Mitt’s Out
Mitt Romney is dropping out today. I really didn’t think he would. He is technically “suspending” his campaign, which means he’ll hang on to his delegates in order to broker them at the convention. That means to me he plans on being involved in a future administration. Possibly, I would think, positioning himself as the possible VP candidate. That I think would be a super idea for McCain to consider. It would solidify the rift that has been created with the conservatives vs the not-conservative-enoughs. And, it would give McCain the conservative tilt he needs to get the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters off his back. Mitt ran a good race I thought. He should hang around for a while and not give up on the process.
I’m gonna update this post as opposed to making a second one on the demise of Mitt. Howard Fineman writes for Newsweek in “Burying Mitt” that what killed his campaign was Mitt pandering to the conservatives instead of running as a moderate. I don’t like the way he writes it, but I agree with his point. Since the Christian Coalition hijacked the Republican Party during the great Reagan Revolution, all the Party’s been allowed to discuss is who is the most “conservative”. People keep pushing themselves as far to the right as they can, then pushing the bar even righter. In the meantime, the average Joe has remained pretty much what they were twenty years ago, sinners who have to pay bills and teach their kids what’s right. As such, the base has remained fairly moderate from what I can tell. As the Party went further to the right, they started losing seats in the House and Senate. The message never looked at the possibility that the candidates were fooling themselves by going farther to the right, the message was they weren’t right enough. People have to remember, the Christian Coalition became a factor DURING Reagan’s term, not BEFORE. They didn’t nominate Reagan, the Republican Party did. It was the Christian Coalition grabbing ahold of an existing candidate that affected the events since then, not the candidate pandering to the Christian Coalition. As the Democrats lurched farther and farther to the left, the Republicans lurched farther and farther to the right. The polarization resulting has crippled more than a few Congresses since then as people were debating morals and ethics moreso than legislation. The latest casualty in that mis-placed struggle is Mitt Romney. He bought into Fox, Rush, MSNBC, and all the rest that prop up one extremist after another on their shows telling us that you’re either liberal or conservative, religious or going to hell, pandering to the enemy or stealing our civil liberties. In the meantime, most of the country was still sitting around waiting for a candidate that didn’t rely on extreme rhetoric. That talked plain. That talked facts. In basic, seemed to actually take each issue and debate the merits of that issue. That’s what most people do every day. Is this babysitter good or bad for my kid? I don’t care if she’s voted 92% liberal in the last ten years, I want to hear what she’ll do for my kid. That’s the logic most people use every day. That, I think, is the logic most people use to select their candidate as well. They’re not going to parse their voting record. They’re not going to pry into previous debates and essays. They’re going to watch that candidate and vote for the one they are most comfortable with. George HW Bush was a lot mellower and more assured than Al Gore, who tended to sort of fly off the handle at times. He was a lot more assured of his facts, even if they were wrong, than John Kerry, who tended to change his story a lot. That confidence, even if misguided, made people feel more comfortable. Mitt Romney tried too hard to sell his “conservative” credentials. He kept fighting with the “other” conservative candidate who was fading fast. He was fighting a windmill. If Huckabee truly was the conservative candidate, and the conservatives truly did rule the party, then they shouldn’t have been fighting for a distant second place. I think Mitt finally realized that. McCain wasn’t trying to sell anything, he was very confident in who he was. In other words, he was the guy people were developing a comfort level with. At this point, there was nothing Mitt could do. If he refocused, he would be betraying what he was selling us. If he kept fighting the third place guy, he was mathematically guaranteed to lose. So, he did the smartest thing and bailed out. Now, the guy who hasn’t tried to sell us anything is most likely the guy that will be leading the conservatives since his opposition will be wildly more liberal than he is. He won’t redefine what a conservative is. He won’t change the party either. What he’ll do is represent the silent majority of the party that is tired of all the ethical requirements being placed on people to be a member of a political party. And, if Mitt has read this blog, and sees the light, he’ll come back stronger when he’s ready, and I bet you, more assured of who he is and why people should vote for him because of who he is. And, I can guarantee you that if he does that, his religion will not be the slightest issue.Long winded I know, but I’m not ready to “bury Mitt”. Not by a long shot. I truly think of all the candidates, he’s the smartest. He, like Rudy, just ran a very misguided campaign. Those are easily corrected by running a good one.