Wake up call to the Republicans

[NHPolitico]

We saw what could happen tonight, folks. Michigan Republicans gave Mr. "I don't want to go back to Reagan-Bush" his nice, comfortable victory because his father was a popular "brainwashed" Governor who never had a real chance at the Presidency. He's now back in the game with a chance at snatching two victories this weekend.

It's embarrassing that conservative Republicans have fallen for this guy's BS. I'm so ashamed that so many people could be tricked so easily. We have the chance to correct it. If he isn't stopped, we're going into a General election with a complete fraud. Say what you want about McCain, Huckabee, Rudy and Thompson but you can't call them phoney. Mitt is a sham. I have never seen someone do an ideological makeover like this guy has and if you don't think he'll be hit on it by November then you're blind. Remember Kerry's flip flopping? This guy is clearly worse.

I don't want this to sound like a bunch of demands. "Nominate my guy or else!" I don't work that way. However, there are enough people out there like myself who are so disgusted with this guy that the party can't afford to take a risk with him and our complaints are legitimate. This will be my first Presidential election and it really is something when I can't fully bring myself to say that I'd vote for this guy if he was the nominee. That's really saying something.

Put an end to this show, people. Put an end to this guy who laughed in our faces tonight after quoting Reagan and George H.W. Bush just fourteen years after he said he didn't want to "go back" to what they promoted and how he was an independent back then. There is something seriously wrong with people if we let this joke get away with this.

We have been warned.

No matter who runs, it always seems we end up with a choice between:

and

[NHPolitico]

I hope that any of his momentum dies out REAL SOON.

Then hope that he gets caught in bed with a dead girl or live boy, because Romney will be the last guy to drop out if he drops out at all.  He is resonating with Republican voters (he won the GOP vote in NH and MI), whereas the others need independents and Democrats to be competitive with him.   This nomination will be a battle between someone and Romney, so, even now, he's got a 50% shot at winning this prize.

[NHPolitico]

and a 0% chance at winning the GE

First, Romney isn't unelectable. He is very smart, even if he has negatives, and people probably thought what you thought in 2002 when it wasn't clear if he was a resident of MA, he had chosen Muffy as his running mate and faced off against Shannon O'Brien (who, interestingly, had fellow 2008er Hillary Clinton campaign for her prominently) for the chance to replace a total failure of a Republican executive, in Swift (sound familiar?).  Romney has run this same race before (replacing failure Bush to keep the GOP in control, despite that failure, against a woman who wasn't an inconsequential opponent) and pulled it off in MA, which is more liberal than the US at large. 

If you win the nomination for the GOP, because unexpected things can happen in a campaign, Romney will have a much higher chance of winning the WH than 0%, I assure you. Hell, it was amazing Bush beat Gore in 2000, but it happened!

[NHPolitico]

Rasmussen poll of core opposition/support: (taken in mid-December before Romney was hit by even more trouble)

(Definitely for-Definitely Against-Net balance)
Romney (19     47      -28)
Clinton ( 30      47      -17)

Now, I guess you can say that Romney is less polarizing than Clinton because fewer people actually like him so that the country is pretty much universally united against him, but...

Oh, and FYI,

McCain (22    33    -11)

I don't see how those poll numbers are useful for measuring anything about a guy that is still not very well known at all, especially before 2008 got underway with the Iowa caucus. You can get readings on Hillary and they'd be much more reliable.

[NHPolitico]

Romney has consistently proven that he is despised by a large part of the general public. Hell, he's running as the conservative candidate in the Republican primary and he is struggling to win THERE despite all his money.

The problem is that Mitt Romney wasn't despised enough to lose in 2002 in a race to govern a liberal state like Massachusetts. He wasn't despised enough to come in 1st or 2nd among registered Republicans in the 3 elections so far. He was endorsed by National Review. Rush Limbaugh has praised him.  If Mitt were to win, he'd have far fewer problems getting the base on board than McCain would.  Mitt is a lot of Republicans' second choice if he's not their first. McCain is at the bottom of the list for a lot of Republican voters. A large part of the general public barely knows him.  The only person I see really struggling to win in a general election is Huckabee. Mitt would have a very good chance of being competitive or even winning. I think people underestimate him at their own peril.   

[NHPolitico]

Romney apparently did quite well in Michigan, partly, because he was the most skilled at pandering.

Specifically, writing all sorts of checks to out-of-work auto workers that the U.S. economy could never cash.  Free jobs for everyone!  Goodbye fuel economy standards—THEY'RE clearly why Americans are looking to Honda and Toyota for our next cars.  We want cars with painfully low fuel economies right now, and only Japan has had the courage to give us the gas-guzzlers we're clamoring for!

One of McCain's problems, or so HardRCafe and I were discussing last night, is that he's just not doing the same pandering—he's against ethanol subsidies, for example.

Fred Thompson called Romney out for pandering, but history is written by the victors, so it's probably plenty of sour grapes on his part: "Everybody was flocking up there to Michigan and promising, in effect, the federal government was going to come in there and bail the entire state out.... Now they say that with a straight face, and apparently it worked for some of them.... Governor Romney was the most successful in doing it."

This is part of the reason that Romney shouldn't be taken lightly. He cares more about winning than making his opponents feel warm and fuzzy. Bush used the same go for the jugular strategy in 2000, and it worked for him.