This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
Tagged with: Rick Santorum
Over the course of the primary, another more significant problem regarding Mitt Romney, one which is potentially much more serious, emerged. As Romney has campaigned for president, it has become increasingly clear that while he is smart, well-spoken, looks presidential and has an attractive family, he is also not a strong campaigner with little ability to build connections with people or inspire excitement from supporters.
Romney has been free for almost a month now to campaign against Barack Obama in the general election. Not surprisingly, campaigning against a gifted and experienced politician like President Obama has proven more difficult than debating Rick Santorum or trying to raise more money than Newt Gingrich. While Romney may now have more time to shake up his Etch A Sketch and reintroduce himself to the American people, he also must work hard to keep himself and his campaign in the news. Other than speculation about who Romney will choose as his running mate, there is almost nothing about the Romney campaign now which will generate interest from the media. This is a contrast with Obama, who is still president, and so is able to generate news and media coverage very easily.
Romney's victory, in addition to being an important win for the candidate himself, is also a triumph of the older, more traditional Republican Party. Romney, like other Republican nominees including John McCain in 2008, Bob Dole in 1996, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 is a figure from the Republican establishment who finished second in the last open Republican primary, making him next in line for the nomination. This pattern of orderly succession with regards to nominees had existed for decades before 2012, but this year was supposed to be different. This was the year that the Tea Party and other radical Republicans were going to change the Republican Party. The faces of the Republican Party in the age of Obama were supposed to be radicals given to extremist rhetoric, a populist contempt for big government and a distrust of political and financial insiders.
Critics of President Obama undoubtedly see him as divisive, but his rhetoric, at least, seeks to bring people together and speak to Americans as if we are one people with unified goals and aspirations. There has been very little of that kind of rhetoric from any of the Republican candidates, other than protestations regarding alleged class warfare by Democrats who have the radical notion that the very rich should be taxed at at least the same rate as other Americans. At a time when our country desperately needs to come together to solve our problems and move forward, no Republican candidate has bothered to put that simple and obvious idea at the center of their campaign. Americans may be worried about their jobs, unsure of the future or not satisfied with President Obama. All these things could help the Republicans, but not if they expect voters to be as angry as Rick Santorum.
There are many bizarre angles of the latest Rush Limbaugh outrage. One is Limbaugh's apparent unawareness about how prescription birth control works. His frequent suggestion that Ms. Fluke needed so much birth control because she was having too much sex is, in addition to being offensive, just plain ignorant. Another perplexing aspect of this attack on contraception and the women who use it is that if one listens to the Limbaughs, Rick Santorums and other social reactionaries too much, one could be mistaken for thinking using contraception is a nasty habit that some women have developed on their own, like using excessive profanity or picking their nose in public, and that men are not part of the process or equation. Perhaps Limbaugh's ignorance of how contraception works also extends to not understanding the role which men play in heterosexual sex and in pregnancy.
One of the reasons Mitt Romney has had such a difficult time nailing down the Republican nomination, in addition to his ample weaknesses as a candidate, is that rather than running against one or two other candidates seeking to represent their party on the November ballot and become president in 2013, Romney has been forced to campaign against a seemingly endless stream of candidates who are not serious about trying to become president. Newt Gingrich is running for a job on Fox News; Rick Santorum is running to make a point about theocracy being a better system of government than democracy; Ron Paul is running to draw attention to his Libertarian views; and Herman Cain seemed to be running for the fun of it, which is why he quit when it stopped being fun.
Now that the Rick Santorum boomlet seems to be ending, Republicans can return to the real work of bemoaning the state of the presidential primary. Republican dissatisfaction with the primary, which is coming from party stalwarts such as Haley Barbour and John McCain, is presented as concern that the drawn out primary will weaken the Republican chances against Obama, but it is also, implicitly, a recognition both that Mitt Romney, despite his potential appeal to those outside of the Republican base, is a weak candidate, and that no strong conservative candidate emerged during the primary season.
Fidel Castro, who has not had much experience with political competition of any kind has referred to the Republican primary campaign as a “competition of idiocy and ignorance.” Sadly, the longtime Cuban leader has a point. The race to the intellectual bottom and the loutish demonstrations of intolerance which havecharacterized the Republican race for the presidential nomination has been entertaining but also disturbing. Four years ago, the world saw the American political process at its best as the American people peacefully turned the page on the disastrous Bush administration and elected a new and very different president. The race this year, at least on the surface, is very different, but there are still elements of the campaign which demonstrate the strength and resilience of democratic systems of governance.
As an inexperienced first-time candidate who had served only four years in elected office, Romney managed to barely beat out Mike Huckabee to secure a number two finish in the 2008 primaries, and was able to leverage that into frontrunner status in 2012. Last week, however, this all changed; at least it appeared to have changed. Romney lost two primaries last week, which is particularly noteworthy given that voters only voted in one state last week. However, in addition to finishing second to Gingrich in South Carolina, Romney also was stripped of his Iowa caucus victory as final vote tallies showed the winner in Iowa to be Rick Santorum.
Despite efforts by candidates and the media to create a story that Mitt Romney -- despite having won Iowa and New Hampshire, and having more money, endorsements and organization than any other candidate in the race -- has still not wrapped up the nomination, Romney has, in fact, all but clinched the Republican nomination for president.
2012, like most years, promises to be an interesting political year. Some of the stories which were so significant in 2011 will continue, while others will fade away. The tragicomic reality show which was the Republican nominating process will quickly give way to a presidential election with two candidates who, unlike Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry -- who horrified us, made us laugh and otherwise entertained us in 2011 -- have a real chance of being president in 2013. The campaign between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will likely be very close with a great deal of drama as the US engages in the quadrennial event known as "The most important election of our lifetimes."
Rather, the main story of the Republican primary season has been that the race has been extraordinarily uncompetitive. Despite the absence of a Republican incumbent or even sitting vice president, the sense among many in the Party that President Obama is very vulnerable and a base energized by the Republican victories in the 2010 midterm election, Mitt Romney has been the front runner for the nomination almost since the day John McCain lost in 2008. With two weeks to go before the first votes are cast, he still occupies that position.
During recent weeks the Tea Party has only received media attention when it is being compared to Occupy Wall Street, but the Tea Party continues to have an influence on politics, particularly in the Republican primary for president. The big stories around sexual harassment charges against Herman Cain, as well as that candidate's bizarre statement of fealty to the Koch brothers, for example, are also part of the story of the Tea Party.
In the last week, three things have happened in the race for the Republican nomination for president: Texas governor Rick Perry officially became a candidate, Tim Pawlenty's candidacy officially came to an end, and Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll. While none of these developments involved him directly, all three of these developments collectively were a victory for Mitt Romney, moving him slightly closer to his party's nomination.
The problem the Republicans have created for themselves is that by empowering the far right of their party to lead the battle against Obama in 2009 and 2010, they have unleashed a flood of candidates who enjoy high name recognition and pockets of intense support on the far right, but no broad support from the electorate more generally. More damagingly, for the Republican Party, the far right may be sufficiently powerful to stop the nomination of any candidate who deviates from their extremist views. This is the test which Romney and the party face; and it cannot be avoided by Jon Huntsman or Rick Perry, jumping into the race fresh from Texas, Beijing, or anyplace else.
The bus tour could also be simply a preface to Palin's next reality show, talk show, book or other product. Some candidates write books to help raise their profiles as candidates; some entertainers take up issues or causes to make themselves be seen as more serious, but Palin just keeps talking and drawing attention to herself as both an entertainer and a politician, like some weird far right Energizer Bunny that never stops, but always keeps her options open.