I guess Geroge Will must support Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry or Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann or Ron Paul or Gary Johnson or Jon Huntsman, because he sure doesn’t support Mitt Romney.
Romney, supposedly the Republican most electable next November, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable; he might damage GOP chances of capturing the Senate. Republican successes down the ticket will depend on the energies of the Tea Party and other conservatives, who will be deflated by a nominee whose blurry profile in caution communicates only calculated trimming.
Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from “data” (although there is precious little to support Romney’s idea that in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants is a powerful magnet for such immigrants) and who believes elections should be about (in Dukakis’s words) “competence,” not “ideology.” But what would President Romney competently do when not pondering ethanol subsidies that he forthrightly says should stop sometime before “forever”? Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?
I’d note that the latest Economist/YouGov Poll (pdf) has Herman Cain at 28% among likely Republican primary voters, followed by Romney at 24% and Rick Perry and Ron Paul both at nine percent. Since Herman Cain is basically a joke candidate, that means that Republicans prefer a joke to Mitt Romney. But it’s a narrow victory for comedy. Rick Perry, on the other hand, is getting less than one third of the support enjoyed by Cain.
I guess George Will is trying to turn things around, but I am going to remember what Mr. Will wrote about Romney when he’s the Republican nominee.