There are plenty of people offering theories as to why Mitt Romney’s quest for the presidency fizzled to an end yesterday, but two are particularly worth highlighting, for different reasons.
RCP’s Jay Cost presents the circumstantial evidence that the general electorate, and a sizable minority of Republican voters, came to dislike Romney due to his negative attacks on McCain and Huckabee.
At Newsweek, Howard Fineman argues that Romney failed because he ran as something that he is not. The problem with that theory — aside from the lack of supporting data — is that most of Romney’s rivals also ran (or run) as something they are not, including presumptive nominee John McCain — the “true conservative” with the 65 ACU rating.
Cost seems to have the better argument, to which I will add (per usual) that McCain’s well-established brand fits the zeitgeist of the electorate this year.
Moreover, a casual glance at a number of the exit polls — as not all of the exit polls ask the same questions — show two additional factors may explain McCain’s resiliency.ÂÂ
The first — and generally less important – factor was the perception of electability.ÂÂ
The second is that McCain seems to be consistently rated by about 45% of GOP voters as the most qualified to be Commander-in-Chief. In states where the question was asked, this number did not vary more than a few points, regardless of McCain’s final vote share. That is probably a powerful factor during wartime and was likely an obstacle to Romney ever gaining traction. It may say something about McCain that McCain’s vote share was always lower than the number who thought him the best pick for CinC.
Fineman: “Or maybe the campaign revealed what his closest friends never imaged him to be.”
I never imaged I’d see such a sentence published by a major magazine. But let’s give Fineman the benefit of the doubt: perhaps he’s a jolly decent fellow who got lousy proofreading advice.
And, the weight of his faith.
Damned Southern Baptists~!
Also, I think “shitegeist” would be better. Mr. Hanky.
Mitt Romney does have problems as a candidate. Then the media and Howard Fineman have problems as objective reporters. Romney was the only candidate the media required to explain his previous inconsistent positions.
Futher, at least up until Super Tuesday, Romney was winning a higher pecentage of registered rebublicans than John McCain. It bothers me that McCain is running as the republican choice when he was picked in large parts by non-republicans.
The assessment by Jay Cost should be taken skeptically. Romney never beat about 16% in any Rasmussen poll, and his support was from the party machine types. And that was before he did any negative campaigning. Maybe, just maybe, Republicans were looking for some history that Romney’s conversion on border control, abortion, taxes and Reagan were sincere and not designed to take advantage uf us pp’ dum Reepublicans. Dang it all.
Romney would have grown on me for sure. He was too unknown I think. If people don’t know you but when, except what snippets the media filters and frames, all they see is you on a stage next to Ron Paul and Hick, they’re just bound to be wary.
Maybe, just maybe, Republicans were looking for some history that Romney’s conversion on border control, abortion, taxes and Reagan were sincere and not designed to take advantage uf us pp’ dum Reepublicans
As opposed to nominating someone that has actively opposed most of those issues?
With Romney out of the race, and McCain on top… the stop market is crashing again today. :-(
He had good staff in the early states, but as soon as the genuine article (or at least a more genuine article) came along in Iowa, in the form of Mike Huckabee, Romney was blown away.
Howard Fineman’s Disingenuous Article
” The second is that McCain seems to be consistently rated by about 45% of GOP voters as the most qualified to be Commander-in-Chief.”
45% isn’t very good , This might explain McCain new slogan to reach out to conservatives ” Quit crying little babies.” which was better than “Shut the Fuck up”
I heard a lot of McCain’s CPAC speech last night. He sounds like Mr. Rogers. Now that he’s my candidate meow meow and all he needs to start taking this more meow meow seriously I think meow.
Romney put up with a lot of full-blown crap from all sides pretty much from the very beginning of his campaign. Of course his “Mormanism” (whisper) was word thrown out for good measure. Didn’t matter a wit to me what religion he was. He’s a darned smart and accomplished man. Though Thompson was my pick initially.
Things that derailed him (mixed in with a bit of class warfare) were: (1) a population that generally has no historical perspective, little understanding of economics and commerce, and close to no critical thinking skills. (2) the liberal default in education and media, and most people getting their information in sound-bites. And the bites about him were brutal.
The amazing thing to me is why Romney would have even bothered to run for the presidency after being the governor of Mass. I think he actually did a good job there considering what he had to work with â€â€Massachusetts of all places  moonbat paradise and a corrupt infrastructure.
Being from N.H., I paid close attention to his governorship. Unfortunately, now that Duval Patrick is Gov., the state is bleeding into our borders. New Hampshire is following close on the heels of the idiocy that plagues Mass., exclaiming “me too, me too!”
The question is why a bright man like Romney would have wanted to run for governor in such a state. I suppose it was the same reason he wanted to run for president. Unfortunately, he found out he was up against the same Massachusetts mentality everywhere else. But bless him for trying.
Howie Carr was saying looks like Sununu might be finished in NH.
McCain’s nomination is pretty much the culmination of his career anyway I think.
Sununu’s, meaning.
McCain’s CiC bona fides: no matter the situation, go to the press and criticize those running things for not having “enough boots on the ground.” Sound muscular. Sabre rattle.
Then talk about closing detention facilities offshore, bringing terrorists into our legal system (with all the due process rights that portends), misapply the Geneva Conventions, put your own intelligence gathering and military community on notice that their interrogation techniques could open them up to law suits, define torture down by conflating it with coercive interrogation, do nothing as Senator during the years while your Def Sec buddy under Clinton was cutting away at the military, do nothing as Senator during the years when the CIA’s human intel was being bled to death — and 45% of Republicans will believe you’re strong on defense.
Hillary would fight the war better than this guy, because she’d have press insulation, wouldn’t be looking to grandstand, and is, at her core, a vicious and manipulative power player who’d do whatever it takes to make sure she didn’t look weak on defense (as the first woman Prez).
Just my opinion, though.
At this point, I agree with the assessment that the last 3 generation’s worth of liberal indoctrination — from the schools to “60 Minutes” and Uncle Walt to Oprah — have turned us into a nation waiting for a benevolent nanny state to tuck us into bed and take care of us. For our own good.
Hillary would mug the war for money. She just couldn’t help herself ultimately. Bitch has expensive tastes.
To Dan C
Sen. Sununu does seem to be falling behind. There is some hope still before Nov. comes. Might be some fallout with Gov. Lynch’s budget that we have no way of funding without substantially higher taxes, and there might a little more push back against an income tax. Plus, Jean Shaheen, his rival and former N.H. Gov. might rattle enough memory cages. No counting on it though.
The Live Free or Die state is probably dying. We call it Mini-Mass (some from Vermont, too, because they can’t afford their own policies), but my take is that it will be more like the vacation state for Massachusetts. They come up when they can’t stand the mess they made in their own nest and start making a mess in ours, except they’ll have all the acreage.
I would note that Romney’s attacks on McCain generally were not directed at McCain’s supposed strengths — StraightTalk and his national defense positions. Had he really done that, we might have seen much more of the fabled McCain temper. Mitt clearly never read Saul Alinsky.
That being said, I also think Romney presented himself in a way that carried all of the potential downside of seeming “corporate” with few of the benefits. He was inconsistent in his campaign themes — sometimes Mr. Change, sometimes Mr. more-of-the-same. And he tended to strike people who saw him on TV as a little too tightly wound.
Also, Hillary or Obama’s judges would advance McCain’s Geneva lust even more lustily than McCain and for a lot longer, no?
Depends on how principled they are.
Before it’s too late, learn what we Romneyites learned this past year.
It’s not that the people saw through anything or that Romney was not what he said.
He just took the elites for the masses and thought ideas, principles, and issues had more power than they do.
Republicans have gotten too disconnected from voters by adhering to their principles. It is time to stop taking the Christian conservatives so seriously, especially about embryo’s being alive. If life was so sacred to them they would have made sure Romney triumphed over McCain. This election revealed southern evangelicals for what they are; just another identity-group looking for one of their own. Sure, some of the informed elites saw the writing on the wall and could look past Romney’s background, finances, and region, but even Dobson whined about there being no perfect evangelical clone in the field. The religious right may say they don’t want to pay for fetal research but they are not politically savvy enough to actually know what they are voting for and take the short-cut of looking for who’s comfortable and familiar over what they stand for. It is time for the elites to stop believing their voters are somehow more sophisticated than Dem’s group-voters.
Conservatives used to be more realistic about this and didn’t give the masses so much credit. To win we have to start running like Dems. Keep your ideology and issues to yourself, share them at CPAC or with other elites, but give the people what they want; fluff and Bible quotes. It really doesnt matter what you stand for, everyone has to pander and be a hypocrite and stop being so pure and shocked by those winners who act this way. It really is how things have always been. The platform isn’t so important, or anything you say you stand for. The key is just to find a way to reflect what the people think in an eloquent and persuasive way. Republicans have to get cynical and stop thinking they can win without acting like Clinton. You can have beliefs and an agenda without telling anyone. Time to get over the distaste for populism and get real. Our voters want what they all want; to feel they actually know what’s up and could run things and their candidate is one of them. No need to harp on issues anymore. We can forget about the dogmas about abortion, hetero-marriage, taxes, rule of law, etc. Just say what polls well and keep the real debate back in the smoke-filled rooms. We are as foolish as the voters if we think they will be grateful and reward us for actually doing what they want. They don’t really know what they want – theyre just mad. McCain learned straight talk is suicide in 2000. You can’t tell the people who want minimum wage, benefits, freebies and no migrant workers that these things aren’t compatible. You have to convince them you think their right without falling for your own rhetoric. It’s called politics. time to learn.
I will add that the media did its darndest to starve Romney. I heard nothing about his policy, platform, or ideals, and the only thing I DID hear about him was the lame slur that ‘he has five sons and none of them went into the military.’ What kind of a complaint is that? You can only go into the military when you’re an adult and making your own decisions. What’s he going to do, force them?
Go Luagha! I’m still wondering why the body of this post failed to mention the liberal media, but it’s taken care of in the comment section.
Isn’t anyone going to say this was a defeat for the liberal media, because they wanted a stealth liberal pretending to be conservative to win?
Why would it be a defeat, David? McCain is getting the nomination.
I didn’t get that either really. The media is batting a thousand so far.