Mittigan ( The Michigan View 09.25.11)

Posted by hpayne on September 26, 2011

MACKINAC ISLAND – “Perry’s got his hard luck story, and Romney’s got his wife’s,” snarked a wag at my table as keynote speaker and silver-spoon born Mitt Romney tried to match Rick Perry’s inspiring, up-from-the-bootstraps tale with the “coal-miner’s granddaughter” story of his wife, Ann.

But the only roots that really mattered at the Republican Leadership Conference this weekend were Mitt’s Michigan beginnings.

Romney was on home turf, and he was clearly at ease talking about a state that drives “more Chevys, Fords, and Dodges than Kias, Nissans, and Toyotas.” At a luncheon speech earlier in the day Texas Gov. Perry joked that “there may be smoother candidates and slicker debaters – but I know what I believe in.” But slick has its place, and the Mackinac crowd ate up a skilled Romney speech that hit all the right notes on American pride and symbolism.

His speech had a generous helping of red meat lines like “the NLRB is stacked with union stooges.” And it was peppered with stories and Reaganisms like “it’s not that liberals are ignorant, it’s that what they know is wrong.” By speech’s end, Michigan’s native son had the crowd eating from his hand.

“What works best for the world is a strong America,” said Romney to a thunderous, standing ovation, “and we have a president who doesn’t believe that.”

But beneath the slickness were troubling contradictions that will not be so easily overlooked outside Romney’s backyard.

Michigan pol after Michigan warm-up pol spoke this weekend of an election that “is a defining moment for America” because Obama’s spending has put the nation on course for a European-like debt crisis. Yet, as Massachusetts governor, Romney drafted Romneycare, the blueprint for Obamacare – a European-like, universal care, budget-busting health program that is the greatest threat to America’s long-term fiscal health.

Romney featured “the rule of law” as one of his four pillars of a renewed America. Yet, Romneycare – like Obamacare – mandates an unconstitutional requirement that citizens buy health insurance.

Romney boasted of his impressive business background of managing the Summer Olympics and creating Bain Capital. Yet, as governor his health reform has driven business health care premiums to the highest in the nations in part due to onerous regulations on the insurance business.

All politics is local, and for all the talk of the national historical moment, Michigan Republicans this weekend liked Romney for the very parochial reason that he would be good for Michigan.

“Romney fits Michigan,” former GOP state chairman Saul Anuzis told The Detroit News. “He understands the auto industry. His family is from here. His father and mother have a great reputation and a history.”

He would never forget his roots.

But the roots that Romneycare put down are also now the giant trunks of Obamacare. Romney has vowed to chop it down if he becomes president – if Mr. Perry doesn’t hang him from it first. The question remains: If Romney lacked the vision to see Romneycare’s predictable horrors, what other crises will he be blind to?


 

 

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