The Election Choice—Can Romney make it simple? Can Romney be Romney?

Watching all of the pundits say that Romney has to make himself likable is beginning to drive me crazy.  Of course no one wants to embrace a dour person (though Richard Nixon was on 4 of 5 winning national tickets, just proving that there are exceptions to every rule), but Romney is not dour, and the times require a serious, steady, positive message.  I am going to say something I never thought I would say a few months ago—let’s let Romney be Romney.

What would that mean?  It would mean that we should allow Romney to make the case to the American people about the choices we face, and how he is the best man at this time to help us make those choices because he has lived those choices all his life.

Romney knows the correct answer to the fundamental question of this election:  Who builds this economy and this country, the federal government or private businesses and the individuals they employee?

And the answer is:  private business and the individuals they employ.  If you don’t understand that fundamental answer, you do not deserve the public’s trust to hold an office in our government.  Period.

It is private business that generates the jobs that provide for families and that build neighborhoods.  We spend more time every day with our co-workers than with our families, and the positive bonds formed through this activity ripple out in every direction.  Employing people affects the lives of both the employer and the employee, from which both grow.  The products or services generated by a business affect customers, and spur innovation by others through competition.  But, most importantly, every paycheck signed sets aside a retirement fund, pays for health care, provides for the sustenance of a family, pays for a mortgage and a college education, pays for the charity from a church or non-profit organization, and creates the tax base for the infrastructure and protection of a community.

Government is nothing more than a service that we pay for with the taxes from our paychecks and profits.  It is a service through which we have chosen to hire some of our neighbors to provide education to our children, create and maintain a physical infrastructure, provide for our defense and protection our communities and nation, and preserve a safety net for those unable through no fault of their own to help themselves (or find private charitable help), while we work and build the foundation of wealth and happiness for our families, our communities, and our country.  In essence, government works for us, at our direction, and to the extent we feel we need it—we do not work for government.  To increase government’s role in our society beyond providing these services effectively and efficiently, is to threaten the delicate balance among free people that this system has long maintained—and that makes our experiment in self-government so unique and exceptional.

President Obama and the modern Democratic Party do not believe in this delicate balance.  Instead, they want to transform it so that Government indeed becomes the source of all wealth and happiness in our society—and as they do so, they are putting our delicate balance in mortal jeopardy. The Democrats have long wanted to change the fundamental relationships in our private sector, and between the private sector and government, by inserting government more and more into the private relationships that a private-sector paycheck has always supported.  This process has reached a tipping point now.

Because no one knows which way our system will tip—how much further the federal government will interfere in the private market and private relationships, and how much taxes will be seized to pay for the massive public spending and debt incurred to fund that interference—a cloud of uncertainty now hangs over our country (and, by extension, over the world economy).  And that uncertainty keeps business from hiring people, and that cuts the paychecks that support families and communities. That uncertainty, if allowed to continue, will tip the balance toward a new pervasive government and the nation the Democrats have long tried to create.

We must bring an end to this transformation that disguises itself as “hope and change,” and “moving forward.” This transformation does not promise progress, but, instead, a benign peonage for future generations.  Is that what prior generations fought for?

Through his work in the private sector, in his church, and through the charities he has supported, Romney understands, and indeed embodies the best of the balanced system I have just described.  He understands the challenge and threat the Democrats’ vision has created for the delicate balance of our unique society.  He just needs to be honest with us; and then challenge us to help him stop this transformation, to make the necessary reforms to remove the uncertainty, and to restore the historic balance between the private sector and government, so that private business will write those paychecks again.

It’s that simple.  Great speeches by Ann Romney, Chris Christie, Condi Rice, Susana Martinez, and Paul Ryan have all paved the way for him.  Now, let’s hope Romney will be Romney.