Why not Rick?

Michael Medved tells us that Mitt Romney hasn't changed in four years, but that the Republican base has - and not for the better:

On no significant issue has Romney moved to the left or to the center over the last four years; his platform of 2012 offers a program of conservative reform far bolder and more substantive than any ideas he put forward in 2008.

Mitt’s precise problem came into focus for me with an email from an angry listener to my radio show who upbraided me for my open support of Romney as the most electable candidate against Obama. “We remember what you did to us last time, and we won’t let you get away with it again!” she wrote. “This time you’re trying to ram the RINO, Romney, down our throats and last time it was McCain. It was because of people like you that we got stuck with McCain, when we could have had a real conservative who would have beaten Obama!”

And who would have been that “real conservative” back in the distant days of 2008?

None other than … Mitt Romney, the “conservative’s conservative ” eagerly endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint and nearly all of my talk-radio colleagues, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, and many more.

That Romney no longer counts as a “real conservative” doesn’t reflect any ideological shifts on his part, but it does suggest a significant movement of the entire GOP toward the enraged and indignant right. The far lower turnouts in Florida, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri all indicate that this tectonic movement hardly counts as a positive development for the Republican Party. Healthy political organizations attract more participants than ever before; troubled, self-destructive movements drive out people who’ve taken part in the past.
Let's help Mr. Medved out.  Back in 2008 Mitt Romney was the only viable alternative to John McCain.  McCain.  McCain, for those of you who may have only come out of a long term coma during the last three years, is the black-hearted Judas Iscariot of the GOP who has built his career on being the mainstream media's favorite Republican. 

McCain has earned the love and adoration of the MSM by never hesitating to go onto television and trash his fellow Republicans and conservative policies such as tax cuts.  McCain is the GOP's most eager "isle crosser" ever willing to abandon his party to make common cause with the left to advance the left's agenda to the detriment of the Republican Party, the conservative movement and (most importantly) the USA.

Back in 2008 many conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Lemuel Calhoon begged Republican primary voters to chose Romney over McCain because compared to McCain and only compared to McCain Romney was the conservative alternative.

Romney as president was the lesser evil than McCain as president.  That was it; 75-80% of Romney's support last time around was based on absolutely nothing more than the revulsion that genuine conservatives felt over the utterly detestable John McCain.

McCain isn't on the ticket this time around.

This time around there is an actual conservative in the race which leaves Romney occupying the McCain place in 2012.  This doesn't mean that Romney is as bad as McCain was for he is not.  What it meas is that while we conservatives have a genuine conservative in the race we have no reason to back a Northeastern moderate to liberal RINO who has a proven track record of saying whatever he has to say to get elected.

Mr. Medved says that Rick Santorum will be caricatured as and angry one-dimensional social conservative and that will sink any hope he has of being elected.

Mr. Medved must be aware that Mitt Romney is being caricatured as a "vulture capitalist" who has no greater pleasure in life than firing people, turning them out of their jobs so that they lose their homes and are driven out into howling blizzards clutching their emaciated infants which they have forced to wrap in filthy rags retrieved from the gutter to keep them from freezing.  While Tiny Tim limps along behind without even his crutch for support because Ebenezer Romney seized it in partial payment of his father's debt.

Of course this is not the real Mitt Romney, who gives millions of dollars to charity, and Mr. Medved knows that Romney's campaign should be able to deal with the issue easily. Just as the angry single issue Santorum is a caricature which Mr. Medved should also know that the Santorum campaign should be able to overcome with little difficulty.

Unless, of course, Mr. Medved actually believes the caricature of Mr. Santorum.  This is possible.  Only someone who is severely out of touch with reality could confuse the very different circumstances of the 2012 campaign and the 2008 campaign.  If Mr. Medved can't understand the difference between conservatives being driven to Romney in shear desperation at the though of McCain being our nominee and those same conservatives rejecting Romney four years later when a genuine conservative is available as an alternative then he might well be incapable of looking beyond MSM spin about Santorum.

After all Michael Medved, for all the good things that could be said about him, is someone who is located in the uber-liberal left coast enclave of Seattle, Washington.  Compared to the people Mr. Medved sees on a daily basis Mitt Romney looks like a right-winger.  Just like Rudolph Guilliani and Chris Christie look right-wing to people who live in Manhattan and New Jersey.

This brings us to an article written by the great Chuck Norris in which he explains why he chose to support Newt Gingrich over Rick Santorum:

In 2008 -- when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president -- former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Go to http://bit.ly/zEIaPw to hear how Santorum passionately endorsed and elevated Mitt in his bid for the Oval Office.)

Just three years ago, in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans, "If you're a conservative ... if you're a Republican ... there is only one place to go right now, and that's Mitt Romney."

Why an alleged conservative would fight for the flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate on the presidential campaign trail -- especially in light of the fact that Huckabee and even McCain were running then, both of whom had much clearer conservative records -- I will never know.

Mr. Norris is angry at Mr. Santorum for backing Romney as the alternative to McCain in 2008 rather than jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon.

Those of you who red this blog in 2008 might remember that my nickname for Huckabee was Elmer Gantry.  I have seen nothing from this slimy huckster in the last 3 years to cause me to change my opinion of him.

All you really need to know about Huckabee, who once styled himself a minister of God, is his reason for supporting Romney now even though he was furious with Romnny in 2008 for running very negative (and Huchabee says deceptive) ads about him.  Huckabee says that that was then and this is not.  He isn't running against Romney this time around and Romney isn't lying about him now.

So in "pastor" Huckabee's world it is just fine to lie about anyone but him.

So much for Mike Huckabee's "integrity".

And so much for Chuck Norris' good judgement when it comes to picking candidates.