I’m tired of being told who to vote for.
Year after year, Republican Party officials tell their registrants who they think our candidate should be. Then that candidate – because they’re rich, or have kissed their boots for years – loses. See John McCain, Bob Dole, and virtually every state Republican to emerge on the horizon in the past ten years. Do Connecticut Republicans have any Congressional or state- wide office holders today? No. Yet their Pravda –style message presses on. Romney is the ‘obvious nominee’… who’s still short 400 votes of the 1144 goal. According to today’s RNC count, he only has 51% of the delegates he needs for the nomination.
Despite his “obvious nominee” status, no crowds showed up on the sidewalk outside Romney’s rally for women’s businesses in Hartford last week. Passersby on their lunch break instead asked “what’s going on with all the TV trucks?” The message from the rally almost unraveled when reporters asked an obvious question: “What is Romney’s stance on the gender equal-pay law?” The Romney campaign answered with…. Silence. They had to look it up. Then come up with a position. Then they were back in the campaign again.
Romney doesn’t have an organization on the ground in Connecticut. Yet, as Obama will surely have volunteers and union officials rounding up new voters and ensuring they vote as they did in 2008, only the other three campaigns are working one-on- one with voters in Connecticut and other states. In Iowa, Romney abandoned his headquarters only to have it occupied two weeks later by Obama’s campaign!
Obama will paint Romney as an elite ‘one percenter’ who enabled Obamacare. Yet, Independent voters who don’t follow politics on a regular basis need a strong contrast in November. To do that, we need a different nominee than the one chosen for us.
A vote for Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul will ensure a conservative nominee is elected. Each of these candidates has spent far less in campaign advertising, while representing more than 60% of the votes cast in the primaries thus far. These campaigns are unified in their end goal of Barack Obama and each of these candidates of strengths in a future administration: Ron Paul as head of the Federal Reserve perhaps, and Newt Gingrich as a cabinet official or Ambassador to the UN. If Romney fails to garner the necessary 1144 votes, Santorum could still become the party’s nominee – a prospect which could be helpful in swing states where he was defeating Obama in head to head polls by wider margins than Romney. (3/17/12 Rasmussen poll)
On Tuesday, I urge Connecticut Republicans to vote their conscience. The only thing you have to lose is another likely loser given to us by the party establishment.
Your vote in Connecticut will make a difference, particularly when only 20% is needed for a candidate to receive delegates. I personally will vote for Santorum – a man trusted by many even if they respectfully disagree. At least we know where he stands.
The Wolcott Whisper 