It seems Romney can’t go one news cycle without putting his foot in his mouth. If he loses, it really won’t be any surprise. However, it won’t be clear if it’s because the failure of being super-right or because of all the screwups. I wish Romney had run a good campaign. That way the election would more clearly represent what platform the population wants. But as it is, if Romney loses they can say it was because of all the mistakes he made and not because the platform was too far to the right.
The Republicans can continue to be obstructionist, ultra-religious, ultra-capitalists, and move even more to the right. The party leaders may know that things need to change, but if the population doesn’t understand that, they will continue to elect candidates that are super-right. If Romney had run a perfect campaign and still lost, I think all the registered Republicans would see they need to soften their stance or else they will continue to be marginalized.
I think no matter how Romney loses, the GOP is going to turn hard right in 2016. They ran a reasonable McCain in 2008, and a formerly reasonable Romney in 2012. The mantra is that when they lose, they weren’t conservative enough so looks like Bachmann or Santorum in '16.
Nonsense. All campaigns are filled with mistakes. The winner is normally the one that makes the fewest mistakes. You can wish for a perfect campaign that is about issues and nothing else, but that has never occurred in our reality.
I also need to point out that Romney repudiated the platform that was voted on at the RNC as soon as it was written. What conceivable difference would running a mistake-free campaign make?
The problem with your desire is that as far as the true blue Republicans go, Romney was a wishy-washy moderate. Even if he lost due to his being too far right, they would still say that he wasn’t far enough right.
In order for things to change you would need a nominee like Santorum, Bachman or Perry to be totally crushed, to get them to start moving in the moderate direction.
Romney’s important mistakes are letting what he really believes slip out. That is different from bad photo ops or gaffes like Fords about Poland.
However I totally agree with BobLibDem. The right is going to be convinced that if only one of their nutcases were nominated they’d win in a landslide. This is going to continue until one of their nutcases does get nominated. But there may be no moderates left by then to take the party back.
I think that would happen, if those three had a brain to share among them. But smarter guys like Christie or Jeb Bush will run circles around them in the 2016 primaries (if they choose to run).
If you’re a lousy campaigner, you need to have big bank to win primaries. Santorum, Bachmann, and Perry are lousy campaigners (at least at the Presidential level) and lousy fundraisers. Romney, as weak a campaigner as he is, at least is good at raising money.
Yeahbut, they never will nominate a nutcase, because that wing of their party is just not dominant. Sure, they are noisy and all, but they aren’t the majority. Believe it or don’t, Romeny got the nomination because the Republican party is still predominantly not nutcase.
I’m not so sure. Suppose Romney sat out this year and all else remained the same. The only non-nut left was Huntsman. I don’t think they would have gone for him, one of the nuts would have taken it- probably Newt. There aren’t that many non-nutty Republicans left- suppose none of them run?
Respectifully I have to disagree. I think Romney is a moderate who tried on the hard line conservative mantle and it just didn’t fit. Ergo Foot IN Mouth Disease, and that’s why the gaffes, the flippy flop, and what have you.
If a candidate doesn’t believe it himself, he isn’t going to convince anyone else.
But as far as a hard right in 2016, I sort of doubt it. It makes much more sense for the Hard right to be drummed out of the Senate, as I think will happen… and they may run a moderate. I could see Cristie picking up the mantle. Sure there will be the one issue wackados running in the primaries, but they need to regroup and steer to the big tent politics, not the politics of division.
[QUOTE=filmore]
If Romney loses, it will be a shame it happened this way
[/QUOTE]
No.
A Romney Presidency would have been a disaster for this country. There is no ‘bad’ way for him to lose. I just thank the good Lord that it looks like he’s gonna. I really don’t give a damn how, so long as he does.
The world moves on, and new faces come along to replace the old. Eight years is a long time in politics. If Huckabee runs in 2016, I don’t expect him to do particularly well. He really needed to run this time. Someone else will fill that niche in 2016.
It’s along the lines of Quayle skipping 1996 and keeping his powder dry for 2000, by which time GWB had come along and swiped his lunch money.
Here’s the crux. Folks want to blame Mitt, or the campaign, or the campaign manager. But the real problem withe Mitt’s campaign is Republicans. Republicans who won’t let Mitt discuss Romneycare, Republicans who don’t like Mitt because he isn’t Conservative enough. Republicans who give a true moderate like John Huntsman the slightest chance at all to win the nomination. Republicans who won’t let any reasonable discussion of raising taxes happen. Republicans who cannot let go their belief that Christianity is the guiding principals of this country, their hatred from LGBT, their contempt for Women, their inability to combat the highly racist elements of their party.
I agree that is the real reason why Romney will lose. The Republican platform has gotten out of line. But Romney has made some huge personal blunders that will allow those same Republicans to shift all the responsibility of the loss to the blunders. They can say he lost because he mishandled his taxes, his foreign tour blunders, Libya response, and 47% video. They don’t have to take any responsibility for the loss being due to their platform. There will be no need for introspection. To them, he lost because he blundered, not because he supported those policies. That’s why I wish he didn’t have those blunders. I want his supporters to have an incentive to review their platform’s policies. But as it is, they can pin the loss 100% on the blunders and proceed as before.
There were so many nutcases they divided the vote. Remember, lots of them were leading in the polls until they managed to shoot themselves in the foot. The non-nutcases, like Pawlenty, never got much money or traction. (I’m not sure how to classify Newt - he is totally different kind of nut.)
Remember that the nutcases didn’t flame out from saying anything conservative, but for other reasons. If the Kochs can get everyone lined up behind one candidate, perhaps with promises of cabinet positions, that candidate could easily win the nomination.