If Romney wants to win Michigan, he should back Bentivolio.

[specsaregood]

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120617/OPINION03/206170311/

excerpts:

For Republicans, winning Michigan means winning Oakland, and by a healthy margin.

"We've been told that we have to really turn out the vote," says County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland's top Republican. "It may all come down to us. If Mitt wins Michigan, Obama can't get there. And if we win Oakland County, we win Michigan."

Historic political wisdom says that without Michigan, a Democratic presidential candidate can't compile enough electoral votes to take the White House. The GOP clearly believes that's still true.

and

And Republican power brokers have ticked off the county's substantial tea party contingent by thumbing their nose at the only GOP candidate left on the ballot in that district, teacher Kerry Bentivolio, in favor of a long-shot and expensive write-in bid by former state Sen. Nancy Cassis.

The money spent on that low-hope effort could be used to get out the vote for Romney.

It may be smarter to back Bentivolio in the heavily Republican 11th District and count on him to rally his fellow tea party members to the polls — and to vote for Romney.

That's what I've been saying since the Rand endorsement. If Romney wants our support/votes he needs to immediately get behind OUR candidates and support them so we show up to vote in the general.

 

[DeMintConservative]

1 - Oakland County is Romney territory. He won the primary in Bentivolio's district by huge margins. As I said, there are lot of up-scale white suburbans who are Romney's strongest constituency. Yes, he needs to run up the margins there, but if he's able to do it, it will be because of his own strength. Not due to endorsing a candidate who's actually a worse fit for the district than him.

2 - Romney has endorsed only a few congressional candidates in the primaries, mostly due to past personal or political ties. Friends, early supporters of him in '08, surrogates, etc. He'll never endorse in this primary and he'd never endorse a candidate as unknown and inexperienced as Bentivolio. I mean, this sort of Some Dude candidates is always prone to say something crazy or insane. What if this guy turns out to be a Birther or something like that (not suggesting he is at all, just giving an example)?

3 - Apparently 90% of the people here won't vote for Romney and most talk like they hate the GOP. Heck, most of the time you call the GOP "they" or "them". And somehow endorsing a congressional candidate in Michigan would change that? Right.

 

[DeMintConservative]

Bentivolio does need to endorse Romney though if he hasn't done it already.

 

[Crotale]

Bentivolio does need to endorse Romney though if he hasn't done it already.

Gee, that's a great idea, losing his support base. Bentivolio isn't on a suicide mission, he's running a race for congress.

 

[EBounding]

Romney should endorse Bentivolio. I'm hoping Romney's endorsement of our liberty-candidates was part of the "deal" from Rand's endorsement.

Bentivolio has basically already endorsed Romney anyway. He said it's his job to support him since Romney's the Republican nominee and that he likes his business background.

I'd love for Kerry to turn the argument around on the party bosses. He should say that if they were serious about getting rid of Obama and electing Mitt Romney, they wouldn't have put their time money and effort to prop up a hand-picked write-in.

 

[FSP-Rebel]

I'd love for Kerry to turn the argument around on the party bosses. He should say that if they were serious about getting rid of Obama and electing Mitt Romney, they wouldn't have put their time money and effort to prop up a hand-picked write-in.

We have, over and over and over ad infinitum. They don't want this clean GOP district in our hands, be it a congressional candidate of our choice or our delegates impacting who the leadership will be. Kerry is in the most winnable race yet not a word from Rand or Ron. Amash and Massie had major outside help which is fine, cause between our legion of volunteers and RPFs we'll pull this off. Ron wants more liberty candidates to step up but he'll need to do more than endorse 2 for reps and a few for senate primaries. And by endorse, I mean he should send out fundraising emails. We could work wonders with part of what Amash or Massie pulled in.

I don't see R-money getting involved here and I'd be surprised if he did. I talked to our state senator and he's remaining neutral which is what I suspect most local politicians would say about this race. This is ours to lose and I'm gonna do whatever campaigning is necessary to make this a success even if I'm not in the district anymore.

 

[angelatc]

We have, over and over and over ad infinitum. They don't want this clean GOP district in our hands, be it a congressional candidate of our choice or our delegates impacting who the leadership will be. Kerry is in the most winnable race yet not a word from Rand or Ron. Amash and Massie had major outside help which is fine, cause between our legion of volunteers and RPFs we'll pull this off. Ron wants more liberty candidates to step up but he'll need to do more than endorse 2 for reps and a few for senate primaries. And by endorse, I mean he should send out fundraising emails. We could work wonders with part of what Amash or Massie pulled in.

I don't see R-money getting involved here and I'd be surprised if he did. I talked to our state senator and he's remaining neutral which is what I suspect most local politicians would say about this race. This is ours to lose and I'm gonna do whatever campaigning is necessary to make this a success even if I'm not in the district anymore.

I believe Justin Amash weighed in in our favor on his Facebook page. He's in his own reelection race though, so I can't really blame him for keeping his donor list close to his vest.

Ron Paul - one of the things that frustrates me the MOST about him is his overt reluctance to help liberty candidates. I can certainly understand not wanting to accidently endorse a birther, or a KKK member, but the trade-off seems to be that he ends up endorsing more Ken Buck and Ted Cruz type candidates than people we might be excited about supporting.

Part of it is fundraising - our chances of getting a Paul endorsement goes up exponentially with Bentivolio's ticker.

(Have Chris Hightower or Thomas Massie weighed in yet? Or Glen Bradley? If not, ask them why. I'm sure they have good reasons - we can learn from them.)

Having said that, if the district was Gerrymandered to the Romney-ites, running on a hard core liberty plarform might not be the best move either.

 

[erowe1]

3 - Apparently 90% of the people here won't vote for Romney and most talk like they hate the GOP.

I'm an active member of my county Republican party.

But still, how could anybody not hate the GOP?

 

[Adrock]

Having said that, if the district was Gerrymandered to the Romney-ites, running on a hard core liberty plarform might not be the best move either.

I was thinking the same thing. I have been to this district and it is Romney central. Some here may not be happy, but Kerry better know how to modulate his signal for the Romney GOP voters and the Independents in the General.

 

[angelatc]

I'm an active member of my county Republican party.

But still, how could anybody not hate the GOP?

The bitter irony in this is that the Romneyites also detest the GOP. But they have the luxury of knowing that the GOP will vote for Milquetoast Mitt simply because he's on the ticket.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

Romney should endorse Bentivolio. I'm hoping Romney's endorsement of our liberty-candidates was part of the "deal" from Rand's endorsement.

There's no evidence that there was ever any "deal" besides that Rand said he would endorse "the republican nominee" before and during is republican senate run.

Romney will be giving up nothing.

Rand has no one he can "deliver," and neither does Bentivolio.

 

[Crotale]

There's a difference betweet hating the GOP and hating the GOP establishment. I like some elements of the GOP, well the Ron Paul element actually, and I dislike other elements (mainly the corruption, bias and war-mongering).

 

[mczerone]

L. Brooks Patterson is impressing me. As far as "establishment" GOPers go, he's always seemed level headed and cordial. He's even made policy statements in the past that left me with a good feeling about his role in Oakland County.

Hopefully he's able to figuratively smack some sense into the rest of the party bigwigs in Oakland County and the State of Michigan so that they see that Bentivolio isn't a threat to their power, but is a necessary adjunct to stabilizing and growing the GOP, especially in Michigan where the typical GOP planks of intolerance and evangalism are in a quickly shrinking minority.

Bentivolio is the only hope the GOP has to keep Michigan close to being a swing state.

 

[mczerone]

There's no evidence that there was ever any "deal" besides that Rand said he would endorse "the republican nominee" before and during is republican senate run.

Romney will be giving up nothing.

Rand has no one he can "deliver," and neither does Bentivolio.

That's not true. Bentivolio can deliver our small-but-growing contingent of liberty voters to the GOP. Like the article said, Romney would be hard pressed to win Michigan without winning the 11th district, and Michigan would be a huge win to reach the electoral college win-point. If Romney neglects the 10 to 15 % of voters in Oakland county that would vote for KB as a liberty candidate, but would vote Obama, Johnson, or a write-in for Paul, he's likely to lose the election.

If Romney is serious about winning (I'm not convinced that he is), these 20 to 30 thousand people in Oakland county may be indispensable. I know that I would give Romney a second look if he came out and helped KB, and actually took some time to understand where these voters are coming from. But Romney's people likely will look at KB as some Podunk farmer who lucked into an unopposed seat with no real movement behind him, so they won't give credence to our ideas. If KB had defeated Thad McCotter in the primary, he'd be looked at with a more sympathetic eye.

So I wouldn't hold out hope that KB's candidacy will wake any GOPers up to the reality that the liberty message is the winning message of the present and future. But if they had any sense about them at all, they should look at the ideas behind KB, Justin Amash, and Thomas Massie to be able to evolve as a party that can compete with the Democrats for the votes of people that aren't going to be dead within a decade. They ignored, laughed at, and ridiculed the ideas when Ron presented them, and they don't seem to be moving toward accepting them anytime soon.

 

[DeMintConservative]

Gee, that's a great idea, losing his support base. Bentivolio isn't on a suicide mission, he's running a race for congress.

Losing his support base? For every vote Ron Paul got in the primary in this district, Romney got 5. And that actually underestimates the difference, because others candidates vote would transfer massively towards Romney and moderate republican-leaning voters are much more likely to vote for Romney than Paul.

Look, deliriums aside, this is still a party. If you're a GOP Congressman, you better support your party nominee for President - otherwise you need to have an excellent excuse or a terrific power base.

It's not because Bentivolio will bring any voters to Romney; it's just that the optics of having a Congressman not endorsing are a completely unnecessary distraction. Especially in Michigan and in that district of all places.

Romney should endorse Bentivolio. I'm hoping Romney's endorsement of our liberty-candidates was part of the "deal" from Rand's endorsement.
.

I'm sure Romney is endorsing every GOP nominee that doesn't say insane or crazy stuff.

There's zero chances he'll endorse Bentivolio in the primary. Again, he didn't endorse 99% of the congressional primary candidates. Why the heck would he randomly endorse Bentivolio? Whining about that is over-playing the victim card.

I'm an active member of my county Republican party.

But still, how could anybody not hate the GOP?

That does sound political schizophrenia or self-hate, no?

Why are you in a party you hate? Doesn't make any sense. It suggests you're some kind of saboteur.

The bitter irony in this is that the Romneyites also detest the GOP. But they have the luxury of knowing that the GOP will vote for Milquetoast Mitt simply because he's on the ticket.

You keep having a strange definition of "the GOP". What exactly is the GOP to you? You never answered the questions I asked you about this in the other thread. If you hate the GOP, why are you involved in GOP politics in first place?


Here's how I see it: in a two-party system, the major parties are necessarily big tents. Which implies that there will be factions with different and even conflictual points of view and interests. "Hating" and "detesting" are too strong to me, but it's natural that some animosity occurs.

Notwithstanding, I think that the line needs to be traced somewhere. If your dislike for the rest of the party is so intense that you can't bring yourself to support people outside of your own faction, then you probably need to be in a 3rd party.

 

[Crotale]

Losing his support base? For every vote Ron Paul got in the primary in this district, Romney got 5. And that actually underestimates the difference, because others candidates vote would transfer massively towards Romney and moderate republican-leaning voters are much more likely to vote for Romney than Paul.

Yes, endorsing Romney would lose his support base. Those campaigning for him, donating and promoting his candidacy would stop doing so if he endorsed Romney.

You can't win an election without funds or activists, no matter how populist your platform is.