GOP Counting On The “ABO” Vote

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

To those of us in the Carolinas, it has become clear that the Republican Party is counting on the “ABO” Vote in November.  The ABO vote is: “Anybody But Obama” meaning, of course, that the GOP expects republicans will vote for anyone they nominate in order to defeat Obama.

Frankly, it’s the only explanation that makes any sense.  Even the candidates, themselves, tell us that any one of the GOP candidates would make a better president than Obama.  (Like that was really difficult to discern!)

I spoke to a politically astute friend recently who told me he is very afraid that Romney will win the nomination and lose the election to Obama. (I share that opinion.)  But, my friend went on to say, I will vote for whoever is on the ticket against Obama.

See, the problem with an Obama vs Romney ballot is – one of them will win!

Maybe it is just yours truly, but I am more than a little tired of the milquetoast candidates the GOP continues to put forward for President. I mean, look at Dole and McCain.  And, frankly, I was not impressed with George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism, which was nothing more that another way to say “moderate” or “RINO” (Republican In Name Only).

I’m past ready for a candidate with fire in his or her belly. In my less than humble opinion, the GOP needs a candidate who will get into the gutter where the democrats seem always to take their campaigns.  We need a candidate who will trade blow for blow with the Democratic Party candidate -- a candidate who will go for the jugular, grasp the throat of the opposition and hang on ‘til the election is won. 

Politics is a dirty game.  If a candidate is not willing to get dirty to win, then how in the world am I to trust that when he is up against the world’s meanest, toughest, “low-downest” scoundrels, he will be able to trade blow for blow – and – do whatever it takes to destroy America’s enemies.

Nice guys are, well, NICE.  I’m tired of nice!  It is past time to get mean and throw our weight around.

Look. We have enemies who are in our face proclaiming loudly, and with vigor, that they intend to destroy us, to kill every American they can -- at the very first opportunity.    Uh-uh.  Nope.  This is not the time for a nice guy in the White House.

Our current President seems to think that his flowery oratory will placate our enemies and we can have a global group hug, sing a few verses of Cum Ba Ya, and it will be all better. I’ve seen this movie -- and it does not end well for the nice guy.

No.  We desperately need a leader tough enough that when he speaks, the world stops what it’s doing to listen.  We’ve had enough of a President who runs off at the mouth like a broken facet.  Nobody’s listening anymore – if they ever were.

We also need a leader who leads from the front.  Leading from the rear doesn’t happen.  Leading from the rear is NOT leading – period.  It should be clear by now that when America does not lead -- the world goes to hell in a hand basket.

I am frustrated, and more than a little angry, that the GOP is holding to their practice of nominating the “next in line.”  I am tired of limp wrists in the White House.  I am tired of my President bowing and scraping to every tin horn tyrant he comes across, asking “permission” of the UN, and sucking up to our sworn enemies.  It is embarrassing and deeply humiliating.

Sadly, when I see Romney – I see Al Gore with a GOP bumper sticker on his butt.  I get the same uneasy feeling I got when Al Gore was running for President.  It’s that feeling that something isn’t right, that something is out of place here. Plainly – it’s the feeing that I am looking at a hypocrite.  I feel that I am being sold a bill of goods and that he is reading from a well-prepared script, which he has memorized down to the last dot and tittle.

I once interrupted a very young salesman at my door when he was about 30 seconds into his canned spiel.  I asked him a question, which he could not answer.  He apologized, and asked my forgiveness as he began his spiel all over again -- from the very beginning -- because that was the way he had memorized it.  Back in the day we called that a “canned pitch.”  THAT is the feeling I get when I listen to Romney in a debate or delivering a speech.  There is no THERE there.

Barring an act of God, Romney will be the GOP nominee.  I have to ask:  If Romney wins the election and defeats Obama, short of being rid of Obama, what will America have gained?  To me, it is comparable to the cancer patient placing his entire faith in a new miracle cure for cancer only to learn, after weeks of treatment, that it does not work, either.

I do not agree that beating Obama will be a walk in the park, as some of my fellow conservatives have postulated.  I continue to have great respect for their opinions – BUT -- I am convinced the “ABO” vote will be absolutely necessary in November to evict America’s would-be King, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama.

J. D. Longstreet