Mark Steyn has an interesting post (post-mortem?) on the lack of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney on the part of much of the GOP (myself included). He starts with an e-mail that, he says, typifies much of his correspondence.
Mark: I am a big fan of yours and I am sorry the Canadian bureaucrats are annoying and harassing you.
But get your head out of your ass about McCain. I get you do not like McCain. I respect that—McCain deserves a good horse whipping at CPAC. I don't like a lot of McCain positions either, but you claim Mitt Romney is the better candidate in the election? Where does that come from, listening to Hugh Hewitt? Mitt has had essentially every opportunity, outspent his competition 10:1, and has still lost the GOP primaries to McCain... I respect that Mitt Romney is a successful businessman and good family man, but I want a president with brass balls. We are still at war. Sometimes I think even Hillary has more of that mojo quality than Romney. Very few people of any political persuasion seem excited about Romney (even among conservatives). Some conservatives may like Romney over McCain, but that is about it.
This is much of my feeling about Romney. When I was actively seeking a candidate I could be excited about, I tried to like Romney. I tried to convince myself that Romney's flip-flopping on various issues was sincere soul-searching and that his massive health care mandate in Massachusetts wasn't going to follow him to Washington, D.C. (and this is from someone desperate for the system to get overhauled).
There were three things that turned me totally off Romney. First, I was skeptical of the love fest so many conservative talk hosts had had with this candidate or that one (particularly the non-campaign of Fred Thompson). I'm used to hearing a variety of perspectives when I listen to talk radio, not the same (down to quotes pulled and language used) arguments endlessly against certain candidates and for other ones. Talk radio hosts should be embarrassed by this but instead, they decided that they would behave exactly as they claim John McCain does to conservatives, and stick their collective thumbs in the eyes of all the Republicans who weren't crazy about Mitt Romney. In other words, instead of talking critically and objectively about all our candidates, talk radioheads decided to smear the more moderate candidates for whom they had contempt (Mike Huckabee and John McCain) even while glossing over the same issues with Rudy Giuliani (who, btw, ended up being my second choice). This election cycle has caused me to lose enormous respect for talk radio because the hosts have jumped the shark and lost all credibility with me. If I feel this way, there's probably some others who feel the same way.
The second reason I turned away from Mitt Romney is how fake he comes across. I used to spend a lot of time telling myself that I vote logically, but I finally decided to come clean: I vote for candidates I like. Not just guys I could have a beer with, but candidates who seem honest (the buzzword this year is "authentic") and not always in the most likable way. Barak Obama has this in spades (can I say that?). Mike Huckabee also has it. And so does John McCain, for all the negatives. Mitt Romney does not. As I pointed out in an earlier post, Romney seems willing to say whatever he thinks someone wants to hear, and that impression is probably borne out by his many conservative epiphanies over the last four years or so. Anyone who buys that he is pro-life is simply desperate to believe he has the bona fides. I don't like Mitt Romney. I don't trust Mitt Romney. He's a fake and if he were our nominee, the Republicans could have a Mondale-like Election Night.
Finally, and most importantly, I was turned off by Romney's nasty, negative, distorting advertising in Iowa during what had been an essentially positive campaign cycle. It's clear to me that Romney realized he couldn't outcharm Mike Huckabee in Iowa. So, what did he do? He took the low road, painting Huckabee's positions in the worst possible way. Ronald Reagan had one cardinal rule about campaigning: do not attack fellow Republicans. Ever. Mitt Romney broke that rule early on and I, for one, decided right then that I'd had enough. Has John McCain gone negative on Romney? Sure he has...since Romney decided to distort and lie about his record. Once the gloves are off, there's no reason to sit back and take it.
And perhaps it was talk radio's breaking of the Ronald Reagan rule, even while wrapping themselves in the myths about Reagan, that has disappointed me so completely. Like it or not, if John McCain is the nominee, these same pundits will have to reverse course and suddenly talk up McCain because, Glenn Beck's stupidity aside, there is a difference between John McCain and either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama.
Steyn tries to portray Romney as some sort of victim of McCain meanness. But the truth is, Romney is a victim of his own behavior, both past and present. It would be hard to knee him in the privates (so to speak) if he hadn't changed positions so publicly so often so quickly. Ten years ago, Romney was an independent running to the left of Ted Kennedy, supporting gay rights, abortion, higher taxes, and more. Now, suddenly, he's had a last minute conversion and, bizarrely, many conservatives are buying it. For all his warts--and there are more than one bottle of Compound W can cure--John McCain isn't like that. The supposed flip-flops of McCain aren't explained away as some personal Damascus Road conversion (as Romney seems to think he's had), but rather an acceptance that some of his ideas--such as the comprehensive immigration reform bill of last summer--were rejected by the people and he has to retool his thinking. That's being portrayed, unfairly I think, as "flip-flopping," rather than just being open to other ideas.
Powerline gets it wrong why McCain is leading in the primaries. It isn't about his inevitability. It's actually because of his legislative experience and his personal story. George W. Bush was not an inevitable candidate in 2000. The idea that Republicans just play by these nice rules is designed to cover up the fact that hardliners aren't running the party right now. John McCain is winning the primaries because he looks like a better candidate against the Democrats in the fall. It's still about electability, not purity.
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