That Damned Mitt Romney

I caught some poling data for Texas and Ohio on Fox - McCain is losing a third of the vote to Huckabee in Texas and about 28% in Ohio. It isn't that I think Romney could have won straight out - and really he had no choice - staying in would have hurt him too much with the GOP establishment - but at least with him in the race, it would be much more clear what an unacceptable nominee is John McCain for conservatives.

I just don't know how that tracks in the general election right now. But it is difficult for me to imagine a nominee doing real well with so much resistance within the base. The dynamics are really going to have to be changed between now and November for there to be much confidence in a Republican win. On the other hand, I think a reasonable nominee that inspired at least some emotion in the base could beat either Obama, or Hillary.

It sure is going to be an interesting Fall, or maybe fall for one party or the other, depending on your view.

Comments

[sand dollar]

His religion, to which he remained true, finished Romney. Do you really prefer a black nationalist church member as Obama is? The muslim connection, and there is one, continues to be troubling. When is our sanctified media going to start investigating his background...and...it HAS to be BEFORE the election. The media has been Obama's biggest cheerleader. Ye Gods!

[Thunder Pig]

What you should be heartily damning is open primaries. That (and the RINOs) is what gave us the abomination that is McCain. As a Fred Head, I also point my finger at Fred because he wasn't serious about being President. I think that Hillary scared everyone away on our side because we (as a party) had built her up to be such a formidable foe, everyone was treating it as a practice run for 2012.

Also, when did our party become so much like the Democrats that nearly a dozen (presumably) grown men divide the conservative vote to the point where McCain came striding through? It is a crime that there were more than three running after New Hampshire. The bottom-feeders (including Fred) should have been men enough to bow out.

We should be very thankful that Obama will be dispatched very easily this fall...we will have dodged a bullet that could have been fatal. (Provided the MSM can't save Obama from defeat).

Docweasel:
The kind of stuff you are so upset over about being anti-Catholic (or anit-Mormon for that matter) goes on in almost every church I have ever attended. But we won't get into theology here, I'll just comment that we all have a right to our belief systems. Get over it.

Despite that, I would still vote for a Catholic or Mormon for President, provided their political positions were acceptable. I find Huckabee more unacceptable than McCain (and McCain makes me carpet-chewing mad) because of his populism and class warfare rhetoric.
At least I am seeing new faces at our precinct meetings now. People have decided to take the party back from the RINOs.

[Dan Riehl]

weasel - you need to get over your romney obsession. My post didn't have anything to do with suggesting he would have been the nominee and I was one of the few who placed his failure on him as a candidate and said he likely wouldn't get another shot. Either read and keep up, or shut up and stop making yourself look so stupid. The point of the post is the unacceptability of McCain to conservatives. It has nothing to do with propping Romney up. But I guess you never have been able to get away from your anti-mormon bigotry. You must be one of those so-called Christians I've been reading about.

[cargosquid]

Just start stocking up on bourbon and Scotch now. Its going to be a looooonng four years......

[LOL]

Dick Cheney's family campaigned for Mitt Romney. He didn't lose because he wasn't part of the establishment (he is). He lost because very few people liked him or his platform.

[Terry Gain]

"Dick Cheney's family campaigned for Mitt Romney. He didn't lose because he wasn't part of the establishment (he is). He lost because very few people liked him or his platform."
---
It would be more accurate to say people were too dim to recognize his great platform and the brilliant man behind it.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people let the media do their thinking for them. We had a good example of that last night on Hannity's America. Frank Luntz's focus group were highly enthusiastic and approving of an Obama speech where pretended that he stands for a less partisan America. I can understand the desire of these people for less rancorous times but the fact of the matter is that Obama is such a hardened leftist that he would be an extremely polarizing President.

And a complete disaster.

[Wahoo Willie]

"what gave us the abomination that is McCain"

Nope, what gave us McCain is that the repubs squandered eight years letting GW make clowns of the party and not grooming someone to take on THE HILDABEAST so now we're going to have an Obamanation for at least four years.

[tk]

I agree with Wahoo Willie, George Bush should have had Cheney leave after 4 years and bring in some new who could be running now. Bush is just too closed minded to consider the interest of others, he never reaches out, an that is what you do in politics.

[seekeronos]

Heh... Dan, I hardly think that Doc Weasel cottons much to Christianity (or at least the morality to which a good many Christians might consider appropriate and decent) with all the raw T&A on display at his blog.

For all his invective against Mormons being evil cultists - and I don't deny that they have some disagreeable teachings presently, and certainly some rather notorious practices in the past - focusing solely on these without really pointing out Mitt's other deficiencies as a candidate seems to be to be quite narrow-minded.

As for Bill Donahue, I can't really get too bothered by what he has to say. He is as much of a "religion" baiter whose stock and trade in Catholic identity politics adequately pays his bills as Sharpton or Jackson are for their adherents.

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For ThunderPig: (cool sounding nick, btw)

"--- Also, when did our party become so much like the Democrats that nearly a dozen (presumably) grown men divide the conservative vote to the point where McCain came striding through? It is a crime that there were more than three running after New Hampshire. The bottom-feeders (including Fred) should have been men enough to bow out. ---"

I can't say that I agree completely, on account of IA and NH are really much more isolated in recent years than they had been in terms of their representing an accurate cross-section Americans. IA was naturally skewed to Huckabee as a populist social conservative (to the degree that the retail politicking didn't involve lining up all the corn farmers to kiss their collective butts with promises of ethanol subsidies) .

NH skewed heavily to McCain in 2000, and he was a clear favourite from the word go, especially with Independents and even some Dems crossing over to support him. NH is typically secular and liberal leaning as well, which helped to put the "religious and social conservative" candidates like Huck and Mitt (although Mitt didn't too too badly, as he really isn't *that* socially conservative, or perhaps his ground team didn't play that particular card as much as he did out west) to the back of the bus as well.

I'd say that the having everyone but the top five (Mitt, Fred, Huck, Rudy, McCain) dropping out after NH would have been better, and then having Fred and Rudy drop out after SC might have played better.

If Fred had dropped out prior to SC, his 15% or nearly 70,000 votes might have went to either McCain or Huckabee as readily as they might have gone to Mitt, and would have made no real difference: having things narrowed to just Huck, Mitt and McCain immediately after NH would have still produced a McCain nomination, perhaps a lot faster.

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For Terry:

"--- Unfortunately, the vast majority of people let the media do their thinking for them. We had a good example of that last night on Hannity's America. Frank Luntz's focus group... ---"

This is so very true, and so very sad. Charlatans and spin operators like Luntz showing off his focus group swooning over the candidate "du jour" seem to be pretty manufactured, and seem to go a long way to luring the average sheep that watches FoxNews into thinking whatever steaming piles of poop that Hannity or the other talking heads produce are nuggets of gold.

[tally]

i can't speak for ohio, but i can for texas. there will never be a way to figure out what the primary would have been if romney had stayed in. he would not have taken votes away from huckabee, those people are set. he (or who ever) and mccain would have split the votes, how i don't know. seems like fred was doing okay early, can't remember. the current polls and early voting numbers are all jacked up because droves of republicans who hate hillary ran out and voted for obama (and i'm talking droves, especially white guys). i also hate her but have decided obama is flat out dangerous, so i'm doing the opposite. i don't need to vote or caucus for mccain, he has it in the bag. i liked duncan hunter and rudy the best, but i'm not whinning. like mitt they lost, time to suck it up. hope they allow barf bags in the caucus room, i'm going to need it.

[joeb]

tally has it right. white men vote for Obama because they hate Hillary. In the general election they will ALL come back and vote for McCain. Go Johnny Go!
Politics is like sports. When your team loses there is nothing left to do but blame the referees.

[Beth]

"The point of the post is the unacceptability of McCain to conservatives. "

Really? I didn't realize I wasn't a conservative!
In fact, I'm probably as conservative as anyone, Rush Limbaugh included, and I'm fully in support of McCain and have been since Fred Thompson dropped out. It was an easy choice, too.

Frankly, I find it amusing that some think it's the "GOP establishment" or (as Rush says) "country club Republicans" who supposedly anointed (how, I don't know) McCain. See, I'm not even close to being country club, and I'm not GOP establishment either. I'm just a voter who thinks our military deserves a Commander in Chief who will do the job well, and who believes we grow conservatism by adding Republicans to the party, not by subtraction.

Dan, I don't understand why you insist on tearing down OUR candidate. What do you hope to accomplish? Do you *want* Hillary or Obama as President? 'Cause see, I fail to see how that qualifies one as a conservative. It *certainly* isn't, by Reagan's standards. Maybe by Ann Coulter's standards, but how many people has she converted to conservatism? I'd guess zero, and more likely her slash-and-burn style has turned people away. Personally, I resent the hell out of how she makes conservatism look angry, vengeful, and bitter to people who might otherwise be receptive to the conservative ideology. (Remember Reagan Democrats? They weren't Reagan Democrats because he was bitter and exclusive.)

I don't buy that "four years and we'll get a real conservative elected" nonsense, either. That's risible wishful thinking. Mark my words, it isn't going to happen that way--not this time. This isn't 1980, the political center HAS moved leftward, and there's no Reagan waiting in the wings. We need to repair the image of our party FIRST, and John McCain is the only one who can make it respectable again to the rest of the country. Scandals, political cowardice, and corruption have done us NO good, and McCain is exactly the right man to change that image. Even (reasonable) people who disagree with his politics respect him.

[syn]

I used to be one who thought 'Rush was a right-wing nutcase out to destroy America' without ever having listened to his show then 9/11/2001 came along, as did change, which eventually led me to tune into his show sometime around the beginning of 2003.

I find it odd to hear so many Republicans today saying the some of the things I said back in the 1990s.

Also, I do find it strange that many Republicans believe McCain deserves respect for implying time and again that Conservatives are 'bigots, nativists, racists' simply because Conservatives have respect for immigration laws.

Beth, there are 'country-clubbers' in the Republican party, I've met quite a few over the last couple of years; they look down on pro-lifers, they like cheap illegal immigrants to clean their homes and mow their lawns, they're just as obnoxious about instilling health-freak nazism and eco-imperialist misery as are their Collectivist friends, and they don't want their pasty-faced sons and daughters to join the military. The only thing 'country-clubbers' like about Conservatives is the part about not allowing the government to seize their profits through high taxation.

But you are right this is not 1980 and we're not suffering under a high Misery Index.

That said; despite the fact that The Polls gave him the nomination and despite all the questions I have about McCain's intentions I will still pull the lever for our troops and their mission; they have given so much of themselves for me that I owe them my vote even if it means I have to pull the lever for McCain.

[syn]

One more point, another problem with Mccain is that he believes the way to grow the Republican Party is by adopting Liberalism.

Reagan believed the way to grow the Republican Party was helping Liberals adopt Conservativism.

Of course, stupid me, I missed the revolution since I was just entering college and wanted to get on with the liberal narcissism I lived until I watched the towers crumble into ash.