Posted on 02/07/2008 1:49:24 PM PST by IssuesOriented
Here lieth the campaign of Mitt Romney, victim of the mistaken belief that the only way to succeed in national Republican politics was to turn yourself into something you are not. Or maybe the campaign revealed what his closest friends never imaged him to be. They thought he was a decent classy guy. But maybe he really is a soulless throat-cutter who would do and say anything to win.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was a good fellow who didn't know enough about national politics and listened to people who gave him bad, cynical advice.
Sen. John McCain was in a good position before; now it's hard to imagine that he won't wrap up the nomination in the next week or two. His lone remaining serious opponent, Mike Huckabee, has exceeded expectations, but expecting him to be able to unhorse McCain is perhaps expecting too much.
I have covered a lot of presidential campaigns, and I can't think of one that so lost its way-so expensively-as that of the former governor of Massachusetts. A board room and business favorite, a man with a Midas managerial touch, he was widely admired and even beloved. But he was a Republican of an old moderate school-that of his own father-and, like George W. Bush, Romney the Younger decided that he had to jettison all that he was to become something that he was not.
And so it was that this square peg spent perhaps $80 million-including at least $30 million of his own money-trying to pound himself into a round hole. It didn't work. The irony of his failed campaign: if he had just stuck to selling his managerial mettle, he might well have won the nomination, given the way the country's economic anxieties have become voters' number one concern.
Even as conservative radio talk-show hosts reluctantly settled on him as their savior, they were uneasy about it and about his previous record of social moderation and fiscal flexibility. They sold him hard in the last few weeks, but to no avail. Romney won his home state and the states in the West where Mormonism was familiar, but not much else.
The quality of being genuine is hard to convey, and deciding who should be president based solely on that basis can lead to disaster; you need brains and an ability to go with the flow as well. But voters know a phony above all and Romney came off as one from the get-go. Over the last decade he had changed his views in a rightward direction on so many issues to suit what he thought he needed to win the GOP nomination that he ended up standing for nothing but his own ambition.
He had good staff in the early states, but as soon as the genuine article (or at least a more genuine article) came along in Iowa, in the form of Mike Huckabee, Romney was blown away. Then, having ceded the moderate ground, he lost in New Hampshire to another genuine article, John McCain (who learned his own lessons about the dangers of pandering to the right earlier in his campaign).
It's no accident that the GOP race is down to three men who are clear about who they are: McCain, Huckabee and, yes, Ron Paul.
All of that was Romney's own doing. But he also was damaged by a factor over which he had no control and, to his credit, he didn't seek to mute--his Mormonism. In the Bible Belt, his faith is anathema. And yet when the head of the Mormon Church passed away, Romney left the campaign trail to attend the funeral in Salt Lake that may have damaged him on the eve of Super Tuesday.
It was a class act, one of the few in his otherwise misbegotten campaign. Rest in peace.
What BS
I wonder if Mitt will leave the Republican Party and join the Demoncrat Party. His record of liberalism would make him much more at home over yonder.
Howard Fineman has his head up his ass. McCain is clear about who he is? Right. He talks conservative and governs liberal. McCain is who the MSM wants him to be at any given moment to feed his enormous ego. Captain Queeg is an angry liberal who lacks the judgment and temperament to be president. I will be voting Obama in the WA primary because I’d rather have the Muslim than Her Thighness. I will never vote for Captain Queeg, and have resigned myself to a democrat taking office in January, 2009.
I do think his Mormonism was the major factor in Mitt’s failure - I live on the West Coast and they were warning us in St. Joseph’s Church not to vote for Mitt because many converts to Mormonism were former weaker Catholics.
I’m not so sure his being from MA was just as big a stigma in the South.
What campaign was this guy watching? For me, Mitt's biggest problem was that he had no instinct for the jugular. McCain or Huck would slander him in debates and Mitt would just gently shake his head.
When someone's attacking you, you better hit back. Romney really should have had a few "I paid for this microphone" moments.
Howard Fineman is a turd.
Fineman: Pander to the Left like McCain and we will help you.
Your pastor should not be telling you from the pulpit specifically who or who not to vote for.
He could get himself in a heap of trouble with the IRS over that. You know, “tax exempt status” and all that.
Agreed. I’m a Southern Baptist. When you’ve got a Southern Baptist preacher running against you, telling the Southern Baptist voters that you believe Jesus was the Devil’s brother, you’re not going to get a fair shake.
Oh yeah - you got that one right. Having lived in the south I can tell you there is no bigger stigma down yonder than to be a northeast yankee. They might be able to tolerate a midwest yankee but a northeast MASSACHUSETTES yankee hell would freeze over first. That was absolutely a bigger sigma.
This is Howard Fineman saying this? Methinks he is spending too much time around Olbermann.
But because like you, I’m a nice guy, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt too, so I’ll assume you’re just a journalist with a light liberal spin doing his job.
Newsweek can stuff it!
Wrong Howie....you lose by not being the genuine article GOP conservative. We settled on Romney as the pick of the litter but not the cream of the crop.
Juan McAmnesty has a long record of liberal legislation with his name on it. He graduated 5th from the bottom of his class at Annapolis.
Al Gore and Bill Clinton were pro-life their entire careers UNTIL they ran for President/VP. Did anyone bring this up in 1992? No, of course not.
If Romney was a conservative-become-liberal well that would be just fine. the reason the MSM has taken aim at Mitt Romney is because he dared to evolve to the Right. THAT is unforgivable. Pity that so many Republicans went along with them.
“sitting on a sofa on a sunday afternoon”
listening to the candidates debate,
laugh about it shout about it
when you have to choose,
anyway you look at it you lose”... lyrics by Paul Simon
Republicans always nominate the guy whose turn it is. They NEVER nominate the "new guy." It's McCain's turn. That's it. He is in 2008 no more and no less than Bob Dole was in 1996 -- the guy who was next in line.
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