So, a few days ago, the Republican Presidential Nomination was found, and despite a surprising burst from Rick Santorum, he announced he was stepping out of the race, moderate Mitt Romney has ended up as the GOP’s candidate. Whilst the race has been a fairly insipid affair, with few candidates if any generating the kind of buzz that the Democratic Nomination gained in 2008, Romney is actually going to be the most effective challenger, out of the pack, to Obama getting re-elected. This, in a time when the ultra right wing Tea Party has gained a large amount of support, may come across as quite surprising. However, PR friendly candidates like Michelle Bachmann were always going to struggle once the media and other candidates really started baring their teeth. Santorum appeared confident when the Nomination moved to ethical issues, however when the issue of the economy sprang up, which it inevitably will in November, Romney always looked more assured. So despite Santorum still having a higher Republican approval rating than his rival, he has wisely dropped out, leaving Romney a tightrope to tread towards the election. He has to both be moderate to sway swing states, and appease the Republican base, something he has not been effective at up until now. However, regardless of how Romney campaigns, it appears that he will have neither the panache or the charisma to take down Obama.
Romney, as Governor of Massachusetts, is undoubtably a moderate, particularly by this current crop of candidates’ standards. Whilst many, like Santorum, “If we’re going to win this race we can’t have little differences between our nominee and President Obama. We have to have clear contrasting colours,” see this as a negative thing, in the current climate it is likely to play to Romney’s advantage. Despite the original buzz about Sarah Palin after she was announced as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, as the interviews increased, and the campaign went on, she increasingly came across as too extreme to be elected into office. After the election, many pointed this as the time where John McCain lost the election, suggesting moderate Joe Liebermann would have been a more electable Vice President. Despite a lack of faith in Romney by the Republican base, it is still clear that their hatred of Obama far outweighs their apparent dislike of Romney, negating the fear that they may not vote for him at all, their will be no Ross Perot at this election. Romney has gained the important endorsements of Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush both of which are popular among the Tea Party. They both also represent Florida, with Bush having a fairly effective time as Governor, and Rubio as a Cuban-American could help attract the Latino vote in a swing state, one where Romney could challenge Obama.
Whilst the paragraph above inspires hope for Romney, the reality is that his campaign has run stale. In the picture above, his attempt at stadium rally in Detroit ended up embarrassing as opposed to inspiring. After Romney’s success in the Illinois primary, the stark statistic was that 30% of the voters wanted the campaign to end, regardless of who got the nomination. Romney has managed few convincing wins, winning Ohio an incredibly important state, by 1%, and only getting 60% in Virginia, despite the only challenger being Ron Paul. He has failed consistently in states across the South, and whilst it is essential to battle Obama in the swing states on a moderate level, it is equally as important for Romney to get the Republican base behind him, to gain momentum and grass roots support behind his campaign.
Many Republicans and analysts have described this as the worst Republican Nomination campaign ever, more focused on the candidates beating each other up, than inspiring support across the country. Romney appears to have completely lost the confidence of social conservatives, the Santorum camp, highlighting an increasing divide between the different strands of the Republican party. He desperately needs something to inject some momentum into his campaign, with which he already appears tired by. Despite the criticisms of appointing Sarah Palin, at the time it helped give the McCain campaign a huge boost, inspiring the sceptical conservatives of the Republican base to come out and give their support to McCain. The population of the United States look for a candidate to appear, and sound Presidential, and at the moment Romney just is not that. Whilst he may be generating huge amounts of money from the Super PACs, Obama will pick up small donations from the grass roots, showing he still has the ability to inspire people. Something which, to be honest, Romney is unable to do.
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