Mr. Serious Business said:
As for Mitt Romney, he CAN NOT get elected president. I'm not generally a Sith and I don't enjoy speaking in absolutes, but really. Romney was a weak candidate in the weak 2008 field of McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, and the other forgettable people whose names I can't remember. He was generally laughed at in the debates for flip-flopping on what he said. Romney can't attack Obama on health care (which is arguably his weakest point). He's not Catholic or Protestant, raised taxes as governor (and balanced the budget, but I don't think that matters to Republicans), and is a rich CEO running against two relatively modest earners (Obama and Biden). He just feels like a weak compromise candidate (Bob Dole 2.0, if you will), and not very exciting.
I can not disagree more. Romney is perhaps the most electable candidate out there from an electoral collage point-of-view. You seem to talk in generalizations and leftist talking-points, as if those grant insight into what motivates the 40% of the country who
are conservatives. And to be frank, it *appears* like the mentality at work above is one of throwing ideological crap at the wall in the hopes one of the charges stick without really knowing anything about the why behind it.
Romney's problems in 2008 are traceable in large measure to Alex Gage (cue furious googling), who is something of a genius on his own. His claim to fame was in, along with W's chief pollster Matt Dowd, getting Rove on board with microtargetting of voters and the huge investment needed in information technology and modeling of electoral turn-out based on history, economics, etc. It won huge in 2002 and 2004, so Romney got him on board early. Unfortunately, they misanalysed the data they were getting on what people wanted in 2008 and Romney went hard right. It was the smart play, Hillary fell to a similar fate listening to Mark Penn -- all politicians are suseptable. It also demonstrates the shortcoming with any such advanced modeling (ie. CBO projections included), they have trouble predicting chaotic events that create waves through the voter population. Even until Super Tuesday, Gage was sure there was a large enough conservative majority to do it. I think Romney finally dropped the advise and went back to being more himself around Michigan?! As I said, you can't fault him for taking advise which worked to
historic outcomes in both 2002 and 2004. Hillary, who is clever as a fox, did the same with Mark Penn's strategy, only changing after the momentum had shifted dramatically -- and why wouldn't she... it worked like a charm every time before.
IMHO: Romney is amazingly underestimated given Obama's amazingly underestimated troubles due to how I think the economy impacts demographics. I think if you look back to my 2010 predictions, they were some of the closest. His path to 270 is pretty elegant actually. The template is W in 2000, and because of the electoral college reallocation following the 2010 census, he can now lose both Colorado and Nevada and still win with 270 exactly. That's a pretty friendly map to play with if you base your campaign on jobs and the economy.
Got to love the libertarians in NH, polling since April:
Romney 46, Obama 44 (PPP-Democratic)
Romney 47, Obama 43 (WMUR-UNH)
Romney 47, Obama 39 (Dartmouth)
(
link to polling)
He can then look for a buffer by playing in Nevada (~10% Mormon), Wisconsin, Michigan. Pennsylvania is a fools errand for republicans, but who knows. Virginia will be an epic scorthed-earth battleground given the Senate rematch and the Presidential outcomes will likely mirror that. That's an electable map!
On all the talk of
he can't do this.... he can't talk Obamacare... Oh yes he can. But at the end of the day, the 2012 election will not be a 2010 redux. It will not be ideological, it doesn't have to be when unemployment is above 9%, GDP is stagnant, the debt is soaring, and inflation in key household products are rising.
The election is simple. Anecdotally, I had drinks with a friend at the Witt in Chicago the other day, he was a decent sized Clinton donor, is gay and anti-war of course, has lost his small business in the last year, is amazingly bitter and absolutely turned against Obama. He said he can't wait to vote for Romney -- I was in shock, but there is something to it. Call him silly or whatever, but it demonstrates the Carville principle at work...
It's been 4 years: I like President Obama, but I like a Paycheck more.
