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By all appearances Mitt Romney seems likely to walk away with the Republican Party’s 2012 nomination. We can still expect a few scares, particularly in Iowa and South Carolina, but it’s getting harder to construct a credible scenario in which Romney fumbles this one away. He looks smart, savvy, and ready to take on a struggling President. Rational Republicans all over the country are imagining that it’s safe to come out from under their desks.
Hunker down. This is the eye of the storm.
Don’t be fooled by the myth that the Tea Party Movement emerged from nowhere in 2009. They are not an external insurgency. The Tea Party is little more than a rebranding of extreme elements that have come to control the party infrastructure across most of the south and west. A potential President Romney will be governing from a political island in a wild, conspiracy-whipped sea.
The Tea Party is not going to melt away without a fight. Romney may not have signed up with them, but he’s shown no willingness or capacity to take them on in the grassroots trenches. Romney has the party’s financial base, its main media arm, and the bulk of the primary electorate. The Tea Party has the activists and the infrastructure. And if you thought these folks were weirded-out by having a Black suspected Muslim in the White House, wait ‘til they get a confirmed cultist.
Romney will find it extremely difficult to nominate a credible Vice-Presidential candidate. The same intra-party dynamics that forced McCain into the arms of Sarah Palin will press Romney toward something that could be even worse. We may see someone just as politically daffy as Palin, but far more capable.
Worst of all, the Tea Party has locked up a critical prize in this campaign – second place. For more than 50 years the standing rule in the GOP has been that we nominate either our sitting President or the guy who finished second last time.
The only direct exception is Nixon who defeated the 1964 second-place finisher, Nelson Rockefeller, in the ’68 race. George W. Bush was nominated without having to face the previous runner-up, Pat Buchanan, who left the GOP in ‘99. Unless Jon Huntsman experiences some strange and miraculous surge, there is no realistic outcome in which the Tea Party will fail to capture the strategically critical runner-up slot.
Maybe this year’s second place finisher will get so fat and happy on their multi-million-dollar book and Fox News contract that they’ll lose interest in politics. Otherwise they will ride into the next campaign as the presumed frontrunner. That would be the culmination of twenty years of eroding GOP credibility, making a public showdown between the Tin Hat Brigade and the party’s old-line conservatives finally unavoidable.
With the presumed frontrunner in their camp and control of the party machinery over a wide swath of the country, the Tea Party, or whatever brand emerges to take its place, will hold the high ground in that fight. Someone might be forced to launch a third party. Unless we start working very hard and very soon (like yesterday) to retake control, it will be rational conservatives who are pushed out onto that rough road.
Ever since Reagan boarded a helicopter bound for retirement the Republican Party has been harboring a lazy fantasy. We’ve imagined that the genie he unleashed on the far religious right might crawl back in its bottle if we just left it alone. It’s amazing that a generation later so many Republicans still cling to that fantasy. A Romney win in this campaign is good. But the fight over the 2012 nomination is just a prelude to the battle for the soul of the Republican Party.
Turtles Run // Oct 15, 2011 at 1:53 am
I believe Romney will get the party nomination but this will do nothing to inspire the ground team “Tea Party” to go out and work the streets to support him. Romney will have to pull his own “Sarah Palin” out for his VP to spark the interest of the GOP base. My money is on Governor Perry.
However, by the same token a Romney opponent for Obama does nothing to stir up the Democratic side as well. Romney though not the preferred candidate would not be unacceptable as a potential POTUS. However, the “Sarah Palin” effect could drive the Democrats out into the streets much like 2008.
I believe that Chris is wrong in his statement about the next GOP nominee if Romney fails in 2012. This field of Republicans is way too far out of the mainstream. A new candidate will come in and represent the party. Chris Christie is a good possibility but the field will be wide open. The only thing that needs to happen is for the GOP to decide which direction they want to go in: follow the Tea Party in their quest alienate much of the population and return to an America that never existed or turn to the center and start appealing to a broader range of voters. A few lessons in economics wouldn’t hurt either.
sunshinek67 // Oct 15, 2011 at 6:03 pm
I found these two video clips posted on redstate.com:
Gov Rick Perry (R-TX), Part I & Gov Rick Perry (R-TX), Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwD79Yu-ri0&feature=feedwll&list=WL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDFnGky0io&feature=feedwll&list=WL
If anyone took the time to view these clips clearly you can see Rick Perry can work the room with charisma and a command of the issues. Aside from getting the century wrong on the Revolution, he does not appear to be plagued with debate articulation syndrome. So the guy does not debate well, neither did Reagan (1984) or Bush (2000 & 2004). Great leaders, deemed terrible debaters by the media elites.
By the way, why does anyone think Romney is going to rouse the Republican base in large numbers, millions of which identify themselves as conservative? The constant trend is there that over the years, Romney has not polled over 30% with his base. If John McCain did not get the vote out (30 million stayed home), kind of ridiculous to think Romney will. He has a terribly onerous record of perpetual positioning of the issues that conservatives care about. But yet, the GOP establishment and media talking heads are pushing Romney as the most plausible and electable of the current field. And Romney has a lot of money to keep these “endorsements” flowing on the airwaves for a really long time. Repeat the lie often enough, it becomes truth~
jakester // Oct 16, 2011 at 12:02 pm
While I agree that it is a tad early, since not one primary has happened yet, to decide who the candidate is. The last thing we need is some right wing Xtian bozo from Texas like Perry, who seems to only talk in simple minded, worn out memes. If pandering to the left end of the bell curve is what you want, he is your man. But he is a total joke to everyone else.
sunshinek67 // Oct 15, 2011 at 6:51 pm
As for the polls, this time last election 2007, had Giuliani and Thompson in first and second place respectfully, John McCain’s campaign was down in the polls around 10 and deplete of cash.
Unwise to adhere to the media elites that relish picking the candidate for the GOP~
nhthinker // Oct 15, 2011 at 9:02 pm
The videos are a stump speech and seemingly planted questions.
His rhetoric lacks specifics now and he will have a shot in the next two months to clarify.
His answers that he has only been in the race a short time is not very reassuring – voters will want to think that he actually has thought about what his policies for significant time and not just throwing things together just when he decided to run.
The seemingly biblical nature of his completely untempered support for Israel will be a real problem for him.
redpetunia // Oct 16, 2011 at 2:28 am
The Tea Party will implode if it stays so dishonest to exclude Romney.
Everything they claim they want, or did want when they started, is Romney’s platform.
This new group is not primarily financial conservatives who welcome like minded folks, as the early Tea Party. They are the “religious right” now. The type that went for Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee. They stole the name from the people who wanted fiscal discipline, and they turned on Romney.
The religious right has always been there, they just usurped a new name in hopes that we wouldn’t recognized them.
I’m not worried.
Real conservatives, the ones who want the country fixed, will back Romney with pride.
Romney is so much stronger of a front runner than anyone from 2008. It is so silly to keep repeating the MSNBC talking points. The left has the “Tea Party” pegged an know exactly which buttons to push.
But most of us are too smart to fall for that. And we will back Romney.
jakester // Oct 16, 2011 at 11:55 am
I hate to rain on the parade, but there hasn’t been one primary yet. So saying that Romney is going to win is a tad premature,