By Mark Rhoads
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As a Young Republican, I attended the 1964, 1968, and 1972 Republican National Conventions and I was elected as a Reagan delegate from Illinois for the 1980 convention in Detroit. Watching this year's convention in Tampa, I found this convention to be a huge success in doing the main job that conventions are supposed to do which includes inspiring the party grassroots.
The speeches by Ann Romney, Gov. Christie, Rep. Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, Condi Rice, Artur Davis, all the governors, Clint Eastwood, and Sen. Marco Rubio were all well above average for convention speeches and the acceptance speech by Gov. Romney was solid in almost every respect.
But as conservative, I was only nervous about one minor sour note in the Romney speech that can cause needless mischief down the road. Romney has promised to work to repeal Obamacare starting next Jan. 20 on the day of his inauguration. But unfortunatetly his liberal speechwriters keep making the same mistake when they write about a promise to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.
I sincerely wish he would omit the word "replace" because it generates far too much needless mistrust and confusion about the author of Romneycare. As a conservative, I do not think the federal government in DC has any core competence to manage health care at all and I do not want to see the Obamacare disaster "replaced" in any way whatsovever.
I raise this warning now because I have more confidence each week that Romney will win 270 Electoral Votes and defeat President Obama on Nov. 6. So we might as well start right now to do battle with the liberal Republicans who will fight for the soul of President Romney when his administration begins in January. We can count on Vice President Paul Ryan to be a big help and provide an anchor to the starboard side for President Romney in guiding him around the quick-sand traps in Congress. But unhappily Gov. Romney still has staff members who served him in a very liberal state government and they are the ones who do not realize how dangerous a word like "replace" can be. Naturally the press and President Obama can say in a debate, replace with what exactly? It is better policy and better politics to simply say repeal and stop talking. The RCP average of recent polls shows Americans favor repeal by an average margin of 7.4 percent so the majority of the public favors the repeal position. There is no reason to confuse the issue by going beyond the word "repeal" when the word "replace" can only cause trouble for the Romney campaign.
