during the 2008 presidential election I think every potential Republican nominee said something to that effect. However, three years later the conservative right has been pushed over the bring by pandering to Tea Party politics, fear, and paranoia. Now it's not even safe for the highest polled Republican candidate to say he thinks the planet's getting warmer and that people might have something to do with it.

As I've written elsewhere on this site before, one of two things is likely to happen to conservatives during this election; there will be a schism between radicals and moderates (which is unlikely, as it will numerically weaken the republican party) or there will be some return to moderation by mainstream Republians after the latest extremist pandering fails. What cannot continue is Republican business as usual. They have relentlessly pursued a program of deep austerity cuts to federal spending, continued deregulation of major corporations, an attempted government shutdown and now are attempting to broker a Treasury default; all in the name of their holy trinity: smaller government, unregulated free markets, and social conservatism. To me, Romney is the most reasonable, diplomatic, and fair candidate that the party has at this time. If the radical element within the Republican Party manages to push him out of the race, the divide will only widen and we'll drive into it even faster.