Posted on 11/08/2011 8:49:54 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Mitt Romney has maintained his one-quarter vote share in the Republican contest against all comers … and against those who stayed home. Whether confronting hypothetical threats from Donald Trump, Mitch Daniels, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin or Chris Christie — or real ones from Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry or Herman Cain — the former Massachusetts governor, with maddening consistency, has gotten a quarter of the primary vote.
But the key question for Mitt is whether his glass is one-quarter full or three-quarters empty. No matter what the matchups, he never drops below one-quarter of the vote or rises above it.
It would seem that 75 percent of the Republican primary voters will vote for anybody but Romney, no matter the flavor du jour. And, when candidates fade, their vote share is picked up by the next flavor du jour, rather than going to Mitt Romney.
Right now, Herman Cain, on the strength of his bold and audacious 9-9-9 program, has surged into a tie with Romney. Hopefully the baseless charges against Cain will fade away or be discredited. But if they are not, one can already see former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) poised to inherit the wind. Anybody but Romney!
As the field narrows down to a few candidates, will the Ron Paul voters — or those now for other candidates — come to Mitt, or will they embrace anybody but?
And, should Romney win the nomination, this lack of enthusiasm among three-quarters of the GOP vote does not augur well for his capacity to generate the turnout among his party’s base he will need to defeat Obama in November.
It is not that Romney is only getting a quarter of the vote, it is that three-quarters oppose him no matter his opponent or what’s going on.
Why the aversion to voting for Romney?
Perilously, his support comes mainly from the establishment of the GOP. He is the favorite of the Fortune 500, the Club for Growth, chambers of Commerce, Wall Street and party insiders. But his appeal is much more limited among evangelicals and Tea Party supporters.
In a sense, Mitt is a traditional Republican candidate harking back to the days before Ronald Reagan united the economic conservatives, the national-security backers and the evangelicals under one tent. Unfortunately for Romney, it was the union with evangelicals — now increasingly recast as Tea Party supporters — that let Reagan create a majority electoral coalition. Romney must follow in those footsteps if he hopes to win.
Mitt’s position supporting RomneyCare in Massachusetts and his flip-flop-flip on abortion and gay rights cause understandable concern among conservative voters. Less reasonable is the aversion to a Mormon candidate among evangelical Protestants. But, regardless of its cause, Romney’s candidacy is now reaching too limited a base for success in November.
The energy and kinetic enthusiasm that must animate the Republican campaign has to come from precisely the voters who are, at best, now lukewarm to Romney’s candidacy.
Disappointingly, it seems that Romney is not as willing as he should be to reach out to the Tea Party groups. Recently, he rejected an invitation from the Tea Party Patriots — the largest of the Tea Party groups — to a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate on Nov. 28 covered by C-SPAN. While Romney can hardly be accused of ducking debates — it seems he is in one every few weeks — it was a needless affront to a group that embraces more than half of the Tea Party organizations to plead a scheduling conflict for the date. (Even though it is my birthday!)
Romney must not sit on his lead and calmly watch the other candidates battle it out. He needs to do more to reach out to the GOP base, with which he is badly out of touch.
Romney is headed down hill. IMO
Mitt Romney in a rut
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mitt too??
first herman cain is in the rut and now mitt. Must be rutting season for republicans.
He’s trying to play prevent defense and run out the clock.
Trouble is its not even half-time yet in the race.
Romney’s 25% is all he is going to get. If there was any way he was going to “catch fire” it would have happened by now.
If Dick Morris is speaking then it is opposite day...that means in this case...Mitt Romney is not in a rut.
when did the Club for Growth become establishment?
“harken back to the days before Ronald Reagan”??
I am sure he means “before AND after”
Romney is a McCain or a Dole. He has stated in the past how he wants to moderate the GOP.
On the campaign trail with Obama I am sure he will McCain and talk about what a great guy Obama is. ugh.
Romney has peaked
The “Club for Growth” is not usually on the side of us social conservatives, they have backed some screwy candidates in the past. They have their issues and they really don’t care about other ones.
lol!
yes, romney is a bob dope like megan mccain.
More like plateaued.
He’s not going to lose any significant amount of support because the people that want him have vested interests in the moderate policies he champions, but even there, he doesn’t excite anyone.
In fact, in that weird little country club, upper-crust, WASP culture subset, the idea of a candidate that is “exciting” is gauche and unsettling.
But nationally, conservatives are not buying in. What they want, he just doesn’t have, and couldn’t fake even if he wanted to.
He just doesn’t cut it.
I think it is Romney vs. the rest of the candidates.
Trouble is he might win with 75% of the party opposing him but divided among the other candidates.
McCain ran away with the nomination by getting 25% in winner-take-all primarys. With the conservative base split among several candidates, Romney may run the table.
“...Mitt Romney is not in a rut.”
Oh, I guess that means you are either a Romney supporter or a Mormon. Either way, it’s the same damn thing. Go away. We need a genuine conservative as the Republican nominee. ANYBODY BUT ROMNEY, you dork.
Do us all a favor and go back to the Mormon Temple and pray for the UFOs to land, Jerk. Don’t bother true conservatives with your occult faith (aka: Mormonsim/LDS).
Ernie
Natural born American canine (admittedly, the dual Irish citizenship is an issue for drooling birfers). Aged 35+ in dog years. More shovel-ready (and at least one hose-ready) jobs than the incumbent. What's not to like?
Hint: if you're curious, drag Seamus's pic to Google Images
Romney is very consistent. In the 2008 Presidential Primary, he also only managed to get 25% of the Republican Base!
As in disqualifying him entirely from consideration for any position outside of "used car salesman"...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.