Romney is a failure...and Ryan is not happy

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

But if that "Stench" thing is true, well... what's the chance Ryan might be replaced?

Nonexistent. I'm pretty sure it's legally impossible at this point.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

...Bush/Cheney 2004 was 'moderate'? Dole/Kemp 1996 was not 'conservative'?

Politico, the fact that it was possible for any of us to believe this indicates at least as much about the Romney campaign as it does about 'the left' being 'tone-deaf'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Bush 2000 won by running as a moderate Republican. Who has forgotten "compassionate conservatism," "don't balance the budget on the backs of the poor," and the Republican Party's collective effort to stash the Tea Party wing of the time (Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum) in the attic?

Yeah, Bush was perceived as much more conservative (or right-wing, since like most of the American right he wasn't really doing a whole hell of a lot of 'conserving') around the middle of his presidency than he was at the beginning or the end of it. Rightfully so, in a lot of ways.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

A number of posters in this thread have been punked. They have so filtered objective reality through their political biases that they could not notice an obvious satire.

The article is on to something, however. Since Watergate, every Republican candidate running on a conservative platform [Reagan, Bush I 1998, and Bush II 2000] has won, and, every Republican candidate running as a moderate, or running on a moderate record has lost, with the sole exception of Bush II in 2004 whom had the good fortune of Osama Bin Laden endorsing his opponent just before the election. If Romney pursues a moderate strategy, he will suffer the fate as every other moderate. If that is the case, some folks in the Republican party had better step forward and speak up for conservatism.

Bush ran in 2000 on "compassionate conservatism," which was a far more watered-down version of conservatism than Romney has been forced to pursue thanks to Gingrich and Santorum. The campaign originally wanted to emulate that rhetoric, but Gingrich/Santorum forced them into a corner. We both want the same thing, but I warned you months ago about the implications of Gingrich/Santorum specifically with regards to female voters. Don't pull the "Romney's not conservative enough" card because he is running to the right of  every presidential contender since Reagan (with the possible exception of Bush in 2004)

This...is...more or less entirely correct.

I need to go lie down and write for a little while.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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Which is why he became the 'most hated president in America?' Come off it. He was a conservative. Liberals hated him with the passion of a thousand suns.

He ran as distinctly more moderate than other recent Republican nominees, at least rhetorically.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

...Bush/Cheney 2004 was 'moderate'? Dole/Kemp 1996 was not 'conservative'?

No Child Left Behind, the Prescription drug law, "comprehensive immigration reform." The list goes on. But, if I am wrong, then every Republican running on a conservative platform, or conservative record has won, while every Republican running on a moderate platform, or moderate record has lost.

No, that's the case if you're right. If you're wrong and I'm right, then the only Republican Presidential candidate who's been rhetorically much more moderate than any of the others since Reagan is 2000 Bush. Remember, we're discussing the ways in which people run for President, not their positions on purity tests. Nobody in 2004 thought of Bush as a 'moderate' except lunatics, whereas a lot of people in 2000 did.

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The...the same is true of Rick Perry and Strom Thurmond among others, you know. Also, I see you haven't taken my advice to read up on how pronouns work.

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Hmm, maybe because he was a tough-on-crime 'Nam hawk, voted against Medicare in the sixties and claimed that there was 'no crisis in health care' in the nineties, was known for being able to interact well and remain on good terms with most factions of the party (which is and was not a centrist party), used Russell Kirk rhetoric in his acceptance speech, picked Jack Kemp as his running mate...? If that's not enough to be a 'conservative', even if not as conservative as some other conservatives, I'm not sure what is, unless (as I seem to recall is actually the case) you're the type who views 'conservatism' as a very specific checklist on a wide range of issues.