Mississippi, Alabama, Hawaii, Samoa

[tnetennba]

@Happy_Lendervedder

If the grand prize was just getting the nomination, I might agree that the only thing that matters is delegate count. But presumably, they need to think about the big boy election in November, and Romney is showing very little evidence that he can win where it counts, or excite more than just one voting block.

He’s going to need states like Michigan and Ohio in the general, but he won by the seat of his mom jeans in those primaries. He would probably like to retake VA for the Pubs, but he didn’t even look that good when it was just him and Ron Paul on the ballot. And the south? They do not like him down there one iota. He’s a rich, liberal, flip-flopping, unlikeable, awkward, New Englandy, effete culty Mormon. The only thing he has going down there is that he’s not a rich, liberal, socialist, likeable, smooth-talking, Chicago-y, effete culty Muslim black man. Now that may be enough to win him much of the south, but he is still struggling to really fire anybody up down there or most other places.

The thing with both Hillary and Barack in their primary battle is that both of those people fired up independents and the left. There was passion from the center on leftward for BOTH of them. People actually wanted them, yearned for them. There will be that again once Obama puts his campaign pants back on. But there will still be no passion on the right side of the political spectrum. Not for Mittens. Oh, he may win the delegate count. So he’ll have that going for him. Which is nice-- if that’s all you want from him.

I agree that things look bad for Romney, but winning those states (sic) by the same margin he lost (sic) wouldn’t have meant much either in the delegate math or his chances of winning the general, for several reasons. The first and foremost is that the GOP candidate will win THOSE states no matter WHO it is. Second is that while it might be an index of enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for Romney, elections against sitting presidents are basically referendums on that president. People are going to end up voting their feelings on Obama, not their feelings on Romney. Third is that Romney is bound to win the primary and tilt against Obama, so nothing can be done with the information that he struggled in the primaries.