# 20/20 hindsight: Pubs shoulda nominated Romney **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 8, 2008, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976 "2008-10-08T12:11:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/21 "2008-10-08T18:32:37Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I don’t think it would have mattered, to be honest. Obama has run a flawless campaign thus far and I’m thinking that none of the Republican contenders would have fared much better than McCain did. I think it was just Obama’s year. > > -XT I’ll agree with half: Obama has run one of the best campaigns imaginable. It’s that good. (Hillary was my first choice). McCain has run an abysmal campaign. The worst I’ve ever seen. His rating on a scale of 1 to 10 would be a minus 3. This has little to do (but not nothing) with the fact that he is a Republican and I don’t vote Republican. His suspending his campaign and not suspending the interviews and TV ads (or anything else). His statement that he knows nothing about the economy, the economic fundamentals are sound. His complaints about “earmarks” of 18 billion days after voting for $870 billion in special Wall Street Pork. His choice of Winky Palin: it may play to the base, but you need more than the base to win, and it hurts with the undecideds. McCain seems to be a Democratic plant much like Kerry in 04 and Lieberman in 00 appeared to be Republican plants. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/22 "2008-10-08T18:58:40Z")
Personally, I’m still a little surprised that it wasn’t Guiliani: He’s close enough to the center on enough issues that he probably could have swung the general, even against the juggernaut campaign Obama’s been running. Or at least, he could have certainly given it a better go than McCain has. Then again, though, “close to center” isn’t the way to win a primary, given that the primary races tend to select for the more extreme elements of both parties. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/23 "2008-10-08T19:15:46Z")
Yep, another spoiled rich kid to relate to the problems of main street America. He would have been easy to defeat. That is why he missed the nomination so badly. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/24 "2008-10-08T19:58:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, I’m still a little surprised that it wasn’t Guiliani: He’s close enough to the center on enough issues that he probably could have swung the general, even against the juggernaut campaign Obama’s been running. Or at least, he could have certainly given it a better go than McCain has. Then again, though, “close to center” isn’t the way to win a primary, given that the primary races tend to select for the more extreme elements of both parties. No, he’s not. Giuliani is pretty much the opposite of the Republican core on all of their key issues and has a legion of undead in his closet. Charlie Cook rightly said that he, a rather rotund little man, would win the Tour de France before Rudy would be the Republican nominee. Speaking as a New Yorker who lived under his regime, it is no shock whatsoever that the rest of the country had little enthusiasm for the 9/11 Mayor. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/25 "2008-10-08T20:09:30Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Well, I think Palin has actually helped McCain…and I think she has given him a bigger boost than Romney would have. I think she gave him a bigger initial boost, but I don’t think she has helped him in the long run. He was looking for some short-term glam and got it, but even so the convention bounce was predictable (not by me, by people who are studying these things) and not at all out of line for previous conventions. So, it seems that he got precisely the same VP and convention bounce that he would have if he had chosen Romney or Thompson. Maybe (probably?) more of a bounce than he would have gotten choosing Ridge or Lieberman. Less of a bounce than he would have gotten choosing the dug up corpse of Ronald Reagan. Despite the age of one candidate, the color of the other, and the sex of one running mate, this has the makings of a conventional election season. We’re being distracted, it seems, by strobe lights and special effects, but the actors are still just performing Hamlet. Crap, I hit submit before answering the question in the OP. Romney would have had more credibility on the economy issue, but would have been trailing more to start with. I genuinely think that McCain was the best shot the Republicans had this cycle. There was something “wrong” with every major candidate in both major parties, and McCain’s “something wrong” was less than any other Republican “something wrong.” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/26 "2008-10-08T20:10:01Z")
No, Rudy was never going anywhere. He fell in the polls everyplace he campaigned. The “America’s Mayor” thing has become ancient history for most people, and when GOP voters saw him up close, they noticed the same flaws that New Yorkers noticed: he’s snide, capricious and flat-out unpleasant. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/27 "2008-10-08T20:17:25Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > McCain has run an abysmal campaign. The worst I’ve ever seen. His rating on a scale of 1 to 10 would be a minus 3. This has little to do (but not nothing) with the fact that he is a Republican and I don’t vote Republican. His suspending his campaign and not suspending the interviews and TV ads (or anything else). His statement that he knows nothing about the economy, the economic fundamentals are sound. His complaints about “earmarks” of 18 billion days after voting for $870 billion in special Wall Street Pork. His choice of Winky Palin: it may play to the base, but you need more than the base to win, and it hurts with the undecideds. McCain seems to be a Democratic plant much like Kerry in 04 and Lieberman in 00 appeared to be Republican plants. I disagree. I think that McCain’s actions in the past couple of weeks (I originally wrote “weaks” which was a fortuitous typo) have been rather spastic, but they make a certain amount of sense given that the campaign was legitimately losing. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/28 "2008-10-08T20:20:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > …when GOP voters saw him up close, they noticed the same flaws that New Yorkers noticed: he’s snide, capricious and flat-out unpleasant. So they chose McCain? Pan. Fire. _JUMP!!_ ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/29 "2008-10-08T20:53:05Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > As it was, I voted for Hillary. Never thought I’d say that. [hijack] Words you never thought you’d say? Only three evenings ago, I told a pollster, “I’m going to vote for Nixon.” [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/30 "2008-10-08T21:01:13Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > [hijack] > Words you never thought you’d say? Only three evenings ago, I told a pollster, “I’m going to vote for Nixon.” > [/hijack] And it says something about me, a resident of Virginia, that I knew who you were talking about when I read the name. I didn’t remember who he was, but I knew it was Jay Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/31 "2008-10-08T21:19:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, I think Palin has actually helped McCain…and I think she has given him a bigger boost than Romney would have. JMHO and I realize that the amount of venom directed at Palin around here is going to make this position unpopular. I disagree. I think Palin is the equivalent of a sugar rush - everybody got real excited for a short while (she was certainly a choice that got talked about more than Romney or anyone else would have). But once the buzz wore off and people started thinking about her actually becoming President, the poll numbers dropped. People like her but they don’t see her as a serious candidate. It wasn’t an insurmountable problem - there was time when people didn’t think Obama or Clinton or Romney had a chance either. But they were able to spend months out in the field, convincing people that they were credible candidates. Palin didn’t have that opportunity (assuming she had the ability). ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/32 "2008-10-08T21:22:20Z")
Define ‘everybody’. On the SDMB? I don’t even think it got past the sugar rush stage in these thar parts. Outside the SDMB? I dont’ think the new car smell has worn off as much as folks here THINK it has. I base that on my dad and his friends (republicans to a man) who are STILL pretty excited about Palin…much more so than they are about McCain, truth to tell. I think her overall impact ON THOSE LIKELY TO ACTUALLY VOTE FOR MCCAIN has been positive…which I seriously doubt the selection of Romney would have been. YMMV of course. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/33 "2008-10-08T21:26:02Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I think her overall impact ON THOSE LIKELY TO ACTUALLY VOTE FOR MCCAIN has been positive…which I seriously doubt the selection of Romney would have been. While that is probably true, her standing among independents/uncommitted has been dropping like a rock. (That is, if the polls are correct.) McCain can’t win with just his base anymore than Obama can. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/34 "2008-10-08T21:28:42Z")
I’m uncertain though that Romney would have carried all that many more independents or undecideds…while losing more hard core Republicans. Perhaps it would have been a wash…but I believe (noted) that she has had a more positive impact on McCain than a negative one. I think it’s MCCAIN who has screwed McCain in this election…and Obama of course, since he is pretty clearly the superior candidate. -XT ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/35 "2008-10-08T21:47:48Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > As much ink has poured into pointing out how the economic disaster has benefitted Obama, it’s fairly amazing to me how much better Romney (with all his baggage) would be doing if the Pubs had nominated him. > > Of course, no one could have known that the economy would be quite as big an issue as it is, and I’m sure Romney would have created other issues to run against him for, but …WOW!! This election seems to be mainly about Americans deeply mistrusting McCain’s stewardship of the economy, a role Mitt Romney was born to star in, no? No one could have known? Umm, in the world where I live people were predicting an economic meltdown left and right, specifically due to subprime since before the primaries. The fact of the matter is EVERYONE knew it was coming. Romney would have been a bit of a John Kerry candidate but given the economy being where it is he stood a much greater chance. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/36 "2008-10-08T22:18:26Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > No one could have known? Umm, in the world where I live people were predicting an economic meltdown left and right, specifically due to subprime since before the primaries. The fact of the matter is EVERYONE knew it was coming. > > Romney would have been a bit of a John Kerry candidate but given the economy being where it is he stood a much greater chance. What a special world that is! I’m glad you liquidated every nickel you had in the stock market, begged your nearest and dearest and anyone you give a shit about to do likewise, and otherwise behaved as prudently as your universal certainty commanded you to. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/37 "2008-10-08T22:26:09Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > No, Rudy was never going anywhere. He fell in the polls everyplace he campaigned. The “America’s Mayor” thing has become ancient history for most people, and when GOP voters saw him up close, they noticed the same flaws that New Yorkers noticed: he’s snide, capricious and flat-out unpleasant. He shot himself in the foot so badly that the other candidates never had to unload on him. If he were the nominee, he would have got slaughtered by the Dems. His campaign would have made McCain’s look like pure genius also. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/38 "2008-10-08T22:28:31Z")
> [@UncleNito](#): > > I’d probably vote for Carly Fiorina over most Democrats other than Obama. Don’t know anyone who worked for HP, do you? Ever wonder why she hasn’t ever gotten another CEO job? ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/39 "2008-10-08T23:22:03Z")
Romney would have had different problems, but I think he still would have been running way behind Obama. Then we’d be talking about how the GOP should have gone with that Maverick-licious war hero. The GOP just had a weak field this time, and the Dems had an unusually strong one. McCain was probably the best chance they had; I still think he might have had a shot against Hillary. Rudy would have been in a race with Bob Barr for second place by now. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976/40 "2008-10-09T06:18:55Z")
Politics aside, I’d support Romney over McCain. Romney has the technical skills to understand proper economic policy and supervise his staff. Comprehension is the first step: at least good policy would have a fighting chance. Though Romney is an incredible panderer and a total phony besides, why should that disqualify him for the Presidency? I’m also guessing that only social conservatives care about his church membership, but I might be wrong. That voting block can’t be ignored of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/20-20-hindsight-pubs-shoulda-nominated-romney/466976.md?page=3)