Good luck, Mitt

Despite being absent from the Fox News GOP presidential hopeful debate in South Carolina on May 5^th, 2011, Mitt Romney is still considered by many to the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to challenge Obama in 2012.  Romney sought the nomination in 2008, but came up short against former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and the eventual nominee, Senator John McCain.  Like McCain, Romney has a track record of appealing to independent voters and, more impressively, at times, democratic voters.  Further, he has a proven history of effectively being able to reach across the aisle.  Also, Romney has broken from recent Republican trends, instituting universal health care and environmental reforms while governor of Massachusetts.  But, finally, like McCain he faces daunting challenges—like he did in 2008—in order to secure the nomination.  In order to win the nomination, Romney must downplay the qualities that make him appealing to independents and centrist democrats in the hopes of wooing firebrand republicans.  While Mitt Romney is certainly a candidate those of us at The Moderate Dispatch would love to see on the ballot in 2012, it seems highly unlikely.

While Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon, he is not going to deliver fiery sermons from the stump or assert the need to thoroughly promote Christian values in American politics and society.  Many Americans, especially those from the republican bastion Bible Belt, have expressed hesitance in voting for a Mormon for president. His persona seems is one of a congenial, educated, policy wonk, rather than that of a combative, ideologue with a mercurial temper—the kind of persona that is popular amongst the conservative blogosphere and punditry.   

Like fellow hopeful former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty—also a very electable candidate, Romney has had to run away from centrist policies and reforms.  In 2008, this distancing from his policies manifested itself in making Romney into an epically boring candidate.  Sardonic comedian, Jason Jones, lampooned Romney as if his view of America was one from the 1950s sitcom Leave it to Beaver.  Like Pawlenty, Romney understands the need to distance himself from rhetoric that would make him come across as a policy wonk or an academic—two things which he very much is.  Lamentably, most rhetoric at GOP events is heavy on hyperbole and saber rattling.  This is not suggest, however, that any political function is without such ineffectual, ill-informed stump speeches or debates.  But, while once more of the vote from college educated Americans, the GOP currently bemoans and decries academic virtues.  What is an Ivy League-educated candidate supposed to do?

While it appears that the infusion of Tea Party candidates into the legislature has caused a minor shift into how the GOP operates, it does not appear as if the party has been able to shake loose its fire-and-brimstone façade.  The very fact that the hapless Rick Santorum is considered a strong contender for the GOP nomination demonstrates how difficult it will be for electable candidates to receive the nomination from their own party.  To do so, Romney will have to, once again, attempt to walk the tightrope between firebrand republicans and moderate conservatives that the party may have purged after McCain brought on Sarah Palin to be his potential vice president.  McCain himself attempted this same strategy in 2008.  Whether he was successful in courting the far right, or simply being the strongest candidate in a very week field, is up for debate.  Likewise, whether the Palin section doomed his campaign in the general election, or whether a republican candidate could have been successful in the election, is also debatable.  Whatever the case, Mitt Romney may well find the run up to the GOP primaries more arduous than campaigning against President Obama.