He Haunts Us Still: The Return of Romney

Predicting the Democratic party's presidential nominee is difficult at the best of times. Since time immemorial, the whole point of the Democratic primaries is to kill the front runner. If you're not sure how that works, you can always give Gary Hart or Hillary Clinton a call. they'll be more than happy to explain it to you.

Figuring out who the next Republican nominee will be is so easy that I've done it before the previous election cycle is completed. All you need to do is ask yourself, "Who's turn is it?"

In the beginning there was Eisenhower. Eisenhower begat Nixon, who begat Ford. When Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in 1976, the 1980 nomination was Reagan's for the asking. Reagan's nearest contender for the nomination was George H. W. Bush, who became the vice-president and the '88 nominee. Dole was the runner-up to Bush 41 and was nominated in '96. John McCain ran a strong race against George W. Bush and carried the standard.

The only exceptions to the rule of succession were Barry Goldwater in 1964, when the party was overrun with Birchers, and Bush 43 in 2000, when no sane person could stomach the idea of nominating a sure loser like Steve Forbes.

That's why this poll comes as no surprise to me.

A plurality of Republican operatives say Mitt Romney would be their party's strongest nominee in the 2012 presidential contest, while Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee, barely makes the top 10.

In National Journal's first polling of GOP insiders on the 2012 race, 29 percent say Romney is the strongest candidate. He's followed by South Dakota Sen. John Thune (15%), Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (13%), Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (11%), Newt Gingrich (6%), Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (5%), Jeb Bush (5%).

Mike Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Palin round out the top 10 with 3 percent each. Also receiving votes were Dick Cheney, Michael Bloomberg, Eric Cantor, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Colin Powell, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum.

Romney also holds a wide lead when GOP operatives were asked who they think will win the nomination. Pawlenty finished a distant second, followed by Thune, Barbour, Daniels and Palin.

The exclusion of Sarah Palin as a serious contender should shock no one, since she's a borderline idiot. Moreover, the GOP has no history of nominating failed vice-presidential nominees, which is why Jack Kemp - a far more serious person than Palin - died anonymous and alone. The last time a failed VP nominee was the presidential pick was given his party's presidential standard was in 1932, when the 1920 pick for vice-president was nominated. Perhaps you've heard of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.


However, those days are a distant memory. Primaries and general elections are simply too expensive to run the same loser over and over again. You'll never again see perennial nominees like FDR and Richard Nixon, each nominated for national office five times. I think that Al Gore could have won in 2008, but the circumstances of the 2000 campaign were strange that they make him the exception that proves the rule.


Unless the GOP completely breaks with its history, I can guarantee you that Palin won't be nominated to anything in Republican party ever again. I can't see the Tea Party movement being enough of a force in two years to put her anywhere near the ticket, and that's pretty much the only way she'd get there.

Does that mean that Romney can win? Fuck no!

First, he still has the Mormon thing working against him, and we all saw how well that worked for him in the Southern primaries of aught-eight. There's no shortage of Southern evangelicals who would rather vote for someone they think is a Kenyan Marxist than someone who might as well be a Satanist. And Southern evangelicals are sort of the Republican base. If they aren't voting for Mitt, who is?

Certainly not the growing Latino population in the Southwest and Mountain states. Last time out, Romney threatened to deport thirteen million of their friends and relatives en masse, which could only be better if he ended that pitch by saying, "Vote Quimby, Jeffe."

What about the Midwest? Well, Romney's a venture capitalist, which means that he buys struggling companies, breaks them up, sells off the pieces, and throws everyone out of work. That'll play about as well in, say, Michigan, as you think it will. His opposition to the auto bailouts might prove to be problematic, too.

If you're anything like me, you're dying to see Mitt neutralize the potential advantage the GOP has over the Democrats on the health care issue. The current Senate version of ObamaCare looks downright flinty compared to the Massachusetts Miracle that Romney signed into law as governor. It looks that way because it is.

Then there's the embarrassment of riches that is the footage of Romney's 1994 Senate campaign debate against Ted Kennedy, wherein the Republican vowed to be to the left of Ted Kennedy as a senator. Most people were so enraptured with the Obama-Hillary grudge match in '08 that they'll have never heard about that before because they weren't paying attention to the Republican primaries. Something tells me that'll change if Mitt gets the nomination and goes to the dance with Barry.

I don't care if President Obama is caught on video butchering a whore just before election day, there's virtually no way that he loses to Romney. Christ, I'd be surprised if the White House isn't already contributing to Romney's PAC.

So I'm not surprised that Mitt's polling well, since it's his turn. Unfortunately, the GOP would do about as well nominating the ghost of Wendell Willkie.