Steve Harris (VP Global Communications at GM) vs. Romney

Former Governor Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in the New York times on November 21st (click here).

Romney begins the op-ed with this:

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit's automakers (read more).

Steve Harris (a VP of Global Communications at GM) responded to Mitt Romney. He said:

I noticed the Boston dateline on Mitt Romney's article advocating bankruptcy for Detroit's auto industry (this is a vast oversimplification). From his New England home (and I thought anti-new England xenophobia was only alive and well in the republican primaries), Mr. Romney may not realize how much the industry has changed since 1969, when his father, George W. Romney, left Michigan (how dare he!) to become housing and urban development secretary.

Translation: Only people who decide to live in Michigan until they die can have an opinion about what the United States FEDERAL GOVERNMENT does with tax payers money, when it comes to giving our money to Ford, or GM. Mr. Harris said "I noticed the Boston dateline on Mitt Romney's article…", and he complained how "George W. Romney, left Michigan to become housing and urban development secretary". I guess George Romney shouldn't have "left Michigan" to become housing and urban development secretary… Perhpas George Romney should have moved Washington DC to Michigan? Mr. Harris in unable to admit that George Romney helped turn around things while he was at AMC… he just spat at him for leaving Detroit.

Besides, the argument is stupid. Mr. Harris said;

Mr. Romney may not realize how much the industry has changed since 1969 (yes, you guys have done a great job since 1969). Nearly every recommendation Mitt Romney makes for United States automakers has already been undertaken by current management in Detroit (and they have done a great job! Just look at their stock! So when Mr. Harris says that "nearly" every recommendation Romney makes… has been taken… this is political speach, that makes an emotional, not a logical argument. Mr. Harris says that they are already "nearly" doing what Romney tells them to. And so in order to argue with him, you have to get into specifics. Most of us are too lazy for specifics, and so we just trust him.) Automakers have been investing in the future on the order of $12 billion a year in research and development — second only to the semiconductor industry.

Mitt Romney did not say, "All you have to do is invest more in R&D". Mr. Harris did not even read Mitt's Op-ed. Does Mr. Harris judge progress by how much money is spent? We are doing a great job… look at all this money we are spending! Mr. Harris would do well in government… don't look at our results, look at how much money we are spending! Besides why not compair how much GM spends on R&D to Toyota?

Then he says:

In addition, General Motors has cut $9 billion in structural costs since 2005 and last year reached a landmark agreement to transfer the delivery of health care to the United Auto Workers union.

Once again, you just have to ask idiots like this: "so, do you think you have followed Mitt Romney's advice and cut enough money?" Lets do some math. They have cut "$9 billion in structural cost since 2005″. That is 3 billion a year (I hope that is GM and not all 3). Maybe it takes someone who got more than just a degree in communication, like Mr. Harris, to realize that that is not enough money when Ford lost 12.7 billion in 2006. 

It may seem like I am jumping around here, but I am reprinting Steve Harris' op-ed verbatim, and he jumps around making no coherent argument. Mr. Harris goes from saying what a great job they are doing at cutting cost at GM, to making this strange argument:

Finally, it is inappropriate of Mr. Romney to invoke Walter Reuther's name while advocating using bankruptcy to break union contracts. That reference may be overlooked in Boston but surely not in Detroit.

If you don't know what Mr. Harris is talking about, this is what Romney wrote:

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, "Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street."

Mr. Harris did not respond to what Reuther said; that "getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street." Mr. Harris did not respond to any of Romney's arguments. Mr. Harris just said that it was wrong for someone who lived in Boston to have an opinion what the Federal Government did with the tax payer's money, and that it was somehow wrong for Romney to quote something that someone told his dad. Mr. Harris failed to explain WHY it was wrong for Romney to quote something that someone told his dad, and I can't figure it out. I read his wikipedia article, and it doesn't seem like he is someone that is so evil, that we must assume every sentence he ever spoke was inherently wrong, and offensive to the tender sensibilities of people like Mr. Harris.

I did not cut, or leave out any of Mr. Harris's so called response to Romney. I'm not trying to make him look stupid by leaving out some of his arguments. But it is not just his stupidity that makes me mad. Mitt Romney did not take a salary as the CEO of the 2002 winter Olympics. Mitt Romney did not take a salary as Governor of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney gave millions to the 2002 winter Olympics. Mr. Harris acts like he is angry at former Governor Mitt Romney said about GM. I don't know how much Mr. Harris makes, but he will make more money if GM gets money from the federal government. Here is an idiot, and an ass, who has a conflict of interest, makes a xenophobic incoherent argument against anyone who doesn't live in Michigan, and who dares have an opinion about not sending the current luxury private plane-flying executives (like him) federal money.

Mitt Romney didn't base his insight just on the fact that his dad was a former automobile executive.

Mitt Romney was a business consultant that got paid to tell failing companies what to do, when they were in trouble. Mitt Romney used to get paid to give advice like the advice that he gave our country. Mitt Romney gave us insight for free, that he used to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for. 

Here is the rest of Romney's article:

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota's Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, "Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street."

You don't have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don't want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don't fire the best dealers, and don't crush them with new financial or performance demands they can't meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don't ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Huckabee Lies

Hugh Hewitt had an hour long discussion with Mike Huckabee . Mike lied about the campaign (which is not new ):

Huckabee: "If you look at the total amount of money that people spent, look at Rudy Giuliani. I think he spent something like, what, $60 million dollars? He got zero delegates."
Hugh Hewitt: "Governor, through…for the benefit of the audience because I'm going to get dinged on this if I don't point it out, through the time Romney dropped out, did he have more votes than you did"? 
Huckabee: I don't know. I'd have to go back and look at where things were at the time that he dropped out. But I know that by the time it was over, we had come in second with delegates and votes.  

The purpose of the campaign is to get more votes than the other guys. Huckabee is telling us that he does not remember who was ahead when Romney dropped out? Lets see if that is a lie or not. Lets go to a Fox News article from that time:

Romney's backing Thursday could help McCain lock up the nomination faster than initially expected. Romney said he's encouraging his delegates -- which number 280 -- to back the Arizona senator, though they're not bound to do so.
But rival Mike Huckabee, who has 242 delegates, is vowing to stay in the race.
"I may get beat, but I'm not going to quit. It's just not in my nature," he told FOX News after the endorsement.

Every time Huckabee got more delegates, he came closer to Romney's number. People asked him many times why #3 would stay in a race when #2 dropped out. Now he lies, and says that he can't remember who had more delegates when Romney dropped out? How does this former preacher get away with lying so often ?

Op-Ed By Mitt Romney

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit's automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota's Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, "Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street."

You don't have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don't want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don't fire the best dealers, and don't crush them with new financial or performance demands they can't meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don't ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was a candidate for this year's Republican presidential nomination.

Ship of fools

I was listening to a podcast from the economist and came across this article:

Nov 13th 2008

From The Economist print edition

Political parties die from the head down

JOHN STUART MILL once dismissed the British Conservative Party as the stupid party. Today the Conservative Party is run by Oxford-educated high-fliers who have been busy reinventing conservatism for a new era. As Lexington sees it, the title of the "stupid party" now belongs to the Tories' transatlantic cousins, the Republicans.

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party's defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200,000—many of whom will get thumped by his tax increases—by six points. John McCain did best among uneducated voters in Appalachia and the South.

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution (Senator Sam Brownback, former Gov. Mike Huckabee and Representative Tom Tancredo said they did not).

(Here is some information from the New York Times).

May 11, 2007, 10:19 AM

Romney Elaborates on Evolution 

By MICHAEL LUO

DES MOINES, May 11 — Mitt Romney expanded on his belief in evolution in an interview earlier this week, staking out a position that could put him at odds with some conservative Christians, a key voting bloc he is courting.

Mr. Romney, a devout Mormon, surprised some observers when he was not among those Republican candidates who raised their hands last week when asked at the Republican presidential debate if they did not believe in evolution. (Senator Sam Brownback, former Gov. Mike Huckabee and Representative Tom Tancredo said they did not.)

"I believe that God designed the universe and created the universe," Mr. Romney said in an interview this week. "And I believe evolution is most likely the process he used to create the human body."

He was asked: Is that intelligent design?

"I'm not exactly sure what is meant by intelligent design," he said. "But I believe God is intelligent and I believe he designed the creation. And I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human body."

While governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney opposed the teaching of intelligent design in science classes.

"In my opinion, the science class is where to teach evolution, or if there are other scientific thoughts that need to be discussed," he said. "If we're going to talk about more philosophical matters, like why it was created, and was there an intelligent designer behind it, that's for the religion class or philosophy class or social studies
class."

Intelligent design is typically defined as the claim that examination of nature points to the work of an intelligent designer, as opposed to the utterly random, naturalistic processes that are taught as part of evolutionary theory. Critics have called intelligent design a thinly disguised version of creationism, which takes a literal approach to the creation account in Genesis, that the earth was created in six days and is less than 10,000 years old.

Mr. Romney said he was asked about his belief in evolution when he was interviewed by faculty members for highest honors designations before his graduation from Brigham Young University.

He told his interviewers that he did not believe there was a "conflict between true science and true religion," he said.

"True science and true religion are on exactly the same page," he said. "they may come from different angles, but they reach the same conclusion. I've never found a conflict between the science of evolution and the belief that God created the universe. He uses scientific tools to do his work."

The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints has no definitive position on evolution, and church leaders have disagreed on the issue over the years.

Mr. Romney said his answer was satisfactory to faculty members. "They teach evolution at B.Y.U.," he said.

(Back to the economist)

The Republican Party's divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his "heart" rather than his "head". He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael "heck-of-a-job" Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes' favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains... (I always thought this was a missed rallying cry for Romney... Bush brought us "compassionate conservatism, and I wanted Romney to bring us competent conservatisms"...

Republicanism's anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party's electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party's loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves "professionals". McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring "tacit" intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party's current "redneck strategy" will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.

Why is this happening? One reason is that conservative brawn has lost patience with brains of all kinds, conservative or liberal. Many conservatives—particularly lower-income ones—are consumed with elemental fury...

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today's pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Romney on Homophobia:

• "This is a subject about which people have tender emotions in part because it touches individual lives. It also has been misused by some as a means to promote intoleranceand prejudice. This is a time when we must fight hate and bigotry, when we must root out prejudice, when we must learn to accept people who are different from one another. Like me, the great majority of Americans wish both to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to oppose bias and intolerance directed towards gays and lesbians."
• Governor Mitt Romney, 06-22-2004 Press Release

• "Preserving the definition of marriage should not infringe on the right of individuals to live in the manner of their choosing. One person may choose to live as a single, even to have and raise her own child. Others may choose to live in same sex partnerships or civil arrangements. There is an unshakeable majority of opinion in this country that we should cherish and protect individual rights with tolerance and understanding. "
• Governor Mitt Romney, 06-22-2004 Press Release

Romney on Xenophobia:

"Immigration has been an important part of our nation's success. The current system, however, puts up a concrete wall to the best and brightest, yet those without skill or education are able to walk across the border. We must reform the current immigration laws so we can secure our borders, implement a mandatory biometrically enabled, tamper proof documentation and employment verification system, and increase legal immigration into America."

• "We need to make America more attractive for legal immigrants -- for citizens -- and less attractive for illegal immigrants. I want to see more immigration in our country, but more legal immigration and less illegal immigration."
• Governor Romney, AP, June 23, 2006

Romney on Stem Cells:

• "Human cloning for any purpose — whether for research or reproduction — is ethically wrong. Once cloning occurs, a human life is set in motion."
• Mitt Romney Source: Letter to the Massachusetts Legislature (May 2005)

Why I vetoed contraception bill
By Mitt Romney | July 26, 2005
YESTERDAY I vetoed a bill that the Legislature forwarded to my desk. Though described by its sponsors as a measure relating to contraception, there is more to it than that. The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception.
Signing such a measure into law would violate the promise I made to the citizens of Massachusetts when I ran for governor. I pledged that I would not change our abortion laws either to restrict abortion or to facilitate it. What's more, this particular bill does not require parental consent even for young teenagers. It disregards not only the seriousness ofabortion but the importance of parental involvement and so would weaken a protection I am committed to uphold.
I have spoken with medical professionals to determine whether the drug contemplated under the bill would simply prevent conception or whether it would also terminate a living embryo after conception. Once it became clear that the latter was the case, my decision was straightforward. I will honor the commitment I made during my campaign: While I do not favor abortion, I will not change the state's abortion laws.
I understand that my views on laws governing abortion set me in the minority in our Commonwealth. I am prolife. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother. I wish the people of America agreed, and that the laws of our nation could reflect that view. But while the nation remains so divided over abortion, I believe that the states, through the democratic process, should determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.
Because Massachusetts is decidedly prochoice, I have respected the state's democratically held view. I have not attempted to impose my own views on the prochoice majority.
For all the conflicting views on this issue, it speaks well of our country that we recognize abortion as a problem. The law may call it a right, but no one ever called it a good, and, in the quiet of conscience people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America.
You can't be a prolife governor in a prochoice state without understanding that there are heartfelt and thoughtful arguments on both sides of the question. Many women considering abortions face terrible pressures, hurts, and fears; we should come to their aid with all the resourcefulness and empathy we can offer. At the same time, the starting point should be the innocence and vulnerability of the child waiting to be born.
In some respects, these convictions have evolved and deepened during my time as governor. In considering the issue of embryo cloning and embryo farming, I saw where the harsh logic of abortion can lead -- to the view of innocent new life as nothing more than research material or a commodity to be exploited.
I have also observed the bitterness and fierce anger that still linger 32 years after Roe v. Wade. The majority in the US Supreme Court's Casey opinion assured us this would pass away as Americans learned to live with abortion on demand. But this has proved a false hope.
There is much in the abortion controversy that America's founders would not recognize. Above all, those who wrote our Constitution would wonder why the federal courts had peremptorily removed the matter from the authority of the elected branches of government. The federal system left to us by the Constitution allows people of different states to make their own choices on matters of controversy, thus avoiding the bitter battles engendered by ''one size fits all" judicial pronouncements. A federalist approach would allow such disputes to be settled by the citizens and elected representatives of each state, and appropriately defer to democratic governance.
Except on matters of the starkest clarity like the issue of banning partial-birth abortions, there is not now a decisive national consensus on abortion. Some parts of the country have prolife majorities, others have prochoice majorities. People of good faith on both sides of the issue should be able to make and advance their case in democratic forums -- with civility, mutual respect, and confidence that democratic majorities will prevail. We will never have peace on the abortion issue, much less a consensus of conscience, until democracy is allowed to work its way.
Mitt Romney is governor of Massachusetts.

...

Time for reflection

How likely is it that the Republican Party will come to its senses? There are glimmers of hope (MITT ROMNEY!) Business conservatives worry that the party has lost the business vote (MITT ROMNEY 2012!). Moderates complain that the Republicans are becoming the party of "white-trash pride" (MITT ROMNEY 2012). Anonymous McCain aides complain that Mrs Palin was a campaign-destroying "whack job" (MITT ROMNEY 2012!). One of the most encouraging signs is the support for giving the chairmanship of the Republican Party to John Sununu (?), a sensible (?) and clever (?) man who has the added advantage of coming from the north-east (he lost his New Hampshire Senate seat on November 4th). (Just how is John Sununu "Clever"?)

But the odds in favour of an imminent renaissance look long. Many conservatives continue to think they lost because they were not conservative or populist enough—Mr McCain, after all, was an amnesty-loving green who refused to make an issue out of Mr Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright. Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled "Ideas have Consequences"; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.

Mitt Romney's Education:

Romney graduated from the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills (now Cranbrook Kingswood School). 

Received his B.A. with Highest Honors and as valedictorian from Brigham Young University in 1971. 

In 1975, Romney was awarded an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and was named a Baker scholar. 

In 1975 he also received his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. Romney graduated at the top of 3 classes. Valedictorian in English, Cum Laude with an MBA from Harvard Law School, and Baker Scholard (at the top of his class) from Harvard business school. Romney is by far the smartest person to run for the white house in a long time (including Obama). Romney would have helped the republican parties image...