I am Not A Bigot - My Misgivings With Mitt Romney

I've sat here for the past week and read article after article indicating Huckabee supporters are bigots because we opposed Mitt Romney because of his Mormon religion. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! Even the notion of this is downright bologna and absolutely ridiculous! I am downright sick of this, and I would like to set the record straight on this topic. I realize that this post is going to run long, but please hear me out and afterwards you can comment.

First of all, I'd like to touch on the fact that there are definitely things to like about Governor Mitt Romney. He is, and has been, a very successful businessman. In addition, the awesome job Romney did to make the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City a complete success against very long odds, was downright incredible. Also admirable is the way Romney fought the Democratic State Assembly on tax increases in Massachusetts by going straight to the people. Indeed, Mitt Romney has done great things that must be admired.

The religion of someone who wants to run for President is completely irrelevant. I could care less that Mitt Romney is a Mormon. In fact, I did not know that Mitt was a Mormon until after I had made my choice to support Mike Huckabee. I will not tell a lie - there are many misgivings I have with Governor Romney, but none of them have anything to do with his Mormonism.

The following is a list of the misgivings I have with Mitt Romney, and why I did not believe he would make a better President than Mike Huckabee:

1. Trust: There was no reason to believe I could trust Mitt Romney. While Romney has been a very successful businessman, not many of them can be trusted. It’s a simple fact, that in the business world when things are not going well, businessmen tend to change the image to turn the tide. During his Presidential campaign, Mitt Romney tried to do this many times. Not once did Mike Huckabee try to change his image. In addition, in his political history, Mitt Romney has flip-flopped so many times on the issues that he looks like the Republican version of John Kerry. To me personally, the social issues, I am referring to abortion, gay marriage, etc, are not important to me. However, what is important is how consistent you are on them. As for many other Huckabee supporters, not only are the inconsistencies important, but the issues he speaks about. That is a big sticking point. Therefore, we have no reason to believe Mitt Romney will do what he says he would do.

2. I resent the fact that Mitt Romney was trying to buy the election. I have no problem with the fact he had a lot of money to throw around, that's not the point. While Romney was able to write loan checks to fund his campaign, other candidates were limited by the (unconstitutional in my opinion) McCain-Feingold limitations. Again, I have no problem with a person being able to raise and spend as much money as he/she wants. It is the fact that Romney had millions at his own disposal, and there was no way anyone else could catch up because the maximum any single supporter could donate to their candidate was $2,300. In addition, since Romney had no lack of cash, I believe that he used said cash to buy off people and their support, especially those in the Conservative media and radio and TV pundits who were very positive towards Romney and extremely negative towards Mike Huckabee.

3. Mitt Romney just does not connect with me. Again, this has nothing to do with his Mormon faith. Compared to Mike Huckabee, Romney is as authentic as an aluminum Christmas tree. Mitt Romney comes off as slick, polished, and snobbish. Romney does not seem to me to be a man who understands the plight of the common man, and he certainly doesn't seem like someone who would care. On the other hand, Governor Huckabee is down to earth, honest, authentic, and trustworthy. He speaks my language, and I am not just talking about faith-speak. Mitt Romney was born into a successful, political family and seemingly with a silver spoon in his mouth. Mike Huckabee was born into poverty comparatively. Mitt Romney speaks for Wall Street; Mike Huckabee speaks for us on Main Street. Romney just doesn't connect with us at all. I am not envious of wealth because there are many people with wealth who do the right things and treat people the right way. I have yet to see any evidence of that from Governor Romney.

4. Mitt Romney refuses to even consider the Fair Tax, the single best economic stimulus package we could ever come up with. Mike Huckabee not only considered it, he supports it and embraced it as a plank in his economic policy plan.

5. Mitt Romney showed no respect and downright disdain for his fellow contenders for the GOP's nomination. Every chance he got, he slung mud on each one of them, especially towards candidates who wanted to take the high road and focus on the issues instead of attack ads. To his credit, Romney was not the worst of the bunch; Fred Thompson wins that award. Mike Huckabee is the exact opposite. He literally had the kitchen sink thrown at him and despite being tempted to do so, stayed vertical even though it hurt him at the end of the day. Huck could have won the nomination if he had slung some mud himself; however, he decided against it.

6. I see Mitt Romney as a member of the GOP establishment that I detest. The Republican Party has become a country club of corrupt cronies. There is no visible concern for all Americans, like Ronald Reagan had. No wonder the Republican establishment fought Ronald Reagan tooth and nail and didn't embrace him until he swept the GOP into power. There are many people that did not embrace the Republican Party until Mike Huckabee came along. We now want to bring the GOP back to the party of Reagan, a President so vertical in his politics that conservative Democrats embraced him, and he won office with their support. This is not about the Republican Party for us; this is about the American people, and the future of our great nation - a nation that is under attack and threatened by the MoveOn.org Socialist Democrats.

There is no doubt that both sides are now in a battle for party dominance. However, I feel that playing the "Bigot Card" from the bottom of the deck is no way to fight this battle. We are going to have to work together at some point. If you continue to insult us and throw mud on us, working together is going to be much harder to do.