It’s Santorum’s turn to be the non-Romney
This year’s Republican voters remind me of a guy who’s been going out with a girl for a long time, maybe even living with her. He’s being pressured to marry her, but he knows in his heart she’s not the one he wants.
He can’t leave her, though, because there’s just something about her. Maybe it’s that she’s the kind of girl his mom would like. And anyway, the other girls he’s meeting when he sneaks off to bars and clubs (or wherever he may find them) aren’t much more to his liking. Nobody he’s meeting is really the girl of his dreams, who’s a combination of Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie with a bit of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe thrown in for nostalgia’s sake.
He keeps leaving his girlfriend for a new flame and then keeps coming back. But he’s not happy about any of it, and maybe some day he’ll leave for good.
It’s not the first time the voters have flirted with Santorum; the first time was at the very beginning, in Iowa. Yesterday’s results are somewhat difficult to evaluate, because the Missouri primary yielded no delegates, and the turnout was accordingly low and only Santorum did much campaigning. Colorado and Minnesota were caucuses, which are always atypical of the voters as a whole and favor conservatives. So, what’s it all about, Alfie?
I think it does indicate something, and that something is the continuing dissatisfaction with Mitt Romney. He’s not coalesced as a solid frontrunner, and the real question is whether he ever will. Another related question is whether one of the other candidates will drop out (it won’t be Paul); if so, when; and to whom will his voters then turn their lonely eyes? This could make a whole lot of difference.
And by the way, don’t start saying, “See, you were wrong! Romney was never the inevitable nominee.” You’ve read that in other places, but you never read it here because I never said it, never thought it, and still do not think it.
[NOTE: John Fund wonders why Romney did worse in these states in 2012 than in 2008:
Mitt Romney’s campaign will have lots of explanations for their man’s poor showing tonight. Yes, Colorado and Minnesota were caucus states ”” the turnout is skewed in such contests toward a more conservative electorate. Yes, Missouri’s primary was a “beauty contest” and didn’t award any delegates.
But what Romney won’t be able to explain away is just how much more poorly he did tonight in those three states than in his 2008 showing ”” when he lost the GOP nomination for president.
But actually, there’s a pretty simple explanation—if Fund could only take a good look at his second sentence, and then recall one salient fact about 2008 that he has apparently forgotten: Romney was considered a conservative alternative to McCain in 2008. To take just one of many, many examples, here’s what Rick Santorum (yes, that Rick Santorum) had to say about Romney when he endorsed Mitt back in 2008:
The former senator from Pennsylvania has recently criticized Romney in his TV ads for being too liberal, a far cry from the press release he sent out during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries calling Romney the “clear conservative candidate” who will “stand up for the conservative principles we hold dear.”
It’s all relative; this year Santorum is the conservative alternative to Romney. So what is so puzzling about him doing better than Romney in caucus states that favor conservatives?
Note also that in 2008 John McCain won the nomination despite doing rather poorly in these three states. That doesn’t mean that Romney will follow suit, of course. But it indicates that yesterday’s losses won’t necessarily hold him back from doing so.]
Good analysis, Neo, on explaining why Romney did better in those states in 2008.
Anyone up for Jeb Bush in a brokered convention? ):
oops…make that a 🙂
Santorum is a social conservative, but not a fiscal conservative. He certainly doesn’t stand for Tea Party core principles. Any politician who boasts about the earmarks he got for his state, who endorsed Arlen Specter, and who opposes free trade is not a fiscal conservative, and that’s what we need.
However, the GOP base is looking for anyone who is not Romney. Santorum paints himself as a conservative and has taken over that mantle from Gingrich.
What is remarkable is how Santorum has been able to stay in the race despite virtually no organization or money. But now he threatens Romney, so we can expect a torrent of anti-Santorum ads in the next few contests. And there is plenty of material out there to use against Santorum. Will Romney’s scorched earth strategy beat Santorum’s last conservative standing strategy? Probably, unless he raises a lot of money really fast.
Although a PA resident, I’ve never been a great Santorum fan. I am a traditionalist, but I don’t want a strident social-conservative telling me how to live any more that I want a strident liberal restricting my life with govt regulations. Santorum may not be that strident, but that is the perception he’s given me.
I’ve become quite disappointed in both Newt and Mitt as the result of the FL primary. Because Newt can be seen as cranky, his attack ads seem more in keeping with his persona. That doesn’t make them right, or even effective, just more consistent. because of that consistency, IMO they can also be more readily dismissed by the viewer.
Mitt, OTH, has tried to position himself as an exectuive, a CEO, the country’s potential CEO. When his campaign unleashed their onslaught of ads against Gingrich (both in IA and FL), they struck me as totally out-of-character to this persona. As a result, I’m more disappointed in Romney at the moment than Gingrich.
Thus, although I have been pro-Newt and lukewarm for Romney, I am now even less likely to change my primary vote to Romney than before (I will remain ABO in the general), and I’m sure that I’m only one of many who currently feel this way.
So my question is: Given this result from such venomous ads how can Romney’s campaign believe they’re running an effective campaign, especially now, in light of yet another non-Romney resurgence?
Pat,
I don’t disagree with your evaluation of Santorum, but I think that the earmark issue is not indicative.
The problem with earmarks is that they exist at all. As long as they do, one only has two choices 1) to line up at the trough or 2) to refuse to participate.
Because earmarks are a re-direction of tax revenues back to a locality, to refuse to participate simply punishes one’s constituents. My tax money is out there and it’s going to go to some project somewhere, better that at least some of that money be returned to the area whence it came than to some other state across the country. If my congress-critter refuses to participate on principle, all s/he’s done is to make it easier for NY, CA or MA to benefit from my money.
I do not see any contradiction to being against earmarks (i.e., being conservative and working to eliminate them) while lining up at the trough as long as they do exist.
I also realize that such is part of the problem, because under those circumstances the only way to bring earmarking to an end is to rely on congressional integrity —Ha! The grandaddy of all oxymorons.
I’m no single issue voter, but it still bugs me a big that Santorum worked with Hilary Clinton to try to limit content in video games. That’s a whiff of statism I don’t appreciate. I don’t buy, play or design M-rated or above video games because I don’t like the content. I’m very conservative on what I want in my entertainment.
…but that’s my decision, not the State’s. I know, I know, all of these yahoos are statists at heart, so it’s not just Santorum that’s bothersome. I just can’t take him any more seriously than the others. *shrug*
I have to say I am so tired of hearing about Romney’s “venomous ads.” I live in a state (Utah) where all I have been hearing for months are the anti-Romney ads. They aren’t kind and loving. Are we to believe that Gingrich and Santorum are as clean and white as new fallen snow in this political game and Romney is the devil incarnate? Please. Politics is a dirty game. It has been dirty since this Republic was founded. If Romney doesn’t attack he is “too weak and doesn’t have the fire in his belly.” If he attacks, he is vicious and dirty and “has a glass jaw.” Makes me tired.
@Lisa,
Indeed. I’m in Utah too, and those somber, vicious ads are annoying. They tell me more about the guys supporting them than they tell me about the candidates in question.
I would be okay with Santorum as the nominee, if not thrilled (none of them thrilled me, honestly) – but my older son, who is part of the 20’s generation voters, has as negative a gut reaction to Santorum as I do to Gingrich. Granted that my son leans heavily libertarian, if he is at all representative of his generation (and I think he is) Santorum will run into some pretty stiff resistance there. As Tesh pointed out, Santorum stuck his nose into video game censorship and that generation is hyper-sensitive to those issues (SOPA really riled them, for example).
I would guess that Romney will not go heavy duty negative on Santorum in the same way he did on Gingrich – for two reasons. One, I think the Romney campaign will take note of the public perception of nastiness (warranted or otherwise) and the “negative” ads will be less….emotive. Two, I don’t think either Paul or Santorum will bring out the same reaction in Romney that Gingrich did. Gingrich took it to an unusually personal level in his attacks (a case of that Gingrich “gift” of hyperbole coming back to bite him) and I think it hacked Romney off and it showed in his Florida response.
Lisa,
There is a third alternative; it has to do with HOW one attacks. That’s the point I was emphasizing above.
IMO part of Romney’s problem is that he wants to be seen as above the fray, but that’s not possible when his campaign attempts to contrafactually eviscerate an opponent. Newt’s ads are no nicer, but they’re consistent with his cranky persona.
Ann Coulter related how she met Mitt Romney and she said (paraphrasing from memory): You owe me. You better govern as conservatively as I tell people you will govern.
And I thought: Mitt Romney is an unknown … even to his own supporters. He lacks the charisma to persuade Ann Coulter to trust in what he says.
I have a confession…I have been sneaking off to spend time with Katharine Hepburn.
I attended my first-ever caucus last night. From what I heard, it was Santorum’s “family values” that people liked. The geriatric faction preferred Romney, consistent with the exit polling I see on TV. Newt was a non-factor.
And all that stuff about Ron Paul rolling up delegates without winning any States squares with what I saw. Continue to dismiss his campaign at your peril.
Romney has now lost a primary contest in 4 of 5 swing states. This despite the not so subtle support of the GOP establishment; a vast funding advantage; and weak and divided opposition. Why anyone believes him to be electable in November is beyond my comprehension. If Romney is the nominee Obama will win handily in November. Furthermore Romney is likely to cost the GOP an opportunity to regain control of the Senate.
Pat: Because he hasn’t yet been a frontrunner or anything near it, so far Santorum has escaped media scrutiny. But when it comes (plus the anti-Santorum ads), there is indeed plenty of grist for the mill.
One of my biggest fears is that the person who winds up the candidate will emerge from this as very tainted goods, rightly or wrongly. And by the way, that’s not the fault of any one person or other. It’s a combination of the MSM and the large field slugging it out, with many candidates who each have a lot of baggage coming in. Each one is ripe for the picking in one way or other.
“. . . the person who winds up the candidate will emerge from this as very tainted goods, . . . .”
This may be the case, but as has been argued about Newt’s attack on Mitt, this gives the nominee the opportunity to development a coherent message and a coherent defense against the coming Obama onslaught. IMO tactical excellence will be a deciding factor in Nov.
IMO Newt is tactically the most skilled, but he’s also given to the greatest blunders; Romney’s errors are not so grand as Newt’s, but neither are his messages and his skills; Santorum, to my mind, comes off as angry and petulant when he attacks which could be his game ender against Obama’s calmer demeanor.
I think the campaign message must be the economy, Obama’s future judicial appts and “do you really want 4 more years of Obama’s chutzpa untrammeled by any re-election concerns?”
I think the constant feeling that “please find us a non-Rom (Romney) for our nominee means that the woulda coulda shoulda candidates that chose to not run would have had a great shot.
But whatcha gonna do?
Vote Romney!
kaba: I repeat, as I’ve said before—this business about Romney being “electable” is a red herring. I don’t use the word, for example, except to respond to other people using it—and in that case I say, “The word ‘electable’ does NOT mean that Romney will be elected. It means that, of the candidates now running, he has the best chance of beating Obama .”
All the other candidates have huge drawbacks in attracting voters, even bigger than Romney’s IMHO. I’ve said that from the beginning and it’s still true. And no one has mounted an argument that even begins to convince me otherwise.
Honeyimhome: I’m not so sure about that. My best guess right now is that any candidate who had entered this fray would have been under the same sort of attack. Their weaknesses would have been fully exploited by the other candidates and the MSM (and some of it made up or dredged up, as with Perry and the rock and Cain and the women). The pattern is too clear.
Of course, we’ll never know, because we’ve got the field we’ve got.
I agree, Neo. And because of this potential ongoing bloodbath leading to a severely damaged nominee, something radical might be necessary.
I’m just stunned at how Romney has been completely unable to get GOP base to coalesce behind him. This should have happened after victories in Iowa (we thought at the time) and New Hampshire. It should have happened again after the victories in Florida and Nevada.
But it hasn’t.
I have no doubt that this has little to do with any great appeal Gingrich and Santorum have in and of themselves. It stems from the stubborn fact that a large plurality of Republican voters strongly oppose Romney as the nominee and will support any non-Romney available. Their reasons are numerous, some justified some not, but this stubborn conviction remains. It remains in face of a well organized, well funded Romney campaign, with the tacit support from much of the national Republican party.
Honestly, I’ve underestimated (perhaps due to personal bias) the intransigence of the Romney opposition. But I’m understanding it more thoroughly now. Unfortunately, I’m not sure Romney can ever convince most of his detractors. Since last summer, in both polls and actual votes, they have gone through five alternatives (Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum) and are now through the second round on Gingrich and in the second round on Santorum. If they are still dead set against Romney after all of this, I don’t know what would ever move them.
This fact offers no comfort for Gingrich or Santorum. Privately, I think most Gingrich supporters realize he would be a disaster as the nominee. Moreover, I think support for Santorum now is almost completely reactive. They Romney opponents have (quite correctly in my opinion) soured on Gingrich and have simply turned to the only non Romney left. But I doubt many of them have seriously conceived of a Santorum nomination as it is still too fantastic.
So, what is to be done? I think Romney once again has a limited time span to seal the deal (of course, this has been said before). He has to win Arizona and Michigan and win them big. And he has to actually capitalize on those wins (which heretofore he has been unable to do) on Super Tuesday.
And if he cannot? Well, I mentioned something radical. A brokered convention, while thrilling for politics junkies, would be an utter disaster, leaving nothing but a fractured, embittered party full of hard feelings regardless of who wins the nomination.
The alternative? Romney withdraws. Given that Gingrich and Santorum’s support is almost entirely grounded in opposition to Romney, a Romney withdrawal would result in both of their campaigns collapsing almost immediately. Currently, somewhere between 30-40% of Republicans want a new candidate to enter. That number would skyrocket to 80-90% overnight. Furthermore, the party leadership (including Romney as a ‘kingmaker’ among many) would very quickly find a suitable choice. The same names that have been suggested for the last year would again be high on the list:
Jeb Bush
Mitch Daniels
Chris Christie
Paul Ryan
Bobby Jindal.
And…probably a few others. This person would have to accept, but I think most of them would, faced with the utter chaos that is the alternative. Of course, this person would have to be vetted quickly. Nevertheless, if this all went (relatively) smoothly, I think that even a bomb throwing egomaniac like Newt and true believer like Santorum would realise their campaigns can do nothing further beyond severely damaging the party. Thus, I think both would gracefully withdraw.
I’m not saying the above will happen. I can’t see Romney ever been so chastised and humbled to withdraw; not after this long of a fight. But I am saying that if the GOP wants to have a serious shot at defeating Obama, the above scenario might be the only way.
neo I wasn’t referring to you with that remark. But that has been one of the chief selling points for Romney. And I will readily agree that there are no attractive alternatives available. I voted for Santorum in the Florida Primary. But that was only a choice of the lesser of bad choices available.
Obama has been busy of late securing his liberal base. The GOP could learn something from that. From my vantage point it seems that the conservative base is saying rather clearly that Romney isn’t an acceptable choice. If nominated he will be part three of the Dole, McCain, Romney Trilogy.
kaba: oh, no offense. I didn’t think you were necessarily referring to me. But my response holds true for most (and perhaps even all? not sure about that) of the people who do talk about Romney’s electability. I haven’t seen any of them saying he will be elected, just that he’s the best of the bunch for that purpose.
Jeb Bush–another Bush?
Mitch Daniels–his wife won’t let him.
Chris Christie–so the hard-hitting truth-teller was lying about running?
Paul Ryan–has any member of the House ever come close to winning the Presidency in the modern era? And maybe his social views are the same as Santorum’s. He used to work for Bill Bennett.
Bobby Jindal–remember his rebuttal to the first Obama SOTU?
None of the above disqualifies any of them, of course. But everybody has negatives. And I don’t want the nominee to be just August’s flavor of the month.
Here’s what I don’t get: a smart politician would be co-opting the message of successful opponents. Romney doesn’t seem to understand that concept. Ron Paul continues to be successful with younger voters and with those with a libertarian bent. I can understand that you wouldn’t want to adopt Paul’s foreign policy ideas but why not some of the rest of it? It might be more popular that what he’s run on so far.
I think Republican voters are just tired of what the party establishment wants to run. People were upset at McCain’s run and seem equally upset that Romney is the best they can come up with this time.
Teri Pittman: I think people have become petulant and immature. Part of the problem in the Republican Party is self-inflicted: people seem to want a perfection in candidates that they didn’t use to demand.
Also, because potential candidates have seen what the opposition and the MSM did to Palin, for example, I think those who might have run in former days are even more reluctant to do so.
BurkeanBadger,
You wrote:
“. . . a well organized, well funded Romney campaign, with the tacit support from much of the national Republican party. . . . I’m not sure Romney can ever convince most of his detractors”
I offer that this is the very crux of the issue. Many Republicans have questions about Romney’s ability to compete at the national level (I am one). I submit that he has not convinced his detractors within the party because he has never really tried to convince them.
His campaign seems to run on the premise that this is my message (which precludes a repudiation of Romneycare), I am the inevitable nominee, the Republican establishment is behind me, you should accept me, too. Would anyone buy an automobile froma salesman with such a “pitch?” If Romney would just begin to sell his business plan, like any good executive must to an investor, he might have more success, but as it is, he seems obsessed with a message that implies he’s being shoved down our collective throat.
This is precisely why I’ve supported Gingrich’s candidacy. He’s tactically brilliant (when he’s good, he’s very very good . . .) and win-or-lose Gingrich will go down fighting. Romney has yet to convince me of that fact and I haven’t been impressed with his campaign to neutralize Newt.
A final note, I don’t believe that Gingrich (or Romney) is unelectable in the national, but if the rumors are true, that the party establishment DOES believe even Romney will lose the national election anyway, then I want someone in place whose going to go down kicking and screaming and clawing the back of his adversary, not someone who meekly gives in to such a “preordained’ defeat.
The logic is that Romney would keep the house and carry the senate, but if any Repub is preordained otlose that such can be said for any nominee.
Sorry, literacy still needs to count!
Correction:
“The logic is that Romney would keep the house and carry the senate, but if any Repub is preordained to lose such can be said for any nominee.”
“people seem to want a perfection in candidates that they didn’t use to demand”
Neo: I think that’s a strawman. I argue this stuff a lot, among diverse factions, and I have trouble finding anyone who feels a perfect candidate exists. I see this claim being made when an arguer refuses to compromise on a particular point (or set of points) that another is willing to concede.
The issue not an unreasonable or emergent demand for perfection. It is a rejection of weak, compromised and inadequate candidates in a dysfunctional and unresponsive political culture.
Or as you posted a few days ago, “it was the pictures that got small”.
I don’t think that Republicans/conservatives are expecting some miracle candidate. They are just hoping for a candidate that can give a clear, coherent, and consistent argument for conservative principles. Newt did well in South Carolina precisely because he made a passionate argument about perceived media bias.
What we have now are Bohner, McConnel, and apparently Romney. All of whom seem perfectly willing to pay some lip service to conservative values but only if absolutely necessary. And only if we don’t insist that they actually support conservative principles.
For far too long the Republicans have been playing by the Marquis of Queensbury rules while the Dems have been engaging in a Mongolian Death Match.
foxmarks, et al: I wrote “people seem to want a perfection in candidates they didn’t used to demand.”
Not “a perfect candidate.” Perhaps I should have used a different word than “perfection” to express what I meant, so maybe this will make it clearer: “people seem to want a near-perfection in candidates they didn’t used to demand.” That is, to explain more fully: not a perfect candidate, but a candidate who is a far better match to the items in a longer checklist than people used to have.
Rightly or wrongly, people used to be okay with a candidate if he or she was just more conservative or more liberal than the opponent. Also, there were certain basic rules that kept things easier to figure out: for example, when I was a child, mere divorce was a big no-no. Adlai Stevenson’s being a divorced man who had never remarried was a big issue in the 50s, and I recall that Rockefeller’s career was considered handicapped because of his being a divorced man. (Reagan, by the way, was the first divorced president, and so far as I know he’s still the only one, and I think he got off the hook for being an ex-Hollywood guy and not a philanderer either). Plus, philanderers (JFK, LBJ) were protected by the press, and the public didn’t know about their feet of clay in that regard. So in a very general sense, candidates were vetted for scandal before they began, and/or the press protected them.
I think that a lot of this changed during the late 60s, as did so many things. The paternalistic decisions of the guys in the smoke-filled rooms were over, and the hegemony of the primaries gave the selection of the candidates a new populist slant. The parties moved more to the right (Republican) and more to the left (Democrat), and the more extreme wings of each party grew larger and more influential, and their demands more strident.
When I wrote “a perfection in candidates they didn’t used to demand” it was a shorthand for all of that, and more.
Is there some reason that Bob McConnel, Gov. of Virginia is rarely mentioned as a candidate for president? On paper he looks like a strong choice.
Jennifer Anniston? With the feminine softness of Madonna and the lilting, melodious voice of Woodie Allen?
I’m with Neo on this. People want the candidate who will take on the dems, the establishment, the beltway crowd, taxes, spending, or whatever. As soon as someone says the right thing or hits the right note, people overlook all their downsides. Some people don’t want to hear about the faults of their chosen one. They can’t even bear to hear an analyst analyze the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. And then when the flavor of the month melts, they have to blame someone. They can’t take responsibility for committing themselves before vetting the candidate. Mitt certainly has his weaknesses but I also think he is a bit of a scapegoat for their over-emotional misjudgements.
Just as the socialists have over the past 30-35 years captured the national Democratic party, the right must capture control of the go-along-to-get-along GOP. That must start by winning the Presidency with someone who will not obstruct that endeavor.
neoneocon says: My best guess right now is that any candidate who had entered this fray would have been under the same sort of attack. Their weaknesses would have been fully exploited by the other candidates and the MSM (and some of it made up or dredged up, as with Perry and the rock and Cain and the women). The pattern is too clear.
Not all weaknesses are created equal.
I’m afraid Romney is winning like Assad in Syria, because he has all the significant military hardware (money and organization forces). Eventually, he won’t be able to beat down opponents as defenseless as Santorum is when it comes to resources because that all becomes neutralized by a another who will match it.
These others (unlike Romney) at least sprung up despite their lack of resources before they got beaten down. (with the exception of Perry, but he fumbled rather badly in real time without bringing up a past)
Nolanimrod: well, I was remembering this.
Lots of good comments in this thread. I’m just getting caught up.
Pat, T, and LJ made some good points early on. I don’t dislike Santorum, but I don’t believe a social conservative can win a national election. Like it or not, social conservative values are anathema to many, many voters, and they will crawl across broken glass to vote against him.
I don’t believe that either Romney, Gingrich or Santorum can beat Obama in the general election. I think Ron Paul may be able to. He is the only economic conservative in the race, and that’s exactly what we need.
I think Paul can win a lot of votes among independents, young people, and disaffected Democrats. He would do better than any of the others in those categories. And aren’t we always being told that independents are the ones who decide elections?
There is no way that most young people will vote for any of the other three. When push comes to shove, they will default to Obama. Paul would give them an alternative, which some of them would happily take. (For that reason, I think an independent run by Paul would actually end up hurting Obama.)
Paul’s problem is that many conservative Republicans would stay home on Election Day, so he’d probably lose too.
Paul’s foreign policy seems to be a major sticking point for conservatives, but I can’t see how it could be any worse than Obama’s. I don’t believe that Paul hates America and wants to see it fail. I cannot say the same for Obama.
A lot of people dislike Paul’s supporters, and many of them do seem to be somewhat cultish. But the anti-Paul hatred I see at many conservative websites bothers me more. Sarah Palin recently said that Republicans had better not alienate Paul’s supporters. She’s right, as usual.
neo-neocon Says:
February 8th, 2012 at 5:23 pm
What I’ve seen during the past couple of election cycles is that media-run debates and opinion polls have largely pre-empted the primaries. That has the effect of declaring a clear front-runner before the first primary is held.
This gives enormous power and influence to the media. Frankly, I’d prefer the old-fashioned smoke-filled rooms.
rickl: like you, I have a lot of problems with the primaries. I think they lock a candidate in too early compared to deciding at a convention, like it used to be. And I think the fact that in a lot of states non-party members can vote skews the results at times.
But here’s what I wrote earlier about the issue you’re raising, or at least part of it.
rickl: some of the disaffected formerly-Obama-supporting young people I know are partial to Romney, although they can’t stand Gingrich or Santorum. I don’t personally know any Paul-supporters, but I know a lot of them are young.
neo:
Actually, that’s not what I said. The problem as I see it is that the primary system itself has been bypassed by the media-driven debates and the media-driven polls. The upshot is that the media declares a front-runner before any of those pesky voters get to have their say.
Neo said:
“I think that a lot of this changed during the late 60s, as did so many things. The paternalistic decisions of the guys in the smoke-filled rooms were over, and the hegemony of the primaries gave the selection of the candidates a new populist slant.”
Then Rickl said:
“This gives enormous power and influence to the media. Frankly, I’d prefer the old-fashioned smoke-filled rooms.”
I agree with Rickl. I challenge anyone to convince me that the primary system is producing better candidates than the old smoke filled room system.
Why is that? Well, think about the quality of the electorate in this country.
neo:
O.K., yes, many are much less willing to accept the same weight of flaws in a candidate these days. I hear that as support of my contention that people feel just going along with the party and the bumperstickers have led to a failed political system.
Also, we can more easily see the entire weight of flaws and have them analyzed by friends and foes alike. Vive l’internet!
Rolling some earlier comments with my caucus experience (and recognizing my animosity to Romney), it makes sense that the geriatrics like Mitt the most, while the youth like Paul the most. The elderly factions are more likely to trust the old methods of vetting, while the young factions are at ease digging into everyone’s flaws. It takes a significant amount of patience and research to understand much of Paul’s platform.
From what I see, there’s a lot of misunderstanding of Paul’s support. Yes, he gets half the college vote, but the average age of his people appears to be well over 30. And they’re not novices to politics, just to the conventional political process.
The Romney faction seems more cultish. With some notable exceptions [ 😉 ] it is platitudes and conventional wisdom. He does appear to be the least of the evils, if you still have faith in that strategy.
I have yet to penetrate any bastions of Santorum support. I hesitate to fault anyone for voting their religious values. Big media appears to condescend about “evangelicals”. That bothers me, because those values are worthwhile, just not germane to running the FedGov.
foxmarks: one thing I will say about Paul’s supporters is that they’re the only ones that seem truly enthusiastic about their candidate.
Although, as we saw in 2008, too much enthusiasm can sometimes segue into adulation.
@BurkeanBadger:
Romney’s biggest problem with the Tea Party folk is that he is the candidate the GOP establishment is trying to cram down our throats. That makes us gag.
They gave us Bush I, Dole, Bush II, and McCain. RINOs all. The Bush duo won but did nothing to reverse the progressive tide. Heck, they both contributed to it: Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, ADA and the Clean Air Act.
If Romney really wanted to win our support, he would need to prove he is a fighter for the Conservative cause. He could start by putting extra heat on Obama and Holder for Fast and Furious. He could get REALLY outraged on Obama’s attack on Catholics. There are a lot of issues where Romney could get us engaged. But all we see from him are millions of dollars spent on attack ads on fellow Republicans.
If Romney could put together an attack ad that hit Obama on his anti-Catholic position, embodied in Obamacare, he’d gain some traction. If he tied that to repeal of Obamacre, he’d get more.
He should have focused his fire on Obama. When the mood of the electorate is ABO, running dishonest ads about your fellow ABO candidates is counterproductive.
I think Romney would have been a better candidate than McCain in 2008. All that saved McCain from going down in Carter-like style was his VP pick. It is unusual when the VP candidate outdraws the head of the ticket, but she did. The left saw her as a bigger threat than RINO McCain and went after her with everything they had. Even now, most GOP voters suffer from PDS.
Romney really needs to appeal to the Conservative base. He has failed to do that, yet again. He needs to figure that out but it seems beyond him.
Pat: funny thing, I could have sworn that Bush I, Dole, Bush II, and McCain were all selected by voters through the primary process. What was crammed down your throats? Are you geese, being force-fed to donate your livers for pate de foie gras?
If there had been good enough conservative candidates they would have won the primaries and been the nominees. And if the conservative vote was split, and you think that was the problem, then conservatives could have fastened on the better conservative candidate and if that person had been popular enough with voters, he would have won.
I keep hearing about this cramming, but I’m not seeing it. Do you really think that if a candidate is praised by a couple of pundits, and endorsed by some Republicans in office, that the people don’t have the power to vote for whomever they want to?
Or do you think there should be no endorsements, no pundits, and no press? Or that they should only favor the candidate you (or conservatives) prefer?
foxmarks,
Are you saying that the young prefer to do their own vetting via internet? From what I’ve seen in comments on many sites, there is a tremendous amount of passing along slogans and catchy phrases, but not in depth understanding of issues or life in the real world. You get things like, we shouldn’t pay for military bases in Europe or Asia. Maybe, just maybe, it’s cheaper to have troops in South Korean than to fight a war involving China. These kinds of considerations escape some of the self vetters. You can always reject the advise of your elders, but it’s always a good idea to at least listen to the points they raise before coming to a conclusion. It’s a lot easier to spout principles than to apply them in a messy, messy world.
I want to restate a point I made above about selection of candidates via primaries.
Our country’s founders did everything they could to put the selection of our government as far away from the general population as possible and still allow them to have a say in who governed.
They allowed the states to impose strict regulations on who could vote. They placed the Electoral College between the general population and election of the President. Senators were elected by state legislators. Members of the Supreme Court weren’t elected directly…they were chosen by the President and approved by the Senate. Only House members were directly elected which gave the general population some say about things.
Our founders didn’t trust the general population to select a government.
Know what? Our founders were right.
expat:
I am suggesting that people under 40 have probably read more about any candidate they take the time to rally or caucus for than have people over 60. My experience with Paul people is broader than reading blog comments. Your reference to their depth suggests you’re buying the conception that only college sophomores are supporting RP.
You might also be dealing with a “comments-quality” version of Paul’s policy. Wise elder shouldn’t blithely dismiss those who find yesterday’s solutions to yesterday’s problems of little value in today’s world. What I find astounding is how many of Paul’s people are versed in issues that four years ago were arcane.
As a parallel, if I look to the comments at Ace of Spades as a measure of conservative thought, I would conclude that the GOP is populated with cro-magnons.
texexec:
The Founders’ embraced the idea that the FedGov was a representative of State gov’ts, not of the people directly. What Hamilton and Marshall started with their Federalist activism, the Progressives brought to fruition. The Republic was sacrificed for a national identity and majority tyranny.
@neoneocon – From Wikipedia:
The GOP has some say in the primary process and it has not done anything to reduce the effect of open primaries. Nineteen states have open primaries, so the impact is large. The national GOP can rule that Florida lose half its delegates because it moved its primary up. It could just as easily penalize states that allow open primaries. Obviously, the GOP establishment likes open primaries. It was primary voters who selected McCain but it was not GOP primary voters.
There is also the issue of money. Bundlers play an enormous role in funding campaigns:
Oops, forgot to close second quote. My words restart at “These GOP establisment bundlers…”.
Pat: of course the “Republican elites” have influence and money. But voters are neither sheep nor lemmings, and nothing was crammed down their throats.
Re the exit polls and crossover voting in primaries: in states with crossover primaries, many many people who are actually aligned with one party or another purposely register as Independents in order to be free to vote in either party’s primaries. Therefore many of those Independents who voted for McCain were actually Republicans. The exit polls at that Wiki site tell us very little about who actually won those states among people who are really Republican but not registered as such (who would be included among “others” in the chart).
What’s more, looking at those statistics at the Wiki site, what is most clear is that even if McCain did not win those first few states (and that’s really all we’re talking about here—the first four states), he either tied (Florida, the state with the most typical voter democraphics) or came within one point (New Hampshire) or a couple of points of winning (South Carolina, the most conservative of them, and Missouri) even among registered Republicans. And after that he seems to have won even registered Republicans in the states he won.
So I fail to see how this has anything to do with cramming a candidate down anyone’s throats. Now, if there had only been one conservative opponent (remember that in 2008 Romney was considered a conservative candidate, as was Huckabee), it might have been different, but that was the candidates’ choice; not the “establishment’s”.
Isn’t it funny how Romney was a conservative choice in 2008 but in 2012 he’s the one the establishment is “cramming down your throat”? What a difference 4 years make, eh?
Open primaries give independents an opportunity to emotionally invest in GOP candidates. Closing primaries may prevent enemy disruptions to a nomination, but may ultimately diminish support in the general election.
foxmarks: and many many Independents are not really independent. They either always vote for one party or another in the general, or they lean that way. They register Independent in order to be able to vote in either primary. And it’s hard to distinguish them from the true Independents. That’s one of the problems with crossover primaries—if you close the primary to only party members, you miss the true Independents. And if you don’t, you get the fake ones crossing over to purposely gum up the works.
A single-axis political spectrum and a two-party system are two heads of the same Hydra. It forces people to choose between
Coke or Pepsipaper or plastic, otherwise they’re disenfranchised.Proportional representation might allow more viable parties and eliminate the crossover issue. The original Constitution, with Electors appointed by State legislatures, was on the right track.
My theme these days seems to be that the Republic has been sacrificed on the pyre of democracy…