The Elephant in the Room

This is a copy of Ann Coulter's (you either love her or hate her) column on HumanEvents.com, who claims to be leading the conservative movement since 1994. I don't know if they lead it or not, I suspect the leaders are probably Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. But that is neither here or nor there. Ann, in her usual painfully blunt style, wrote this fantastic column I have to share!

The Elephant in the Room
Ann Coulter

16 Jan 2008 ∙ Unluckily for McCain, snowstorms in Michigan suppressed the turnout among Democratic "Independents" who planned to screw up the Republican primary by voting for our worst candidate. Democrats are notoriously unreliable voters in bad weather. Instead of putting on galoshes and going to the polls, they sit on their porches waiting for FEMA to rescue them.

In contrast to Michigan's foul weather, New Hampshire was balmy on primary day, allowing McCain's base -- Democrats -- to come out and vote for him.

Assuming any actual Republicans are voting for McCain -- or for liberals' new favorite candidate for us, Mike Huckabee -- this column is for you.

I've been casually taking swipes at Mitt Romney for the past year based on the assumption that, in the end, Republicans would choose him as our nominee. My thinking was that Romney would be our nominee because he is manifestly the best candidate.

I had no idea that Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire planned to do absolutely zero research on the candidates and vote on the basis of random impulses.

Dear Republicans: Please do one-tenth as much research before casting a vote in a presidential election as you do before buying a new car.

One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

This point was already extensively covered in Chapter 1 of "How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)": Never take advice from your political enemies.

Turn on any cable news show right now, and you will see Democratic pundits attacking Romney, calling him a "flip-flopper," and heaping praise on McCain and Huckleberry -- almost as if they were reading some sort of "talking points."

Doesn't that raise the tiniest suspicions in any of you? Are you too busy boning up on Consumer Reports' reviews of microwave ovens to spend one day thinking about who should be the next leader of the free world? Are you familiar with our "no exchange/no return" policy on presidential candidates? Voting for McCain because he was a POW a quarter-century ago or Huckabee because he was a Baptist preacher is like buying a new car because you like the color.

The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich says Romney "is trying to sell himself as a leader," but he "is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue."

But Rich is in a swoon over Huckabee. I haven't seen Rich this excited since they announced "Hairspray" was coming to Broadway.

Rich has continued to hyperventilate over "populist" charmer Huckabee even after it came to light that Huckabee had called homosexuality an "abomination." Normally, any aspersions on sodomy or any favorable mentions of Christianity would lead to at least a dozen hysterical columns by Frank Rich.

Rich treated Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" as if it were a Leni Riefenstahl Nazi propaganda film. (On a whim, I checked to see if Rich had actually compared Gibson to Riefenstahl in one of his many "Passion" reviews and yes, of course he had.)

Curiously, however, Huckabee's Christianity doesn't bother Rich. In column after column, Rich hails Huckabee as the only legitimate leader of the Republican Party. This is like a girl in high school who hates you telling you your hair looks great.

Liberals claim to be enraged at Romney for being a "flip-flopper." I've looked and looked, and the only issue I can find that Romney has "flipped" on is abortion. When running for office in Massachusetts -- or, for short, "the Soviet Union" -- Romney said that Massachusetts was a pro-choice state and that he would not seek to change laws on abortion.

Romney's first race was against Sen. Teddy Kennedy -- whom he came closer to beating than any Republican ever had. If Romney needed to quote "The Communist Manifesto" to take out that corpulent drunk, all men of good will would owe him a debt of gratitude.

Even when Romney was claiming to support Roe v. Wade, he won the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life -- a group I trust more than the editorial board of The New York Times. Romney's Democratic opponents always won the endorsements of the very same pro-choice groups now attacking him as a "flip-flopper."

After his term as governor, NARAL Pro-Choice America assailed Romney, saying: "(A)s governor he initially expressed pro-choice beliefs but had a generally anti-choice record. His position on choice has changed. His position is now anti-choice."

Pro-abortion groups like the Republican Majority for Choice -- the evil doppelganger to my own group, Democratic Majority for Life -- are now running videos attacking Romney for "flip-flopping" on abortion.

Of all the Republican candidates for president, Romney and Rudy Giuliani are the only ones who had to be elected in pro-choice districts. Romney governed as a pro-lifer and has been viciously attacked by pro-abortion groups.

By contrast, Giuliani cleverly avoids the heinous "flip-flopper" label by continuing to embrace baby-killing. (Rudy flip-flops only on trivial matters like illegal immigration and his own marital vows.)

And, of course, Romney is a Mormon. Even a loser Mormon like Sen. Harry Reid claims to be pro-life. So having a candidate with a wacky religion isn't all bad.

At worst, Romney will turn out to be a moderate Republican -- a high-IQ, articulate, moral, wildly successful, moderate Republican. Of the top five Republican candidates for president, Romney is the only one who hasn't dumped his first wife (as well as the second, in the case of Giuliani) -- except Huckabee. And unlike Huckabee, Romney doesn't have a son who hanged a dog at summer camp. So there won't be any intern issues and there won't be any Billy Carter issues.

It's also possible that Romney will turn out to be a conservative Republican -- at least more conservative than he was as governor of Massachusetts. Whatever problems Romney's Mormonism gives voters, remember: Bill Clinton came in third in heavily Mormon Utah in 1992.

---

It has been very interesting to see how the liberal press, which is everything but FoxNews, a few select papers and radio shows, has portrayed Mitt Romney. Ann is right, they have vilified Romney and raised liberal McCain and liberal, bigoted Huckabee up. And yes, with the open primaries allowing any and all to vote rather than just the Republicans and just the Democrats, it has given voters a fall sense of who is leading in the presidential races.

So I thought I'd share how the election process works, from the grass roots level up, so that everyone may clearly understand what is playing outbefore our very eyes right now.

It all begins in your own neighborhood. The entire United States is carved up into Republican and Democrat precincts. (The other parties have theirs as well, but there are too many to list including, and I kid you not, the likes of: American Fascist Party, Communist Party USA, Marijuana Reform Party, Socialist Party USA, etc.) Your neighborhood is your precinct. The party chairs of each state have the map and list of all its registered voters in each precinct.

Every two years a caucus is held. A caucus is a political meeting of your neighbors at a pre-determined place conducted under Roberts Rules protocol. At this meeting Precinct Chairs, Vice Chairs, Treasurers, Secretaries as well as County and State delegates are elected. First individuals are nominated for the office, they stand and give a speech of two to three minutes (decided by the group at large) and then sit down. A vote is then cast, counted and announced. The caucus meeting is conducted by the Precinct Chair, or in his or her absence, the Vice Chair. At the conclusion of the meeting, you have new Precinct leadership, or the same ones, depending on your votes. I've been the Precinct Chair in our precinct, off and on, for the last twelve years.

Currently, I am serving as the Precinct Chair for the Republican party in my precinct (Orem 28.) I love politics at the grassroots level.

First there is a County Convention held and your Precinct Chair, Vice Chair and county delegates attend this convention. This is where the party platform is discussed and voted upon. This is where your county political leadership is chosen. For instance, a County Commissioner office is open. All the potential candidates do what you see the presidential candidates doing now, only at the local level. At convention is where the individual is chosen to represent your party in the general election, be it county, state or federal. We whittle the field from 10 to 1. Sometimes a primary is held because a clear winner (2/3s of the vote) cannot be determined at convention. This is where you cast your vote and the candidate is chosen by general election. Either way, come general election time, you will have chosen your candidate.

Then there is a State Convention held and your Precinct Chair and State Delegates attend and go through the same process and elect candidates for state and federal offices such as Governor, Senator and Congressman.

In other words, the people you choose to represent you in your caucuses are the people who will ultimately choose the candidates. Mitt Romney has more Republican delegates, and that is all that counts, not the popular vote, than any other GOP (Grand ol' Party a.k.a. Republican) candidate. He leads the presidential race for the GOP at this time. Hillary Clinton has more Democratic delegates than and other Democratic candidate, even Barack Obama. She leads the Dems, the most of liberal of which, including her, are socialists.

Open primaries allow for a muddying of the established political process which allows every single citizen the right to vote for whomever will represent them. Democrats choose their candidate. Republicans choose their candidate. Libertarians choose their candidate and so on. Once the candidates are chosen then we head into the general election, which, this year, is November 4, 2008. It is always held the first Tuesday of November in the election year.

When those of other parties are allowed to vote in the party primaries they can push through a candidate they believe their candidate can beat. Therefore, an unfair representation of the people who are following the process to choose the candidate best able to represent them is skewed and that leans the political process heavily in the other party's favor. This is what Ann Coulter is talking about in her column above.

Presidential candidates are chosen by the delegates of the United States of America. You choose the delegates. There are times when a presidential candidate has won the delegates (electoral college) and not the popular election, there are times when it is both, such as George W. Bush in the last election. He won, not only the delegate count which elected him president, he also won the popular vote.

Coming in first in Wyoming and Michigan and a strong second in Iowa and New Hampshire, garnered Mitt Romney enough delegate votes to take the lead in the Republican race for President of the United States of America.

This is Mitt Romney on the night of his win in Michigan.



It was a good night.

Hopefully this helps you to understand the voting process in America a little better. It's very interesting how the Founding Fathers drew upon the wisdom of the ages, as well as the inspirations of heaven, in order to write our:

Constitution

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Declaration of Independence

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

and the Bill of Rights

"Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution."

and in so doing, they provided the framework for where we are now. I love the political process, all the inner workings and wisdom which was displayed in the establishing of this process.

I invite each of you to shed the cloak of apathy, arm yourselves with the knowledge of each candidate and exercise your God-given right of voting for the man, or woman, you feel will best lead us into the next four years. I don't believe Mitt Romney supporters should concede South Carolina to McCain and Huckabee, so if you have influence in South Carolina, use it, please. The Nevada primaries are also Saturday. So ramp up the blogs, emails and phone calls, now is the time to make your voice heard at the polls.

Did you know that most people don't decide who they are going to vote for until they are inside the voting booth? I'm shocked. Okay, if you're a Democrat, there isn't much difference between Hillary and Barack. But on the Republican side there are marked differences. You have a conservative Mitt Romney, a liberal Rudy Giuliani (pro-choice/anti-2nd amendment), a liberal John McCain, a liberal, bigoted Mike Huckabee, and a conservative Fred Thompson (whose stamina I do not believe will last the election process.) I ask that you make your choice now. Check their voting records, check their websites, check reputable news articles, blogs and websites and make your choice BEFORE you head into the voting booth. An informed voter is the best kind of voter.

To find out when your primary is being held, click here.