Mitt Romney, meet Paul Tsongas. Well, not literally, since the Massachusetts lawmaker is no longer with us. But there are veteran Democrats who will swear up and down that Tsongas would have made a brilliant president because of his sharp and detailed knowledge of the financial condition of the federal government. Trouble is, he was a dull campaigner who failed to connect with people outside his own little corner of the world.
Super Tuesday voters virtually relegated Romney to a similar fate. Could have been an excellent president. Ran a poor campaign in which he came off as too calculating in his positions, too clever by half and, at the end, too whiny over perceived political slights that would have been nothing back in the day.
Romney did win some Super Tuesday states. Like his own, Massachusetts. He also took Minnesota and Montana. Unfortunately, not all states' names begin with a capital M, and he failed to win Missouri, where he in fact came in third.
The problem for Romney on this watershed day is that in numerous large states, Arizona Sen. John McCain simply took him to the woodshed. In California, if the numbers hold up, Romney lost by more than 20 points in a place where most polls had him leading or close. Other large states were similar. The places won by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee generally placed Romney third.
Oh, well. I endorsed him for the Republican side, citing his record as a can-do problem solver. He now has the problem of explaining to his wife how he blew quite a few million big ones on such a sorry effort as a campaigner.
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Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton will divvy up the Democratic delegates won on Super Tuesday. Obama won more states, but Clinton won bigger states, ones more important to their party's cause in November. Clinton could expand her lead, but it won't be dominating by any stretch of the imagination. Obama, if he ends up with more delegates, will cut into Clinton's advantage, but probably not by much.
The rest of the month could be kind to Obama, however. Coming up are, among other primaries, are Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. You're looking at blacks -- going more than 80 percent for Obama -- lot's of YUPPYs and college students, all going for Obama big-time.
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I think McCain can ease the fears of Republicans that he's not conservative enough. As I mentioned in a previous post, he's conservative plenty, and not conservative at all. He's simply a guy who looks at the issues and takes a position. He's not an ideologue. He's gotten some issues right, and some wrong. When he makes a mistake, it's usually a spectacular one. But it says little about whether he's a conservative or not and those ideological questions have turned out to play little to no role in the primary season.
How he approaches the general election will be interesting, however. Most of the moderate and independent voters supporting him now oppose the Iraq War, are socially liberal and hate the way the Bush administration conducts business -- and love how McCain has been a thorn in their side.
Once they realize that McCain is the biggest advocate of the Iraq War, is socially quite conservative, and will likely govern in much the same style as Bush, their vote in November might not be forthcoming.
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All this bellyaching about "battling for the soul of the Republican Party" and "saving the Reagan coalition" is driving me crazy. I'm sure there are a lot of activists and pundits who will be quick to announce the end of conservativism.
We voters voted for who we thought would be the best president, or at least the best presidential candidate. I really doubt someone in Missouri or Alabama walked into a voting booth with intentions of destroying the Reagan legacy.
Really, get serious.
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One of the other things we've been hearing with John McCain's rise has been the loss of influence of talk radio hosts. However, talk radio listeners are said to be lemmings, going wherever their hosts lead them. Maybe the listeners, as voters, simply have minds of their own after all.
