Mitt Romney: Not smiling now. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, http://flic.kr/p/aqnGZ7
The volatile Republican presidential nomination race is beginning to resemble a game of Whac-A-Mole: Every time former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney beats back one surging candidate, another pops up. Having seen off a resurgent Newt Gingrich with a comprehensive victory in Florida, Romney could only watch as surging social conservative Rick Santorum took Minnesota and Colorado, along with a non-binding “beauty contest” in Missouri. Now Romney and Santorum are set to square off in Michigan, in what many commentators see as a must-win contest for the former Massachusetts governor.
And the primary may get ugly. Patrick O’Connor reported for The Wall Street Journal that the two candidates have launched an “air war” in Michigan, which, although largely positive in tone for the moment, could easily turn nasty in a hurry. Writing for Reuters, Steve Holland pointed out that “negative ads by Romney worked to fend off the challenge of Newt Gingrich”, so the former Massachusetts governor may well revisit that tactic to take down Santorum.
Four new national polls put Santorum in a tie with Romney, according to The Washington Post, while yet another has the one-time Pennsylvania senator in the lead.
Michigan: What’s at stake. “If Romney loses in his native state, where his father was governor, it would be a defeat from which he might not recover,” said John McCormick at Bloomberg. This could therefore be Santorum’s big chance to deal a fatal blow to his closest GOP race rival. Santorum’s advantages in the state include his anti-abortion stance and his working-class background, which is in contrast to Romney’s shifting position on abortion and privileged Michigan upbringing. However, McCormick said, Romney is at least “known” in Michigan, and the former Massachusetts governor has the financial advantage.
Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney according to a recent Public Policy Polling poll. Santorum is at 38 percent, with Romney trailing at 23 percent. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul lay behind at 17 percent and 13 percent respectively.
Santorum risks Gingrich fate? “Santorum’s rise, naturally, comes at the expense of Newt Gingrich, who once called for Santorum to drop out of the race… In doing so, it highlights the precariousness of sudden surges,” wrote Daniel Stone at The Daily Beast. Stone pointed out that Gingrich’s big win in South Carolina was followed by a drop in popularity after “moderate voters and the GOP establishment turned on him”; the Santorum campaign may well experience the same trajectory. According to Stone, one of the major questions surrounding Santorum is whether he could do well against the Democrats in “the more moderate, delegate-heavy states like Virginia, Massachusetts or California”, given the former senator’s socially conservative stance on the economy.
Some commentators have brought up a 2008 New York Times op-ed by Mitt Romney, entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” – a stance unlikely to play well in Michigan. “He forgot about the people back home who depended on the auto industry to put food on the table, pay mortgages, send the kids to college. He greeted us like family when he needed our votes, but when he left town he treated us like strangers,” wrote LZ Granderson at CNN.
Santorum must do more. “[Santorum] is, for now, a place-holder for dissatisfaction with Romney. That is probably not enough to win the Republican nomination,” said Dan Balz on a Washington Post blog, pointing out that Republicans know little about Santorum apart from what they’ve seen on the campaign trail. Balz argued that Santorum must go beyond simply being the “the non-Romney” and “translate interest in his candidacy into lasting support”. So how might Santorum fare in a general election? While Balz broadly agreed that Santorum may be a better nominee against Obama than Romney, he also suggested that the former Senator may not do well with independent and women voters.
Santorum is too right-wing to beat Obama. “If Santorum were to be nominated, the odds are that Obama would win in a landslide,” said John Cassidy on a New Yorker blog, suggesting that Santorum’s status as “an ultra-right-wing protest candidate” means he is out of step with America as a “centrist or center-right country”. Then again, Cassidy wrote, Santorum has already “upended a good deal of conventional wisdom”; but if the former Pennsylvania senator did clinch the GOP nomination, it would show that America had become “a divided and embittered country”.
Romney’s problem. Romney wouldn’t fare particularly well against Obama either, said John Dickerson at Slate, due to the former Massachusetts governor’s tendency to rely on assertion rather than persuasion. “Even if Romney can win the Republican primary, as the smart people in politics assume he still will, he’ll have to rely on more than forceful assertion to woo independent voters who are looking for a good reason to cast their votes one way or the other,” wrote Dickerson. The answer? Romney needs to start showing some passion if he’s going to connect with voters.
