# Let's examine why the GOP chose Romney in the first place **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 9, 2012, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468 "2012-11-09T11:47:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/21 "2012-11-09T17:10:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Of course I think we can see at this point that the Republicans thought the country was still furious by the ACA in a way that it really was not. In my local MN House race, we got carpet bombed the days before the election trying to tie Lori Halverson (MN House 51B) to Obamacare, and “stealing money from medicare for Obama’s schemes”. They ran every single commercial break on monday night while I watched TV. She won 52-48, defeating the incumbent (Wardlow) who hammered us with those ads. Guess he misjudged opposition to Obamacare. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/22 "2012-11-09T17:11:54Z")
T-Paw wouldn’t have fared any better. But I think he dropped out too soon. The minute he was asked in a debate to use the word “Obamneycare” in Romney’s presence, he obviously said to himself “fuck it, I’m going to run for veep now” and declined, to the obvious delight of Romney, who smirked as if to say “who’s your daddy?” Romney won because he wasn’t batshit crazy and was sitting on a shitload of money. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/23 "2012-11-09T18:03:11Z")
Romney was the nominee because he was a graceful loser in 2008. For whatever reason Republicans seem to get in line for a chance to run. I would say Santorum in 2016 but he wasn’t a good soldier and didn’t get behind Romney right away so the GOP establishment won’t support him. Whether thats good or bad remains to be seen. Personally I think the primary system is flawed. My proposal would be that in April of the election year there is a runoff election with all States voting on the same day with all candidates on the ballot. With the top two finishers moving on. In June everyone votes on the same day to pick the nominee. I would also recommend closed primaries. The way it is now money and the media have too much control over the outcome. If a candidate doesn’t win one the the first few States the money dries up and he or she has no chance. And the press does have the control to make or break a candidate by covering only gaffs or only showing overflowing crowds of supporters or not covering them at all. And the States at the end of the cycle don’t really have much of a choice. By the time my State gets to vote the field is usually half of how it started. All I can say is I don’t remember ever having a chance to vote for my first choice of a candidate. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/24 "2012-11-09T18:07:48Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Just to note that Pawlenty didn’t even make it that far. He ended his campaign after finishing third in the Iowa straw poll (behind Bachmann and Cain) in August of 2011. So, he was long gone before there were any actual primaries or caucuses. Thank you for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/25 "2012-11-09T18:32:55Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Romney was the nominee because he was a graceful loser in 2008. For whatever reason Republicans seem to get in line for a chance to run. A lot of things can happen in four years, but I will guarantee this: people who believe things like this will continue to be very confused by the actual primary and election results. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/26 "2012-11-09T18:51:30Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > A lot of things can happen in four years, but I will guarantee this: people who believe things like this will continue to be very confused by the actual primary and election results. Just stating what I see and I’m not saying that it’s a good system. Conservatives and change are like oil and water. Who was the last “came out of nowhere” candidate that made it to the top of the GOP ticket? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/27 "2012-11-09T19:12:25Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Just stating what I see and I’m not saying that it’s a good system. It’s not a system. > [@](#): > > Who was the last “came out of nowhere” candidate that made it to the top of the GOP ticket? When was the last time it happened for the Democrats? Obama “came out of nowhere” over a period of four years. What’s that joke about working all your life to become an overnight sensation? ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/28 "2012-11-09T19:23:58Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It’s not a system. > > When was the last time it happened for the Democrats? Obama “came out of nowhere” over a period of four years. What’s that joke about working all your life to become an overnight sensation? Obama was not a household name 4 years ago. While everyone raved about his DNC speech in 04 he went back into obscurity until he was pushed to the forefront in 08. And I’ll put up Clinton as another, he certainly had no real national presence prior to his run. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/29 "2012-11-09T19:26:47Z")
They chose Romney because of one word. “Oops” Thank god for that because otherwise Governor Goodhair probably would have won the primaries and may have even won the election because he actually has a few ounces of charisma and likability, unlike Romney. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/30 "2012-11-09T19:51:02Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Obama was not a household name 4 years ago. While everyone raved about his DNC speech in 04 he went back into obscurity until he was pushed to the forefront in 08. Obama launched his campaign in February 2007 and by late in the year he and Clinton were the frontrunners. He didn’t go back into obscurity in 2005 so much as you stopped paying attention to him. 😉 I agree most people didn’t expect him to run in '08 and he even said he wasn’t going to. I’m not denying his rise to prominence was very fast by political standards, so I don’t mean to reject your entire point. But even a rise “out of nowhere” doesn’t happen all that quickly, and would it really be a good thing if it did? If Herman Cain’s joke candidacy had somehow failed to implode you could have said he came out of nowhere to win the nomination _and it would have been a disaster._ The same goes for Rick Perry jumping into the race late or Santorum and Gingrich running a decade after their expiration dates. At least, it could have been interpreted that way. The problem with the those “Republicans take turns” thing is that it is defined selectively based on a backward look at the results. That’s not a good way to do analysis. > [@](#): > > And I’ll put up Clinton as another, he certainly had no real national presence prior to his run. He gave a prominent (and terribly-received) DNC speech in 1988. But yes, he benefited from the fact that a lot of other contenders skipped the '92 race and wound up never getting another shot. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/31 "2012-11-09T20:44:44Z")
The problem with the those “Republicans take turns” thing is that it is defined selectively based on a backward look at the results. That’s not a good way to do analysis. Isn’t all analysis looking back at past results? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/32 "2012-11-09T20:57:39Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Isn’t all analysis looking back at past results? Analysts has to take all results into account and interpret them consistently to be useful. I was saying the Turns theory is based on selective definitions: it involves defining things in an inconsistent way, including facts that support the theory and ignoring ones that don’t. How did it get to be Bob Dole’s turn in 1996? He didn’t campaign for the Republican nomination in 1992. He was the Senate majority leader. How was it Bush’s turn in 2000? He wasn’t a candidate in '96. It’s true that these guys were both supported by the Republican establishment, but that’s not the same thing. And those people weren’t much enamored of McCain, who ran _against_ Bush in 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/33 "2012-11-09T21:06:28Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > They chose Romney because of one word. “Oops” > > Thank god for that because otherwise Governor Goodhair probably would have won the primaries and may have even won the election because he actually has a few ounces of charisma and likability, unlike Romney. As much as we would love to get a crap governor out of Austin, remember what happened last time! ---
**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:** [November 9, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/34 "2012-11-09T21:44:43Z")
Obama had the advantage of running as an incumbent. A lot of potential Republican candidates decided to sit out this election and wait until 2016. It was Romney’s turn and the Republicans tend to give weight to that. On the Reagan issue, Romney might have had the look but he didn’t have the words. He’s no Great Communicator. Romney was never able to sell himself the way Reagan could. I think there’s a disconnect between what the party leaders want and what the party membership wants. The party leaders are, I fell, more conservative than the members. So they put forward a bunch of candidates who were conservative and the members voted for the least conservative among them. And then in the general election, the electorate as a whole chose the less conservative of the two choices offered to them. The GOP leadership is still trying to reconcile the reality that voters keep choosing the less conservative candidate with their unwavering faith that the voters want conservativism. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/35 "2012-11-09T22:44:42Z")
Mitt Romney won the nomination in much the same way that one of my friends always used to win his tennis matches. He simply stayed in each point with a good, solid game and let the other guy hit a bad shot. Of course, it was relatively easy for him to do this this time around, because the “other” candidates were by and large a woeful group who were inevitably going to shoot themselves in the foot along the way. The lack of a truly charismatic Republican politician on the national stage for some time now has hurt the party. If it hadn’t been for wooden-Al in 2000, they would have lost the White House then, and probably wouldn’t have had it in 2008, either. The electoral vote trend is definitely going to force the Republican Party to come up with a charismatic candidate who can articulate a decent moderate-conservative viewpoint of federal government if they want to win the White House. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/36 "2012-11-09T22:54:39Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > No one else ran that was vaguely qualified and electable. And while the base tried very hard to nominate “not-Romney” because they trusted him as much as the electorate ended up doing so - they really couldn’t get behind any one not-Romney. > > Many of the other candidates only had base (Santorium, Bachmann), carried too much baggage (Gingrich) or came off as blithering idiots (Perry). > > Had they managed to get Chris Christie to run, it might have been a different election. And Chris Christie was never going to run this season because those with legitimate ambitions don’t jeopardize their rising stars by running against presidential incumbents, because a loss necessarily diminishes one’s stature and incumbency (especially when there are also short term limits) makes the risk-calculus particularly unpalatable. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/37 "2012-11-09T23:40:02Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Romney was the nominee because he was a graceful loser in 2008. For whatever reason Republicans seem to get in line for a chance to run. I would say Santorum in 2016 but he wasn’t a good soldier and didn’t get behind Romney right away so the GOP establishment won’t support him. Whether thats good or bad remains to be seen. The problem here is that there really aren’t any good candidates from 2012 who could put up a decent fight against a halfway competent Democrat, the same way McCain did in 2008. When McCain ran in the 2000 primaries, you could imagine him being president. In fact, I’ll admit that if he had managed to clinch the nomination, I probably would have ended up voting for him over Gore. I didn’t see anyone during the Republican primaries this year had much appeal beyond the base. Also, you mention Santorum, but the only reason he mentioned to gain any traction at all was because all the other non-Romneys had flamed out. He peaked at just the right time, and if the Iowa caucuses had been held a week later, it very likely would have somebody else giving Romney a run for his money. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/38 "2012-11-09T23:43:15Z")
Money. The money people chose Mitt, and kept him well funded. Sheldon Addleson kept Newt funded so he would split the anybody-but-Romney voters until Santorum dropped out. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/39 "2012-11-10T00:09:20Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > Sheldon Addleson kept Newt funded so he would split the anybody-but-Romney voters until Santorum dropped out. You could say the same thing about Foster Friess and Santorum, and it’d be just as wrong. They wanted their guys to win. You don’t spend tens of millions of dollars supporting a candidate just to split someone else’s vote. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468/40 "2012-11-10T00:19:26Z")
You might if you have billions to throw around and want to play strategic games with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-examine-why-the-gop-chose-romney-in-the-first-place/640468.md?page=3)