Joe Carter (of the Huckabee campaign) says:
Has National Review jumped the shark?I don’t mean to be glib or facetious in raising the question for I love the magazine dearly. NR was a formative influence on my political philosophy and continues to shape my thinking. It introduced me to conservative ideas, policies, statesmen, and writers. Indeed, three of my favorite conservatives—Ramesh Ponnuru, Ross Douthat, and Byron York—still write for the august publication.
But over the past few years (at least that is the time that I began noticing) there has been a shift to what I call "Manhattan Conservatism." Because almost all of the NR staff lives and works in New York City, their concerns and values tend to reflect a NYC/DC-centric urban cosmopolitism. They've adopted a watered-down form of big-tent fusionism in which embracing any non-liberal ideas are enough to earn you the label of "conservative" (a Manhattan Conservative can have the same views on abortion and gay marriage as the liberal intelligentsia so long as they embrace supply-side
economics or torturing terrorists). Mention people in Georgia and they are as likely to think of the country in Asia as they are the Peach State. (Indeed, on The Corner last week, several people mocked the Southern state.)
The Manhattan Conservatives' infatuation with Rudy Giuliani is a prime example of how far they are from the mainstream of conservative thought. But when it came time to endorse a Presidential candidate they realized (at least all but Richard Brookhiser) that endorsing a mayor who once "ran as a liberal" would be a bit much.
Instead they chose to endorse the second most moderate candidate in the race: Mitt Romney.
Now to be fair, Romney is not an unacceptable candidate if the criteria is simply to endorse a Republican. But to pass over true conservatives for a moderate is a slap in the face to the magazine's dedicated readers.
Obviously because I work for Mike Huckabee I have my own bias. But supporters of Thompson, McCain, Tancredo, and Hunter all have reasons to be disappointed. Each of these men have conservative bona fides that are superior to Romney.
Here is the case against the endorsement:
Social conservatism
Romney's flip-flops on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage are already so widely acknowledged that that there is no need to catalog them again. I believe that we should welcome converts, though, which is why I praise him for flopping on the right side of the issues. Still, it seems a bit early to believe as NR says that "we’re glad he is now on our side — and we trust him to stay there." I'm sure Planned Parenthood and the Log Cabin Republicans trusted him to stay where he was too.
Foreign-policy experience
Even NR can't overcome the fact that Romney has no more foreign policy experiences than the current front-runners, Huckabee and Giuliani. Instead they claim that "what matters most is which candidate has the skills to execute that vision." What skills would those be? They don't say.
Fiscal conservatism
Romney's fiscal conservatism is wildly overstated and based more on his resume and MBA than on his record. On free trade he takes the same position as Huckabee—a position that NR previously criticized. Unlike McCain, he supports farm subsidies. And he raised taxes—or as he prefers to call them "fees"—as much as any candidate in the race.
However, the most damning indictment against his fiscal conservatism is often touted as his greatest success: The 2002 Winter Olympics.
Romney is justly praised for turning around a failing venture. But what is often overlooked is how much of the taxpayer's money it took to accomplish the feat. As Insight on the News noted in 2002:
The Salt Lake City Games also will siphon about $400 million from the U.S. Treasury -- a significant increase over the $83 million in taxpayer dollars spent at Lake Placid and even more than the $193 million spent on the Atlanta Olympics. Of the federal government's share, $244 million is going toward a massive $300 million-plus security effort that nearly triples what was spent in Atlanta….
Already the subject of a congressional report, the federal Olympics tab was scrutinized in a recent edition of Sports Illustrated, which claimed that the cost to U.S. taxpayers actually is closer to $1.5 billion. In tallying the total cost, the article included $1.1 billion in highway and transportation funds used to speed construction of a light-rail system and reconstruct a major Salt Lake City freeway prior to the Olympics.
The Club for Growth (which not coincidentally was co-founded by NR's President Thomas "Dusty" Rhodes) crucified Huckabee for raising the gas tax 3-cents a gallon to pay for highways. Yet Romney fronts one of the biggest pork projects in history and he's praised for his fiscal prowess. (And in case it is not clear, I would prefer that not one penny from the public coffers be used for The Olympics.)
The Outsider?
The NR endorsement also makes the peculiar claim that Romney can offer an "outsider’s critique of Washington." Romney's father was a Governor of Michigan and Presidential candidate in 1968. His mother was a U.S. Senate candidate in 1970. That isn't exactly the pedigree of an "outsider."
The Campaign
The most laughable line of the entire editorial, however, is that Romney has run a "tightly organized, disciplined campaign." Anyone who has dealt with the Romney campaign knows the truth. Romney has surrounded himself with dirt-peddling, rumor-whispering, truth-twisting, Machiavelli-wannabes. They are the absolute dirtiest group of campaigners on the GOP side of the race.
This is disconcerting because staffers on a Presidential campaign tend to become staffers in a Presidential administration. How they act when they have the pseudo-power of campaign is indicative of how they will act when they have their hands on real power. A staff that will leak dishonest opposition research to the media to smear a rival candidate will have no qualms about leaking classified information to smear a rival bureaucrat or legislator.
While I don’t want to denigrate the entire staff, Romney's camp is comprised of a number of people that can best be described as "men of low character." If he were to be elected his administration would be a failure of Nixonian proportions. (Prediction: His campaign staff will drag him down long before he reaches that stage.)
*** Romney may be a stalwart Republican but he is only a fair-weather conservative. That is why the endorsement of Mitt Romney by a publication like National Review is simply inexplicable. For them to skip over worthier candidates is a sign that they are out of touch with American conservatism. Perhaps the editors should take a trip across the George Washington Bridge and interact with some voters who don’t live in Manhattan. Had they made the trip sooner they might have avoided making such an unforced error in judgment.