The Continued Trials of Mitt Romney

Right after Florida, it seemed so simple. Mitt Romney was ascendant after bludgeoning his rivals with money and an unrelentingly negative ad campaign. Having destroyed Gingrich once again in the same manner he did in Iowa, using a five to one financial advantage that Newt could never match, and shrugging off an Iowa loss to Santorum, as it was less than a 100 vote difference, the “eating of the peas” by the Republican base was to have commenced.

His organization overwhelmingly prevailed, and there was nothing that could be done between then and the convention to stop Romney’s nomination. Game over, move on.

Yet, despite predictions by the media and Republican Party elites (though the latter were probably biased) of the Tea Party hanging up their hats and falling in line, the base proved remarkably resistant to that temptation, deciding last week to instead hand Santorum three wins from the Mid-West, as well as the added bonus of millions of dollars in donations flowing in soon after.

True, Romney won this weekend’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) straw poll, finishing with 38% and a handful of boos, as well as another weak victory in the Maine caucuses, fending off Ron Paul 39% to 36%. Yet, there remain rumblings of weakness and instability in what should be a strong presidential campaign on paper. In every contest, a very solid majority of Republicans (generally 60% plus or minus so far, except in Nevada, where it’s 50%) simply cannot stand Mitt.

The three Santorum victories look more stark because it lays bare the fact that when it’s a one-on-one contest (such as what would happen when all opponents drop from the race except one) Romney picks up nothing beyond his base of support. The “not-Romney” vote simply looks more glaring when Romney cannot pull off a “plurality win and spin” as he’s done in all his “victories” to date.

The political truism involving party primaries is that ‘Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.’, but Romney seems incapable of buying either one with his organizational advantages. Mitt certainly hasn’t been able to make the majority of the Republican Party love him. It feels like most of those who vote for Mitt are more focused on beating “Big, Bad” President Obama in the general election than actually believing in any message Romney might have.

Let’s face it, Mitt’s only message to Republican voters is: I’m inevitable, so get over it. My Republican opponents are terrible scourges of the earth; and polls say I’m the most electable. This is hardly a vision for America in the mold of Ronald Reagan. Regardless of anyone’s opinions on why this is the case, he’s been unable to cinch any meaningful passion from the Republican Party’s base.

Now, if we were playing strictly with the traditional political playbook, a situation like this wouldn’t be deadly to Romney’s campaign. After all, how many presidential candidates have been able to excite every faction within their party? Instead, you just need to persuade the party apparatus (the pollsters, the policy wonks, the state organizations) that you’re more electable in the general than the next guy and then they can bring their resources to bear on all your detractors in order to unify for the goal of the highest office in the land. This isn’t happening for Romney.

These last four years have seen Republican moderates, represented by party elites, and Republican social conservatives, represented by the Tea Party, split in a big way. Romney has won the trust of those needed to make the party fall in line, but those people can’t do their job anymore. Fed by years of Fox News style paranoia, a significant amount of the Republican base believes that their party elites are half-liberal already, a label that only connotes treason for those who swallow the right-wing media machines attention-grabbing headlines hook, line, and sinker.

In the quest to unify for the general presidential election, Republicans have laid bare their divisions instead. Romney finally has broken the 25% support ceiling that he had to last year as more candidates have dropped out, but the bump has only been worth 10 more percentage points, the same amount that his remaining competitors have gotten from the shrinking field. He’s the moderate that has a chance at winning independents during the general elections, but his party is drifting rightward so fast that once he gets there, he loses the Republican base. Mitt just can’t win for losing.

Reprinted from State Senator Curt Thompson's (D-5th) blog. Also, check the Senator out on Facebook and Twitter.