If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.
— President Calvin Coolidge
Erick Erickson (Diary)
For five years I have consistently maintained that Mitt Romney could not be elected President of the United States. The only thing that changed was Barack Obama’s terrible debate performance and I made the unfortunate mistake of going with the herd toward “he can win now.” A year ago — to be precise, November 8th of last year — I wrote that Mitt Romney would be the nominee, conservatism would die, and Barack Obama would win. Regrettably, I told you so.
As I wrote would happen, Mitt Romney tried to blur lines with Barack Obama. He did not defend social conservatism, but let those attacks go unanswered. He did not articulate strong fiscal conservatism and he never repudiated Romneycare, thereby failing to make any credible attacks on Obamacare.
Conservatives and conservative institutions who embraced him early on are now scrambling to make excuses. They were so invested in a failure they cannot bring themselves to admit Mitt Romney and his campaign were failures. They were, to Republicans, what green energy is to Barack Obama.
Because these conservatives cannot accept that they were wrong, they must conclude that conservatism itself is somehow broken.
The darndest thing is I’m listening to all this handwringing and most of it is coming from a lot of people who’ve never really been conservative or supported conservatism. These people hated our ideas and values when we were winning and now choose this opportunity to sell us out the way they’ve always wanted. The conservative herd is headed off a cliff led by a consultant class that would otherwise now be swimming in pools full of dollar bills like Scrooge McDuck.
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