Mitt Romney shellacked Newt Gingrich last night in Florida. He defeated him with every major group of voters except the far right (a group Romney won't win until the general election), and finally came close to winning a majority of Republicans in a highly important swing state.
Congratulations to Mitt Romney, it's a great win for him, but his problems with conservatives are still immense and they're still not going away. I'm not saying Mitt won't win the nomination. Actually, Romney will be the party's nominee in November, it might take awhile since Newt seems to have more political lives than anyone who has ever lived, but in the end, it's going to be Mitt.
However, Romney will also lose in November to the President. Why? One word: enthusiasm. Turnout last night in Florida actually went down 14% from four years ago when Floridians understood it was their turn to anoint the unabashedly moderate John McCain. And the (Republican spin warning) “record” turnouts in the other contests so far have basically all been due to Ron Paul’s supporters turning out in droves. Since these people, for the most part, aren’t really Republicans and will not turn out in November to vote for Mitt Romney it’s safe to subtract Paul’s vote from the turnout numbers.
Low turnout means low enthusiasm. Republicans across the country aren’t stupid. They’ve been given a horrendous choice between the flip-flopping I’ll say whatever you want me to say Romney, the erratic (to put it nicely), but visionary Gingrich, the crotchety old man Paul, and the far too socially conservative to ever win a national election Santorum. There’s nothing exciting about any of these people.
And though Romney might be the best positioned to win since he has the most effective staff, the most endorsements, and the most money, he can’t buy or beg for conservative excitement. There’s none now for him and there never will be.
The conservative base will never like Mitt Romney, some will go vote for him in November, but they won’t have a sign in their yard, they won’t have a bumper sticker, and they most assuredly won’t ask their friends to go do the same.
The counter attack to all of this is that conservatives will rally around their guy and turn out in the general election because they’re going to be so excited to beat Obama. Yes, conservatives hate the stimulus, Obamacare, and pretty much everything the President has done, but in essence they plan to out enthusiasm the candidate who rallied up enthusiastic troops better than any candidate in history. They plan to out enthusiasm the guy who got universal health care passed (a liberal desire since the days of FDR), made the order to have Osama Bin Laden killed, and is watching unemployment go down as we speak.
I know the economy is bad and Romney plans to use his business experience to nail the President, which could actually work, but all team Obama really has to do is define Mitt Romney as a flip flopping politician who fired people for 25 years before that in the private sector and he probably wins.
If the candidate of change can define his opponent much like George W. Bush did to another French speaking, Massachusetts elitist in 2004, while simultaneously rallying his base by running as a the defender of the common folk, it won’t even be close.
Romney’s only chance is to quit saying the word fired on the trail, and continue to attempt to define the President as a failure and himself as the man to fix it all like he has before in business and with the Olympics. Unfortunately for conservatives, Romney just isn’t a quality candidate and it’s going to take a better candidate than Romney to kick out an incumbent, and all the good ones stayed home.
No comments:
Post a Comment