Why Romney is Weak vs. Obama

[jaxx]

Why Romney is Weak vs. Obama
By Quin Hillyer on 1.13.12 @ 2:29PM

<..> The scholarly take on it, again doubting Romney's electability, was by Larry Lindsey at the Weekly Standard. From the center-left, the very smart former U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) thinks his (former) party doesn't have much to worry about from Romney: "The fact, however, is that Democrats have not had to strain to plan the race they would run against Romney. For four days in the week, they will paint him as a flip-flopper who has occupied both sides of a lot of ground; for three days, as an entitled tool of corporate interests who made millions doling out pink slips on behalf of a shadowy management firm." Also at NRO, Andy McCarthy doubts whether we can know who is more electable.

At the New York Post, John Podhoretz writes a piece about Romney headlined "Never Has a Winner Looked so Beaten." The column is brutal. It calls Romney "one of the weakest major candidates either party has ever seen." Also: "[N]obody loves him. No one is inspired by him.… Claiming he should be president because he knows how to run a business may be the least stirring message any candidate has seized upon since Michael Dukakis foundered in 1988 by claiming he could bring 'competence' to the White House. And his liabilities are undeniable. Even though Gingrich's assault on Romney's record of laying off workers when he was running Bain Capital is breathtaking in its disingenuousness, that record does happen to be one of a dozen glaring weaknesses in Romney's biography, political history and approach that President Obama and his team will be able to use to their advantage." And Jonah Goldberg writes that Romney's "authentic inauthenticity problem isn't going away."

<..> Finally, but perhaps most importantly, Romney just can't campaign against Obama's single biggest vulnerability, Obamacare. There are just too many similarities between Obamacare and Romneycare, too many bad results from Romneycare (busting the budget, etc.), and too many video clips of Romney from six years ago saying that he hoped that even the individual insurance mandate would become a "national model." This will absolutely hobble Romney's campaign. In fact, it might be an insurmountable problem.

http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/13/why...k-vs-obama

The whole bunch of them is weak. But they'll get people to vote for them, and we need to GOTV like never before.

[Dimwitted Fool]

Assuming Romney's the candidate, I can't imagine many voting FOR him. His votes will be from the Republican core and those suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome.

But, yeah, we still have our work cut out for us. And the hardest work will be for Congress-- no coattails to hang on to this year.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

Romney, another one of the GOP's tired old white men, is rather weak tea for a party that has spent the last 2-3 years frothing-at-the-mouth crazy over the fact that the Democrats finally ran an overwhelmingly successful campaign for WH and Congress culminating in the election of the first African-American to the WH. Many of the fundies and Tea Party fanatics have got to be pretty disappointed that for all their bluster and fury and time, money, and energy spent getting the Republicans to trash the President and keep him from doing things they don't like, they are not going to be getting any of their "dream candidates" as the GOP nominee for POTUS as the establishment has almost entirely coalesced around Romney by now. They may get a small "consolation prize" in the form of a Tea Party VP candidate but it has to be at least somewhat disappointing for them that they have been reduced to voting for a milquetoast flip-flopper just to be able to get the guy that they hate just a little more-Barack Obama- out of the WH. As long as we don't take things for granted and make sure to GOTV in November, I feel pretty good about our chances for helping Obama win a second term.

[NYC Liberal]

Romney is another "next-in-line candidate" for the Republicans. McCain was one in 2008. Same with Dole in 1996. We all know how well these candidates did.