{"id":14862,"date":"2012-05-01T09:57:15","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T14:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=14862"},"modified":"2012-05-01T09:57:15","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T14:57:15","slug":"a-second-obama-term-might-be-better-for-the-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/05\/01\/a-second-obama-term-might-be-better-for-the-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"A second Obama term might be better for the Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shikha Dalmia<\/a> explains why a Mitt Romney presidency is far from the best outcome for the Republican party:<\/p>\n

One<\/strong>: Smart folks are betting that the Supreme Court will outlaw the individual mandate but leave the rest of ObamaCare to Congress. Hence, one conservative argument for a Romney victory is that, combined with a GOP-controlled Congress, it\u2019ll offer the last hope for repealing the law. But repeal is not an end in itself. The question is, can the GOP replace ObamaCare with sensible market-based reforms?<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Two<\/strong>: Commentators like Michael Gerson maintain that precisely because Romney has been a serial flipper previously, he\u2019ll be less likely to flop now on conservative issues. But Romney\u2019s desperation to establish his street cred with the base is not a blessing when it comes to government spending.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Three<\/strong>: Both the left and the right, according to the polls, are troubled by the fact that America is becoming a land of crony capitalism. No doubt that\u2019s why Romney has been mouthing clumsy platitudes about how \u201cyou\u2019ve got to stop the spread of crony capitalism\u201d and striking a brave pose against the auto bailout.<\/p>\n

But, tellingly, the financial bailout was just fine with him. That\u2019s no coincidence. He is, after all, the ultimate Wall Street insider, receiving millions of dollars in subsidies and government handouts for companies he was trying to rescue as CEO of Bain Capital. He might not be running with the intention of helping his corporate pals, but it is inevitable that they\u2019ll have his ear. Their interests and needs are far more comprehensible to him than, say, those of consumers<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Four<\/strong>: If Romney wins this election, odds are he\u2019ll automatically be the Republican nominee in 2016. Regardless of whether he wins then, this will effectively kill all prospects for putting a more serious Republican reformer (such as Wisconsin\u2019s Rep. Paul Ryan) in the White House until 2020 or 2024. It might be far better to swallow hard and accept another Obama term to keep the path clear for a Republican more likely to deal with our fiscal and political dysfunction, rather than elect President Romney and block that possibility for another generation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shikha Dalmia explains why a Mitt Romney presidency is far from the best outcome for the Republican party: One: Smart folks are betting that the Supreme Court will outlaw the individual mandate but leave the rest of ObamaCare to Congress. Hence, one conservative argument for a Romney victory is that, combined with a GOP-controlled Congress, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,10,53,13],"tags":[158,727,188,806,517,752],"class_list":["post-14862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-liberty","category-politics","category-usa","tag-barackobama","tag-cronycapitalism","tag-electionwatch","tag-mittromney","tag-republican","tag-supremecourt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3RI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14863,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14862\/revisions\/14863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}