Romney’s March Continues

Bill Kristol, in his ongoing bid to supplant Dick Morris’s as America’s Worst Pundit, has been trying to spin Mitt Romney’s victory in the New Hampshire primary as a disappointing outcome for Romney. By the time the ballots are all counted, however, Romney will have taken close to (and perhaps more than) 40% of the votes and become the first Republican (barring sitting Presidents) to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Yeah, that’s a campaign that’s in trouble and struggling to get “traction”.

Sure, something could happen to defeat Romney. Sure, he’s not a compelling front-runner. Sure, there are reasons to be worried that turnout in the GOP contests thus far has been lower than might have been predicted a year ago. And, yeah, you look at Romney and you think that, well, even if he’s not wholly underwhelming he sure ain’t greatly whelming either. But who else is there? Asking the question reveals the gaping horror at the heart of this process: there is no-one else.

No-one else who can be a plausible general election candidate that is. South Carolina will cause some trouble for Romney but he’s still going to poll strongly there and has Florida to fall back on should he be damaged in the Palmetto state. Even if Romney were to drop to 25% in SC (where he won 15% and finished third behind Huckabee and McCain in 2008) it’s not obvious any other candidate will emerge as the undisputed anti-Romney. Paul will take his 10-15% in SC leaving Perry, Santorum and Gingrich to carve up 60-65% of the vote (Jon Huntsman, fast becoming this race’s Joe Lieberman will not, I assure you, be a factor).

Romney took some swipes at his rivals on Tuesday night but the greater part of his victory speech was a message to Barack Obama. It was what you would expect from Romney: slick, smooth and so flagrantly dishonest it’s hard to believe even he really means all he says. Though delivered with an element of aw-shucks hucksterism, Romney’s critique of Obama is not really about policy differences (though there are some of those) but is instead a tribal call for a renewed culture war striking back at cosmopolitan liberal elites who hate America and want to turn it into France. This is a familiar tune but it still seems strange hearing Mitt Romney, of all people, sing it.

I mean, even Romney, always prone to unfortunate smirking, struggles to deliver this kind of thing with a completely straight face:

President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him. This is such a mistake for our Party and for our nation.  This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We must offer an alternative vision.  I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique — We are One Nation, Under God.

Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense.

Our campaign is about more than replacing a President; it is about saving the soul of America.  This election is a choice between two very different destinies.

President Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” America. We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great. 

He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society.  We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.

To be fair to Mitt, he’s getting better at pretending he really believes this stuff. It would be worse it he actually did but, again, we can only trust that Romney’s fakery is real fakery and not the pretend kind. As a basis for hope this is, I grant you, thin but these are desperate times. How can they be otherwise when Mitt Romney is the Republican party’s presumptive nominee? But who else is there? Electability trumps most other concerns even if it also tends to cause severe attacks of Buyers’ Remorse. 

Romney will play a quiet “inevitability” strategy and this may help keep him above 30% in South Carolina. Stopping him there won’t be enough to deprive him of the nomination but it is the last, only remaining chance of doing so. But it’s not going to happen and by Super Tuesday Ron Paul might well be the only other guy left in the race.