By CHARLES M. BLOW
The dream is dying. There will be no dynamic, charismatic, Reaganesque
Republican presidential nominee this cycle. There won't even be a
consistent conservative. There will only be Mitt Romney.
With his wins on Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of
Columbia, Romney has virtually guaranteed his lock on the Republican
nomination and has practically thrown a bucket of ice water on his
party's desire for a transformative right-wing figure who could
convincingly sell its draconian budget priorities and regressive
social agenda to an increasingly weary middle.
Rick Santorum may continue his quixotic crusade to be the regional
candidate of the deeply reticent Deep South, but with each contest the
math becomes increasingly more difficult, even impossible, to deny.
Romney will win. We're just waiting for "The Rooster" to crow, and for
the real contest to begin.
As the Washington Post pointed out Wednesday:
Mitt Romney won some elusive demographics. Exit polls from the
Wisconsin primary Tuesday showed Romney expanding his appeal to groups
that have consistently voted against him this year, including
evangelical Christians, voters who describe themselves as "very
conservative," strong supporters of the Tea Party movement and voters
making less than $50,000 per year.
But this is likely the result of resignation, not enthusiasm. Those
very conservative holdouts could hold back Mitt's money and momentum
for only so long. Eventually, wishful thinking gives way to
pragmatism. The reckoning always comes.
It's Mitt — the flavorless force who is willing to flow in any
direction to get a vote.
For many Republicans, Romney's greatest virtue is that he is not
President Obama. But that may also be his greatest weakness. Being
A.B.O. (anyone but Obama) doesn't necessarily make you able. The
protest vote will carry a candidate only so far. It ensures the
support of the base, but not the middle. And in a general election,
the middle must be won. Candidates must connect with the people there
and passionately sell a vision of America that resonates with them.
This may well be Romney's biggest challenge. Obama can be
scintillating on the campaign trail. Romney has shown himself to be
nearly catatonic. Obama is such an impressive speaker that it
sometimes feels as if he's trying too hard to prove something; Romney
is such an awkward speaker that it often feels as if he's hiding
something. But when framing a vision, even magniloquence beats
ineloquence.
Furthermore, Romney let the primary season push him dangerously far to
the right, in an effort to capture that elusive "severely
conservative" vote. That's good for now, but bad for later. Modern
elections are fought over a thin margin in the middle. No amount of
Etch A Sketch, shake-it-up-and-start-all-over resets will be able to
expunge the rhetoric of a hyper-partisan primary. YouTube, ever heard
of it?
According to an ABC/Washington Post poll released last week:
Mitt Romney trails Barack Obama by 19 points in basic popularity as
the 2012 presidential contest inches closer to the main event, with a
record 50 percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post
poll now rating Romney unfavorably over all.
Perhaps more ominously, USA Today reported this week that:
President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012
campaign in the nation's dozen top battleground states, a USA
TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.
That sound you hear is the sound of despair — the hard swallowing and
deep breathing by reluctant Republicans crossing their fingers and
praying for the best.
Maybe Romney will pick a game-changing running mate. Remember how well
that worked last time?
More:
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/its-mitt-oh-no/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20120405
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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