ON A ROMNEY POST-MORTEM

END OF THE ROAD

Mitt Romney dropping out of the Republican race yesterday is encouraging evidence that you can't fool all of the people all of the time. 

From a personal perspective, Mitt Romney was the one Republican candidate that on paper, would have most meshed with my quest for a moderate Republican presidential candidate, with a strong grounding in business and the markets. 

But something went askew from the beginning.

This op-ed piece by Newsweek's Howard Fineman titled "Burying Romney", articulately captures what went wrong from there from my perspective.  He starts to hit the nail on the head with the following:

"The irony of his failed campaign: if he had just stuck to selling his managerial mettle, he might well have won the nomination, given the way the country's economic anxieties have become voters' number one concern..."

"...voters know a phony above all and Romney came off as one from the get-go.

Over the last decade he had changed his views in a rightward direction on so many issues to suit what he thought he needed to win the GOP nomination that he ended up standing for nothing but his own ambition..."

Fineman goes on to add:

"He had good staff in the early states, but as soon as the genuine article (or at least a more genuine article) came along in Iowa, in the form of Mike Huckabee, Romney was blown away.

Then, having ceded the moderate ground, he lost in New Hampshire to another genuine article, John McCain (who learned his own lessons about the dangers of pandering to the right earlier in his campaign)."

And then delivers the punchline:

"It's no accident that the GOP race is down to three men who are clear about who they are: McCain, Huckabee and, yes, Ron Paul."

What was particularly disappointing from my perspective, was that Romney was the one candidate from either party who theoretically best understands how intertwined the Economy is with the issue of immigration (for my views on this, see here). 

In his concession speech yesterday he eloquently speaks to the need for the U.S. to compete well with emerging economic giants like China and India. 

"We face economic competition unlike anything we have ever known before. China and Asia are emerging from centuries of poverty. Their people are plentiful, innovative, and ambitious.

If we do not change course, Asia or China will pass us by as the economic superpower, just as we passed England and France during the last century. The prosperity and security of our children and grandchildren depend on us."

He had that right. 

Yet he utterly pandered to the right on immigration, fanning false fears in the name of security.  He did the same on the issue of Globalization, pandering to voters in Michigan, offering them false hopes of bringing lost auto jobs with $20 a year billion government relief packages.

Too bad.  He could have been a contender.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

"If we do not change course, Asia or China will pass us by as the economic superpower, just as we passed England and France during the last century. "

Michael, just what change of course do you see that will keep the US ahead of China & India? We've had Republicans in control of Congress since 1994 and the administration since 2000. Yet since 2000 we have engaged in futile foreign wars and massive domestic deficit spending. That looks as close to the Paul Kennedy "Imperial overstretch" hypothesis of the fall of empires as I can see. So what would Romney change? More tax cuts for the wealthy extending the deficit? Extending the occupation of Iraq?

It is very easy for candidates (anybody really) to speak of the fear of foreigners (immigrants taking jobs, terrorists trying to destroy domestic assets and values and foreign nations usurping national hegemony), but it is another to understand what the real drivers are and how best to change the national scene to meet those challenges.