Posted on 12/10/2011 12:01:25 PM PST by libertarian neocon
Romney has the least-impressive electoral history of any Republican frontrunner in a very long time. Most of the politicians who chase the White House are proven vote-getters with very few electoral blemishes on their record. John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis—what unites all of these men is that before getting to the presidential level, they had demonstrated a talent for getting people to vote for them. (Barack Obama is the exception who proves the rule.)
Over the years, Mitt Romney has faced voters in 22 contests. He won 5 of those races and lost 17 of them. (This total includes a win in the 1994 Massachusetts Republican Senate primary as well as results from the 19 primaries he participated in during 2008. It excludes caucuses because their rules make them complicated enough to be considered distinct from straight-up lever-pulling.)
Romney’s electoral record becomes even more underwhelming when you examine the particulars. He first attracted national notice in 1994 when he mounted what was considered a strong challenge to incumbent senator Ted Kennedy. But when it came time to vote, Romney lost by 17 points in what turned out to be the best year for Republicans in more than half a century. In 2002, Romney won the gubernatorial race in Massachusetts. This victory—the triumph of a Republican in deep-blue Massachusetts—is now the cornerstone of his 2012 “electability” rationale.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
I love it when someone questions “conventional wisdom” and goes back to actual data to analyze rather than drinking the Kool-Aid.
Yeah, I frankly do not give a damn regarding all this crap. I want Hussein gone. He must be fired in November.
“I want Hussein gone. He must be fired in November.”
AMEN MY BROTHER!
This is an important article in that it debunks the idea that Mitt is the most electable Republican candidate. Very simply, if Mitt is so electable why has he lost the vast majority of elections in which he’s been a candidate?
The other telling information in this article is that Mitt has tended to lose support during the course of his previous campaigns. Apparently, he gets out-campaigned by his opponents. My sense is he can’t connect with people and create any sort of enthusiam. His supporters lack energy to drive the campaign. And he’s unable to close the deal with other voters who otherwise might be inclined to vote for him.
That 22% of GOP primary support for Romney are the same establishment Republicans who voted for Obama in 2008.
My ideal candidate for the Republican nomination is the most conservative candidate who can beat Obama. But my standards are readily compromised as I will vote for anyone who is not Obama in the general election.The cancer needs to be removed forthwith.I will worry about the side effects after the operation.
Spot on analysis. The whole Romney mythos is just bs. The man has been running for President for nearly a decade. He left the GOP in MA in the worst shape it had been in nearly 100 years and anyone who believes he is the man to lead us to victory can only be dreaming because it isn’t based on any measure of the man and his history. It’s based largely on ‘conservatives’ who buy into the liberal media playing field. They work and live on that field which is why they believe Romney is a natural choice because he seems tolerable not only to them but also their leftist colleges who of course will never vote for him but that is just an annoying detail.
It is a coexistence political strategy that takes us to the bad old days prior to Reagan. Also it is a strategy to undo the Tea Party and to marginalize conservative constitutionalists as the GOP rises to power again. Election 2010 should have taught us that we can win with conservative candidates. Not all of them won but it was telling is how badly that the best funding super rich GOP establishment candidates lost.
There is no middle ground. There is only charge or defend and we need to continue the charge this next year all the way to the white house and Mitt Romeny is not a man that even seems to know the meaning of that word and clearly doesn’t understand the passion or the patriotism behind it.
Very good analysis, but every Freeper knows Romney won’t beat Obama. Our main goal must be to get Obummer out of office, and Romney has too checkered of a past to garner the votes to win. Here’s a question for my fellow Freeps: who do you think will beat him most soundly head to head?
BTTT
I had to wait up on thw West Coast to see this debate 3 hours later than most. But what I saw was a condescending smile on Mitt’s face, like he had to look down on us all. He also was desperate in his wording, talking too fast etc.
It’s time for Romney to adMITT ... he needs to quit!
Yes but he’s too arrogant for adMITTing anything. Dick Morris gave the impression that Mitt won this debate but I saw something different and I saw that he seemed desperate.
Yes! In the fable below, YOU chuckee are the first bull to speak.
AN AESOP FABLE
A fable that every Conservative voter in 2012 should read and think about.
* * *
A cattle dealer once drove some bulls to the slaughterhouse. And the butcher came with his sharp knife.
"Let us close ranks and jack up this executioner on our horns," suggested one of the bulls.
"If you please, in what way is the butcher any worse than the dealer who drove us hither with his cudgel?" replied the bulls."
"But we shall be able to attend to the dealer as well afterwards!"
"Nothing doing," replied the bulls firm in their principles, to the counselor. "You are trying, from the left, to shield our enemies -- you are a social-butcher yourself."
And they refused to close ranks.
This is a very, very important article, especially when you couple it with Jonah Goldberg’s “Newtzilla to the Rescue” quoted below. The establishment is NOT against Newt because they think he will lose to Obama and they are NOT for Mitt because they think he is the most likely candidate to defeat Obama. They would much rather have either Mitt or Obama as president than Newt.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/285680/newtzilla-rescue-jonah-goldberg
“The other night while having drinks with some prominent conservatives, I said I thought there was a significant chance that Gingrich will not only win the nomination but that he might be the next president. Going by their expressions, I might as well have said I had put a slow-acting poison in their cocktails.”
I think it comes down to more than anything the class/cultural divide between the prep school/Ivy League/country club political class establishment (who are much more defined by all of that than whether they happen to wear the “D” or the “R”) and the true Tea Party upstarts like Palin, who are essentially doing the same things that Newt did in his rise to power.
The upstarts like Newt and Palin don’t come from money, they don’t have an elite education, they do not have an automatic respect for authority, and their values are based more on core beliefs like patriotism, religion or the Constitution rather than the kind of classic conservatism that is more interested in the status quo, finding consensus with other elites, not speaking out of turn and not upsetting the apple cart. They are not looking for revolution of any kind, be it left-wing revolution or right-wing revolution.
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