Although HE has disappointed me in the past (they endorsed Thompson for President even though Thompson was one of a handful of GOP Senators to vote against Clinton's impeachment), I admire Ann Coulter, she works there, so I thought I'd take a look at their report.   They cover ten folks and no Mitt Romney.  Huh????

Well, I bolted off an email to John Gizzi, the Political Editor at HUMAN EVENTS and I share it below:

John,

I can’t say I was surprised you did not include Romney in your McCain Veepstakes Report but it was disappointing nonetheless. Perhaps you might reconsider? Did you know that Townhall.com is doing a poll and Romney is leading by twenty points ahead of Palin and Hutchison (tied @ 2nd)?.

While picking VP should not be a popularity contest, shouldn’t Human Events include one of our most popular Republicans, and the man who came in 2^nd during the 2008 GOP Primary, on your short list??

I know you’ve think Huckabee came in 2^nd but that’s odd considering 1) Romney graciously left the race when it was obvious McCain would win, 2) Huckabee, inexplicably, ungraciously, stayed in the race and 3) Romney would have cleaned Huckabee’s clock in delegates, states and votes had he stayed in.

Think of it this way, the game was over after Super Tuesday. The lights in the gym were dimmed to encourage folks to go home, the best players left to prepare for the next game, most fans were gone and Huckabee's still running up and down the court, in the dark, posing for the few remaining reporters, shooting baskets and claiming the baskets he happened to make still counted toward the final score. Yeah, right.

So, please reconsider your decision to keep Romney out of the VP narrative. You could issue a special “Romney Report” outlining all the reasons Romney should also be considered.

My top ten reasons Romney should be VP:

1.      Most of us who support Romney do so because we think he’s a decent man, a great husband and father and the best Presidential candidate to come along in 24 years.

2.      Unlike all the Veeps in your report, Romney looked in the mirror years ago and felt confident enough to run for President. All of your folks looked in the mirror, lowered their sights and ran for Governor of LA, MN, MS and SC. Romney put himself out there, in JFK’s arena, competed in debates, endured national press scrutiny and won the hearts and minds of millions around the country – they didn’t. Pawlenty, Palin, Jindal – they all should be applauded for advancing conservatism but they did not feel confident to run for President – Romney did.

3.      Romney raised over $100 million across the country from California to Utah to Texas - they haven’t. Romney has had great success managing large companies, the International Olympics and Governor of the 13th largest state - the other candidates have been Governor, that’s it. Romney has experience running a strong, organized national campaign - at most, they have experience running a one-state campaign.  Romney has tens of millions of supporters - they don’t. Romney can help deliver IA, MI, MN, ME, CO, NV, UT & probably NH - they deliver one state each.

4.      Romney’s great success in the private sector makes him the perfect VP to help McCain help America win the global economy. Romney’s a private-sector superstar who successfully counters Obama’s populism with free market solutions to people’s everyday problems. Having both a Harvard MBA & Law degree doesn’t hurt either.

5.      I’ve heard rumors, propagated by Huckabee et al, that Evangelicals may bolt if McCain picks a Mormon. I’m shocked folks are still listening to the Huckster given his really, really bad sense of humor when making jokes about Obama being shot at.  Make no mistake, Huckabee has a problem with Romney’s religion and has soured many evangelicals on Romney but not all of them.  Bottom-line, the base of the GOP are patriots that are comfortable with anyone of any color of any gender who attends any church. Those that aren’t comfortable with the Church their party’s V.P. nominee attends should evolve or find another party.

6.      McCain was having trouble raising money until Romney sponsored a fund raiser for McCain in Salt Lake City and another with President Bush at Romney’s home in Deer Valley, UT.  Romney has raised lots of money and has lots of money – that could be useful when the Soros-backed-MoveOn.org crowd start to cause trouble.

7.      As far as the electoral college, Romney will help McCain exactly where he needs help the most: Michigan (Obama now +4.3) and Colorado (Obama now +1.2) - two of the four states Karl Rove says are key (McCain's already ahead in the other two - VA & OH).  Romney beat McCain in the GOP primary 59% to 19% in CO and 39% to 30% in MI, where Romney’s father was governor.

8.      In FL, 600,000 voted for Romney - those votes could be crucial in a general election.  Bush won FL by less than 1000 votes in 2000.

9.      McCain lost big time to Romney in 5 of 10 states with less than 5% margin of victory for Bush in 2004: IA, NV, MI, MN & CO.

10. Net, net - Romney on the ticket may add 47 to 61 electors.  Bush beat Kerry by only 34 electors.

So, John – does that sway you at all? Might the great national conservative weekly have room in the tent for a leader that could do so much for the GOP ticket?

Take care…Matt

I don't have much hope Mr. Gizzi will add Mitt to their short list but I believe you have to express yourself, you have to put your view out there, regardless of whether you have a guarantee it changes anything.  Hey, you never know.

Last Thursday night, I hosted a “McCain Nation” event - a house party, of sorts, for conservatives.  Living in the state with more Obama supporters per person than any other (Vermont), I appreciate any occasion to meet and greet people who support Jessica's Law and don't feel warm and fuzzy about impeaching President Bush.

Thank you, Cindy McCain, for your comments about the women of Rwanda.  After all they’ve been through, they certainly deserve all the support we can give them (see Justice 4 Rwanda). 

At their upcoming convention, Democrats will make lots of speeches pointing to the “booming Clinton economy of the 1990s” as proof that Democrats can be trusted with the economy.

The problem is the booming 1990s economy began March 1991, 22 months before Clinton took office. 

Like Obama, Clinton promised “Change” during his 1992 campaign for President.  However, later, after the country saw what kind of change Clinton had in mind, voters overwhelmingly rejected Clinton’s policies by electing, for the 1st time in 40 years, a Republican majority in Congress that kept taxes and spending down and forced Clinton to balance the federal budget.

So the credit for the “booming 1990s economy” really belongs to Bush 41 and the ‘94 Republicans. 

So, my question is this:  Will the McCain Campaign debunk the myth of the “booming Clinton economy” so Obama and the Democrats can’t take credit for it anymore?

Charlie Black agreed with my analysis.  I was thrilled!  Perhaps he was just flattering a supporter, in front of 15,000 other supporters, but it was thrilling to offer a senior McCain advisor, directly, my advice for taking away the economy, as an issue, from the Democrats in the General Election.  (I wonder if Mitt Romney was listening - our choice for McCain’s VP!)

Anyway, Mr. Black went on to say that the ‘94 Republicans quickly entered into a balanced budget agreement, with the then-weakened Clinton, to fulfill their promises in the Contract with America, and that that agreement laid the groundwork for historic budget surpluses in the late 1990s.  He also said that he had recently heard Obama’s surrogates on TV talking about how great the Clinton years were for the economy and the country.   

Clinton didn’t create 22 million jobs - the booming economy that he inherited from Reagan and Bush 41 did.

I hope and pray that I’ve planted a seed that will encourage McCain campaign strategists to come up with an ad, or a major speech, that will debunk the booming-Clinton-economy myth and put the 1990s in proper perspective.  Many feel a President doesn’t have much influence anyway on a $13 trillion dollar economy.  I’m sure Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Cisco and other great American companies feel they had a bigger influence on 1990s economy. 

Nevertheless, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and hundreds of other Democrat leaders, pundits and supporters in the media often boast how “magnificent Clinton was on the economy”, how “Clinton created 22 million new jobs”, that the economy is a glorious part of his legacy and that evil Bush came along and ruined all the good work Clinton had done in the ’90s.

These are all lies that need to be confronted & corrected. 

So, to the extent that any political leader can take credit for increasing the GDP, and the resulting job growth, it is the pro-growth policies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush that kept the 1990-91 recession shallow & short - in effect extending the booming Reagan economy into the 1990s.  Credit the 1994 Congressional Republicans for forcing Clinton to keep taxes and spending low and balancing the federal budget - all things that tend to help an economy.  One must also give some credit to Ross Perot for making federal budget deficits a big focus of the 1992 and 1994 campaigns.  Whatever you think of Ross Perot, he made it “sexy” again to demand fiscal responsibility from our elected officials.   

In any event, the credit does not belong to the Clintons.

Democrats, if they’re to be honest, must use the Carter economy for guidance on what an Obama economy might look like.   Like Carter, Obama will, if elected, have both houses of Congress led by Democrats.  Like Carter, Obama’s energy plan is to make our own oil companies the enemy, to seize their “excess” windfall profits, to implement new taxes on oil & gas (aren’t they expensive enough already?) - everything except what’s needed most:  lifting the ban on offshore (OCS) and ANWR drilling effective immediately.

Contrary to popular belief, a bad economy can be an advantage for Senator McCain - it depends on how he handles it.  Just because the GOP has the White House during an economic downturn, doesn't necessarily mean the country will replace them with Democrats. 

Three things can happen after November - economy gets better, stays the same, or gets worse.  Putting Dems in the White House could make the economy worse - in fact, if history is any guide - that's likely.    Since McCain is a self-described economic light weight - he needs some help.

Here are three steps to help McCain address the economy - the number one issue for most Americans:

1) Announce (early) Mitt Romney will be his Vice-President.  Romney is a private sector superstar that fills a huge gap in McCain's otherwise strong resume. Romney's excellent at promoting free market solutions to effectively counter the populist rhetoric of Obama/Clinton.   He’s also great at explaining why doing nothing (letting markets sort things out) is usually best.  Make no mistake, both Democrats seek to turn this country left and back to the bad old days of socialism and progressivism.  We need a strong defender of capitalism on the ticket - nobody better than Mitt Romney.

2) Working with Romney, McCain should draft a major economy speech that educates voters about the successes of capitalism and how markets work best unfettered. For example, he can highlight how many hundreds of millions of people from India and China have moved from poverty to middle class and how that helps our economy (exports). He could talk about how liberal government policies and unions have crippled Detroit and Michigan hinting if you want America to follow the same course - elect Obama/Clinton. 

3) The knockout blow would be to debunk the myth that America can trust Democrats with the economy because of the great Clinton economy of the 1990s. The fact is the booming economy of the 1990s began with a recovery in March 1991 - 20 months before Clinton took office in January 1993. (See the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis @ bea.gov).   In addition, the Clinton budget surpluses that Hillary's so proud of were a direct result of the fiscal discipline of the historic 1994 Republicans and their Contract with America. 

McCain should help Americans understand that an Obama-Clinton economy would look more like Jimmy Carter’s economy than Bill Clinton's economy. In 1976, like 2008, a Democrat became President (Carter) with a struggling economy and a Democratic Congress. That combination (Dem President & Dem Congress) made a bad situation worse.

Do we want to repeat history and be worse off in four years? 

Now that's some straight talk!