Political Commentary

If Not Mitt, Who?

21 Comments

Is he really inexorable?

I spent last night’s Republican debate trying to imagine scenarios where Mitt Romney loses the G.O.P. nomination for president. Rick Perry gets bitten by a radioactive Lincoln-Douglas debate champion and develops a sudden facility for public argument? A long-lost codicil to the Constitution is discovered, in which the Founding Fathers endorse the 9-9-9 tax plan? Utah renames itself the Republic of Deseret and secedes from the Union, forcing Romney to make a tragic choice between his religion and his country? Or, perhaps most unlikely of all — Jon Huntsman is embraced by the Tea Party and pulls off a surprise upset in Iowa?

Those scenarios aside, right now these debates feel like spring training for Romney: A warm-up period for the general election, in which he can stretch and exercise and experiment with his pitches with no fear of suffering a significant defeat.

A depressing thought. The only possibility of avoiding him I can imagine (short of something tragic), is if the anti-Mitters get so determined that they embrace Newt, with all his quirks. At least, that’s how desperate I am. Though I supposed I shouldn’t count Cain out completely. He does seem to be the Reagan in the race in temperament, if not foreign-policy acumen.

[Update a few minutes later]

On the other hand, maybe the conventional wisdom about what it takes to win is wrong.

21 thoughts on “If Not Mitt, Who?”

  1. Romney ain’t my favorite, but any of the Republicans will be a great improvement over the current administration. I think it is too early to call Romney’s nomination as inevitable.

    Cain as the Presidential nominee and Gingrich as VP nominee would certainly entertain in debates with Obama and Biden

  2. God forgive me, I’d settle for the tragic than see Romney in the WH. He’s further from the true right than Bush was and we do NOT need him in there with even a semi-decent Republican run Congress.

    I agree with Jiminator so long as we have BOTH houses of Congress. They can drag his RINO arse toward the right. But if we keep this Congress, look for even more Progressive crap!

  3. The debates are all pretty meaningless to the coming campaign and the general election. They provide facetime to enable early fundraising. Nominations are won, ultimately, one state at a time through primary season. That is why Romney is toast. The only states where he will poll better than third are blue states like CA, MA and NY. If he can’t do well any where else he won’t be nominated. I don’t know who will be nominated, but it won’t be Mitt.

  5. This idea that anyone is winning when the primaries haven’t begun yet is totally and absolutely fallacious. I’m confident that Romney will not appeal to a hug block of GOP voters and won’t even last the entire primary season. Aside from the rejection he’ll get as a left-leaning Republican, he’s also just another business-as-usual panderer, which is not what people want right now.

  6. I really don’t know who I will vote for now. I was for Cain or Gingrich. I can respect their opinions about gay issues. I can’t however vote for someone who will discriminate against gay people (reinstating DADT.)

    Of course, I don’t live in Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire, or Florida… so does my vote really count anyways?

    1. Jason,

      I do live in Nevada and Gov. Romney is the only one in the field that a traditional Republican would be able to support. The rest are just splitting the tea party vote.

      I just hope if Gov. Romney wins he doesn’t pick any of the others as his running mate. For that job he needs someone with strong foreign policy creditability. Senator McCain would be my first choice, second would Gen. Powell.

      The big question for the folks here. Would you really walk away from Gov. Romney if it looked like the House was going to swing to Democratic control? Odds are high it will as folks tend to turn the existing members out when the economy is bad.

      1. Some days you really, really outdo yourself…

        Gov. Romney is the only one in the field that a traditional Republican would be able to support.

        I had to read that twice looking for the typo. Then I realized you are correct. That’s why we need to have the tea party so we can get rid of all these ‘traditional’ (I have another word for them) Repuglies.

        Although Sarah probably made the right decision and can do more supporting candidates for office (it’s going to be a longer battle than the next eight years) I’ve pretty much lost interest. Ya’ll will tell me who won when it’s over, right?

  7. I’m not concerned about Perry dropping back. In Texas, he was mostly untouched by conservatives seeking change, because of the fear that a 3-way challenge in a gubernatorial primary would go to Hutchison. Otherwise, he’s not a strong GOP desire for Texas Govenor in the next go round. His support in moving up is to have a pro-Texas person in the White House and get rid of him. Perry’s instincts are just bad, which is why he does poorly in debates.

    Still, I’d prefer Perry over Romney and Romney over Obama. I worry about the fanfare over Cain. He’s accomplished more than then Senator Obama, but winning the big race does require political acumen, as much as I hate the notion. If Cain was on the ballot, and the Democrats smart enough to put in Hillary rather than Obama; I think she’d take him. Roger L Simon has a point, but that point works in the primary. Cain will need lots of money in the general election, and he must be a household name before the convention. Also Cain’s worse aspects need to come out sooner rather than later.

  9. As I’ve written before, I’ll crawl over broken glass to vote for anyone other than Obama. Having said that, Romney is far from my first choice. If the vote comes down to Obama verses Romney, I’ll vote for Romney (and hate it) but there simply is no way that I’d skip voting or go 3rd party.

  11. At this point I like both Cain and Gingrich. Cain is weak on foreign policy, but has a good grasp on what he doesn’t know. Perry I would take over Romney. The only way I can see Romney winning the primary is with the same “electable” fraud that gave us McCain. And we all know how the “Electable” McCain turned out.

  12. Romney is just another John McCain. Both were old-line GOP types who talked the talk but whose actions proved they were in reality strong Statists. ie McCain-Feingold and RomneyCare. If the Republicans take Romeny, the smallest l libertarians will vote LP and a lot of strongly conservative or libertarian eaning Republicans will just stay home and try to ignore the election season.

    I much fear that a Romney in a campaign would be more Obama than Obama and more capable of actually carrying out the disasters.

    1. That is a problem with Romney — for all the huffing about “electability”, the base may just stay home, as they were prepared to do with McCain before Palin brought them to the polls.

    1. I wouldn’t discount Obama’s chances for re-election, especially with the MSM running interference for him. Truman had a public approval rating of only 36% when he defeated Dewey in 1948.

  14. Well, I despise Obama and would never vote for him, but I’m unwilling to vote for Romney. I think Romney as President will put the Democrats back in charge faster than anything else the Republicans could do. Look what happened with Bush as President. Romney would do the same thing.

    I will vote Libertarian before I vote for Romney. I’m not providing any more false information just to keep someone I despise from winning. I’ve done that and it has gotten me nowhere.

  15. I don’t trust Perry’s instincts on space. Coming from Texas, I can easily see him become the president from JSC, favoring SLS, Orion and all that implies.

    FWIW

    1. The hope for sanity regarding space does not rest with the government. We have bigger problems than Houston. Defeating Obama is important, but the bigger issue is getting control and some backbone in congress. Get people there that care and have a clue and they can stop any president. This guy is already impeachable, the problem is those with the responsibility to do it.

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