Even if I was to say “Hey, I believe him now” or “He has been ok on a few issues, what the hell” it will not change the biggest factor of all, he won’t win in the General. Florida has proved that.
McCain may lose his mind or maybe just lose period elevating Romney to the nomination, it does not matter. We have expended energy on a man that will cause as much as 8-10% of the voters from at least two parts of the base at home. If you look at the numbers from 2000 and 2004 which will still be about the same for 2008, even losing 2-3% of the base through people not voting will kill us.
Mitt’s issue is not beating Hillary or Obama, but winning what should be “slam dunk” votes from the core of Republican support. In essence Mitt beats himself.
So his Conservatism or lack there of is totally irrelevant now.
I wish it were not so.
So long as there are three candidates, it is hard to determine how many votes are “for” someone, vs how many are “against” someone.
For example, a Huckabee supporter might say they chose Huckabee because Mitt is a Mormon. OK, that’s not good. But would that same voter choose Obama because Mitt is a mormon? We don’t know.
When asked, 40% said they wouldn’t vote for a mormon. But that’s the same number that said they wouldn’t vote for Romney. IT’s clear that somehow the pollster let it be known that Romney was a mormon, and the “mormon” question was a “romney” question.
And at this point, if a poll is of the general election, you are going to see 40% oppose a candidate, because that’s the 40% that are for the other party no matter what.
Anyway, McCain should be a slam dunk but he can’t break 38%, and Huckabee supposedly is a conservative AND a christian and he isn’t getting the votes either.
If Huckabee drops out, and Romney can’t get more than 50% against McCain, then it’s clear he isn’t the person we hoped. On the other hand, there’s also no reason to believe that 80% of the people voting for McCain in Florida wouldn’t vote for Romney against Hillary and Obama.
Romney has actually improved somewhat in head-to-heads, and frankly he STILL is not a household name like McCain.