Things have been crazy over the last few days. Still, everything is pointing to a win (possibly a huge win) for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. And with Romney suddenly ducking Monday’s debate in Tampa, it appears like the wheels are coming off the frontrunner’s car. Floridians go to the polls on Tuesday, and they may go there with Romney’s collapse and cowardice fresh in their minds. If Romney loses Florida, I wonder where he will ever win again. Even if he pulls out a win in the Nevada caucuses, I don’t know that that will be enough to help him rebound.
For most of the last year I’ve been thinking two totally irreconcilable things. Either I convince myself that Romney will win everywhere because his opponents are ridiculous or I convince myself that Romney will lose the nomination because the GOP base is so radical.
I’d say that I still lean towards Romney winning by default, but he’s really such a bad candidate that he’s not creating much room between him and the ridiculous candidates. Maybe he sucks so much as a politician that Newt Gingrich is actually more electable. I’m beginning to entertain that idea. And I think a lot of Republicans are, too.
Short answer is Yes he is fatally lame.
Longer answer is that he would never win the South. By that I mean the Old South(tm). The South West maybe sorta but flip a coin.
He said some nonsense the other day about wishing it was winner take all. BS. He is counting on doing well enough in enough states to win a majority.
This is Mitt. He is a strategist. He adopts whatever tactics he needs not close the deal but make the deal inevitable.
His tax issue is a stumper. Why can’t he craft a tactic to deal with it? I dunno – but neither does Mitt.
So what happens?
Mitt takes majority of delegates and maybe absolute majority but now things are more interesting than last week.
Good take.
Isn’t South Carolina more or less the “Old South”? I assume there’s some moderate republicans there, but it’s a solid red state.
If Gingrinch pulls out a win, I’d say that’s a indication of what’s going to happen in the South.
There’s at least three large problems for Romney:
1.) He’s perceived as an “east coast liberal/moderate”.
2.) How he made his fortune.
3.) He’s a Mormon.
#1 of course is being exploited by “real” conservatives Gingrinch and Santorum.
I think there’s a bigger issue with Mitt. He’s an opportunist, willing to take any position he thinks will win him support at the specific moment. In particular, he was willing to make himself a Republican apostate in order to win elections in Massachusetts.
Sure you can accuse Newt and a host of other Republicans before him of flip-flopping on issues, but his stand has always been solidly in line with the Republican party position at the time. He was for mandates when Republicans were trying to derail Clinton’s health care bill and he was against mandates when Republicans were trying to derail Obama’s health care bill. He dropped the market oriented cap-and-trade stance as soon as the word went out from Murdoch that global warming is a hoax.
Newt is self-centered and egotistical, but he’s also solidly in line with maximizing Republican power. Mitt is in this exclusively for himself.
Big money still wants Mitt. There’s always a significant likelihood that Newt will act erratically, crash and burn. Mitt wins.
I’m starting to wonder if ‘erratic’ is a negative to R primary voters.
And Romney has this in the bag. He’ll lose SC, then open both barrels with a negative onslaught that buries News in FL. Then he’ll win.
And I’d prefer to run against Rmoney than Gingrich, too. I think, contra everyone else in the universe, than Gingrich is the stronger general election candidate, at least post ‘major party nominee’ media fluffery.
The Florida primary is not this coming Tuesday but the Tuesday after that. I think he still has time to recover if Carolina goes bad for him. He has a lot of money for ads and that seems to work in Florida. He’s still one of the weakest major nominees of my lifetime. Maybe Dukakis or Mondale come close. And Obama is the coolest motherfucking president that I’ve ever witnessed. Al fucking Green man.
It’s interesting to think, if the GOP primary turns from Romney to Newt, one could argue pretty strongly that it’s all due to Juan Williams. Newt was having a strong performance as it was, compared to Mitt anyway, but gawd that SC audience couldn’t get enough of the fat white man sneering at the uppity black NPR guy. And you heard that woman at his gathering later thanking him for “putting that Juan Williams in his place? Oh yeah, if Newt pulls ahead, that will have been the main reason.
Sure, but Newt was going to be sneering at someone. He was going to attack the liberal media and he was going to be using thinly veiled racist language to do it. Juan was simply a target of opportunity.
I can’t help thinking though, somebody got setup there somewhere. Either Fox News set Williams up with that question, or Williams set up an easy knockdown for Newt. I mean, come on, to ask a question about racist behavior to the most belligerent candidate in the race on that stage in front of that audience, with the implication that racist attitudes are somehow a bad thing…Williams must have seen well in advance how that was going to turn out, especially given that crowd’s behavior by that point in the debate. And it absolutely turned Gingrich’s campaign around.
Similar with John King’s opening question at the last debate. Everybody knows how Newt treats questions from the media about subjects that he doesn’t like, and it was well-understood that that audience was just slavering for some red-meat hostility from their boy.
Or maybe I’m just seeing things that aren’t there.
I can see John King being in on a set up. His clueless stare after Newt gives a perfectly predictable response to a question everyone expected demonstrates that he’s at best a terrible moderator and at worst complicit. King asking the question at the start short circuited any traction that Santorum, Paul or Romney could have gained from it later in the debate.
But Williams actually pushed back when Newt challenged his right to ask the question and I’m guessing he was quite sincere in asking it. I’m not sure Newt’s response went over so well outside of the debate hall. His crowd applauded sure. But he lost points in the general election, should he ever get there.
I can also see John King being the butt of a set up, given his blank stare that you note, although you neglected to mention he did try very feebly to push back on Newt’s response too, (“hey man, it was ABC’s story, not CNN), but even that seemed to be scripted to invite another diatribe, so who knows.
I realize that SC has a sizable black population, but I doubt many of them vote GOP and therefore weren’t likely significantly represented in the audience. And given that, and SC’s well-deserved reputation for vicious racist proclivities (again among the GOP, don’t want to offend those SC’ians of good will, hey, I’m from OK and it’s about the same but dumber, and with mustaches), I can’t see how Juan Williams could have imagined his question getting any other result than it ultimately got. Maybe he was playing some sort of long game with the GE in mind, but I sorta doubt it.
Simple answer to simple question: Yes
But then you have to ask:
Is Gingrich fatally manic and grandiose?
Is Santorum fatally sanctimonious?
Is Ron Paul fatally marginal to the GOP?
And most importantly, who has coattails?
That’s what bothers me about Newt. I think out of all the candidates, he has the most potential to bring out the insane base for downticket races. All in all I see Romney as the candidate that fewer voters will turn out for. Newt, I think, may be a much bigger driver for the Palin troglodytes we saw back in in ‘008. Not to mention how damaged Romney already is as a candidate for the general.
Downticket is the only issue this year for those who want to stop the madness.
I don’t want to concern troll the issue, but I do have serious worries about voter suppression tactics. Aside from that, though, I agree with your statement 100%.
He’s lame. He’s not fatally lame until he wakes up and is no longer white. No GOP aspirant is.
What have I been saying? I don’t think the primary electorate really wants a dressed up waffling moderate. They want a bomb thrower and Vegas resentment act. Newt could be their guy.
Republicans sure go over their role-models-for-children-in-the-White-House requirement rather quickly.
How does “President and Current Lady Gingrich” sound?
I just cannot believe how bad a campaigner Romney is when he’s actually ya know challenged on his BS.
In what world would his campaign believe that even floating the idea that Romney may not be at the debate on Monday would be a good PR move.
Frist, if he doesn’t show up ya know he’s be considered a coward. Second, unlike the clown show that would have been the “Trump debate” this is a legitamate debate. So the other 3 contestants (maybe 2, can Santorum stand to come in 4th after Ron Paul???) will surely show up to tout the weight of their cojones in comparison to Romney.
If Romney wants to win the nom he has to show up at the debate particularly after such a poss big lose in SC. Hello, Obama surely lost pretty big in NH right and we got the “Yes We Can” speech. If Romney’s gonna go up against Obama well dag, the man’s gotta so some heart right???”Disappointment doesn’t kill. Rejection kills, disappointment only maims.”
I swear I heard John King on CNN today saying that there is a internal fight in the Romney camp on whether or not Romney needs to show tax returns.
John King said something about the problem being that Romney is a pretty “private” fellow and that having to release tax return amounts to an invasion of his privacy???
Really Romney, Really??? If you are running for President, unfortunately, you have no privacy
Hell if elected President…you have no privacy.
The fact that they even have to debate this does not bode well for RomneyIf there is nothing in the tax return then release them for Christ’s sake.
I really can’t get over Romney’s answer to John King about his father having released his taxes for 12 years….
I mean how do you NOT have an answer for something that EVERYONE is talking about????
I rarely read Clive Crook, but I totally agree with this blog post of his.
“Why Does Romney Want to Be President?”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/why-does-romney-want-to-be-president/251726/
Unfortunately, the party of beat Obama at all costs, won’t entertain until it’s too late what the world stage would look like with Gingrich applying his tactics on Putin or worse yet on our allies.
And as much as I’ve enjoyed slamming Mitt for his tax return fiasco, this week’s Mitt void has me convinced that he has been turned defenseless because there really is something indefensible in those returns. His handlers may or may not know the truth, but their plan seems to have been hold off the hounds until the party nominated him and it is too late to go back.
The analogy of do they want a wife cheater or a tax/American people cheater in the White House…all for the insane reason of ousting a president who is more on their side than they’ll ever acknowledge is pretty damn stupid.
1144 delegates to win GOP nomination.
Here are just 7 states with about 40% of that total between them:
Virginia – 49
Massachusetts – 41
Maryland – 37
New York – 95
California – 172
New Jersey – 50
Utah – 40
Gingrich isn’t even on Virginia ballot. Other 6 states are likely to go overwhelmingly for Mittster.
Mitt just has to do reasonably well in the other 40 primaries/caucuses to hit 1144. It’s hard to see a way he fails to do that, when Gingrich and Paul are likely to be the only others standing after Florida.
So the Romneybot may be lame, but not fatally for GOP nomination. Of course, the injuries may — one hopes — make Obama’s general election task equivalent to a Dick Cheney hunting party.
Should we worry about Joe Biden? And will Biden have to apologize?
Analogies can be dangerous.
Ever consider the possibility that the race is being run purposely close, so that money will pour into the candidate’s SuperPACs for the longest period of time, and with the most motivated donors (one pile each for the Libertarian, Evangelican, Wall Street and Reaganite wings of the party). Why? So it all can be pooled to defeat Obama. Yes, the candidates are coming out damaged by the whole reality show aspect of it all, but they are also getting all the laundry done with while raising name recognition, and the winner may well be sitting on the largest pool of campaign cash ever assembled (well, next to it).