There never was much reason to think that Mitt Romney had a fighting chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2012. Sure, Romney has all the right stuff on paper. He's a former Wall Street honcho and he saved the LA Olympics, served two terms as governor of Massachusetts, and looks great in a suit. Romney also projects oodles of alpha male leadership qualities and is going to win all of the fundraising battles because of his own personal fortune and his access to big business and Mormon cash.
But none of that means much in the Republican primaries.
Romney is what's going to be known as the classic "Mike Castle" candidate. The now former senator from Delaware, Mike Castle was experienced, popular, had lots of money and would have won a general election against a Democrat hands-down.
And I'm sure that Castle was supremely confident of election in 2010.
Nevertheless, Castle's re-election campaign folded up like origami paper after a few well-placed Tea Party attack ads on his moderation and Castle ended up with the most humiliating loss possible. He was beaten by the unemployed, dysfunctional neophyte Christine O'Donnell who promptly became a national embarrassment.
In the same way, Mitt Romney has little chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination even though he's leading in the polls. As soon as aggressive conservatives like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, or Rick Perry begin running attack ads, Romney's numbers are going to sink and his campaign's going to run aground.
And if the other GOP candidates aren't going to go after Romney, Tea Party organizations were determined to see that he didn't win.
But it turned out that none of that was necessary.
Even without a barrage of attack ads, the current polling indicates that Romney is a long-shot. A PPP poll released today has Romney 20%, Bachmann 16%, Palin 12%, Perry 11%, and the GOP riff raff corralling another 32% among them. Romney's ahead, but these are disastrous numbers for him because Bachmann, Palin, and Perry are the same woman or "guy." They're Tea Party affiliated, aggressive, religious, suspicious of government, and alienated from the multi-cultural America that's going to line up behind Obama's re-election.
The three-headed monster of Bachmann, Palin, and Perry get 39% of the vote between them and that's the case even though neither Palin nor Perry have started campaigning yet. Bachman was around 5% before she officially announced that she was running. One positive (but hardly spectacular) debate performance and some hard campaigning later, Bachmann's nipping at Romney's heels. When Perry and Palin announce (and I'm convinced Palin will run), their numbers can be expected to go up as well.
Bachmann's actually slipping ahead of Romney on other measures, edging Romney by 1 point (21-20) with Sarah Palin not being considered and edging Romney again (44-41) in a head to head measure. Bachmann's even or slightly ahead despite not having Romney's name recognition, not having Romney's money, and not running any RINO crushing attack ads. Right now, Romney's a second choice for almost as many Palin, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Ron Paul, Pawlenty, and Huntsman supporters as Bachmann.
Romney also seems to be the second choice of that guy in Idaho who supports Rick Santorum.
But support will eventually drift away from Romney as the super-charged emotions of the Republican primaries start building in earnest and the number of candidates drops down from the current 10 after the South Carolina caucuses.
Who becomes Romney's strongest opponent is anybody's guess. Right now, I would give slightly better odds to Michele Bachmann because she's proven to be more energetic, determined, and organized than either Sarah Palin or Rick Perry.
But that could change.
Given all her charisma, Sarah Palin still has an opportunity to reignite among conservatives. Likewise, it could be the case that Perry has untapped national appeal.
Who knows?
But the battle to win the Republican nomination is likely to be determined by who's the strongest between Bachman, Palin, and Perry.
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Comments
Things are bad...and gonna get much worse.
We can hope that the opposition will be a Romney...or even a Jeb Bush...or anyone with a brain, but the extreme element of the Republican party is madly in love with people who shouldn't even be considered for principals of grammar schools.
If the candidate of the Democrats is not the winner...we are going to have a buffoon in the Oval Office. I know there are many here in OS who feel a buffoon IS now in the Oval Office. Free country...feel what you want.
But the alternative of the buffoon vetted by the Tea Party and the other extremists on the American Right ought to fill you with terror.
I told others elsewhere that the only principles frank knows are those who run schools.
Speaking of grammar schools, frank, did you fail there, too?
After experiencing life in nearly a dozen different countries, my feelings have only found greater confirmation, Ric.
My suggestion is to stay in Kentucky and teach as long as You can bear it, Ric. You're intelligence is desperaately needed to counter the sheer lunacy of the bartender/strip club manager, who has nothing to say.
The listen to some YouTube clips of Jim Rogers, he, a co-founder of the Quantum fund, who realized that america's economic policies would doom america, and took his kids and family to Asia, the next economic center of the world:
"James Beeland Rogers, Jr. (born October 19, 1942) is an American investor and author based in Singapore. He is chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, Inc.
Rogers was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Demopolis, Alabama.[1][4] He started in business at the age of five by selling peanuts and by picking up empty bottles that fans left behind at baseball games. He got his first job on Wall Street, at Dominick & Dominick, after graduating with a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1964. Rogers then acquired a second BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford University in 1966.
In 1970, Rogers joined Arnhold and S. Bleichroder. In 1973, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. During the following 10 years, the portfolio gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%.[5] The Quantum Fund was one of the first truly international funds.
In 1980, Rogers decided to "retire", and spent some of his time traveling on a motorcycle around the world. Since then, he has been a guest professor of finance at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.[citation needed]
In 1989 and 1990, Rogers was the moderator of WCBS' The Dreyfus Roundtable and FNN's The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers. From 1990 to 1992, he traveled through China again, as well as around the world, on motorcycle, over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) across six continents, which was picked up in the Guinness Book of World Records. He tells of his adventures and worldwide investments in Investment Biker, a bestselling investment book.
In 1998, Rogers founded the Rogers International Commodity Index. In 2007, the index and its three sub-indices were linked to exchange-traded notes under the banner ELEMENTS. The notes track the total return of the indices as an accessible way to invest in the index. Rogers is an outspoken advocate of agriculture investments and, in addition to the Rogers Commodity Index, is involved with two direct, farmland investment funds - Agrifirma,[6] based in Brazil, and Agcapita Farmland Investment Partnership,[7] based in Canada.
Between January 1, 1999 and January 5, 2002, Rogers did another Guinness World Record journey through 116 countries, covering 245,000 kilometers with his wife, Paige Parker, in a custom-made Mercedes. The trip began in Iceland, which was about to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of Leif Eriksson's first trip to America. On January 5, 2002, they were back in New York City and their home on Riverside Drive. His route around the world can be viewed on his website, jimrogers.com. He wrote Adventure Capitalist following this around-the-world adventure. It is currently his bestselling book.
On his return in 2002, Rogers became a regular guest on Fox News' Cavuto on Business which airs every Saturday.[8] In 2005, Rogers wrote Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market. In this book, Rogers quotes a Financial Analysts Journal academic paper co-authored by Yale School of Management professor, Geert Rouwenhorst, entitled Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures. Rogers contends this paper shows that commodities investment is one of the best investments over time, which is a concept somewhat at odds with conventional investment thinking.
In December 2007, Rogers sold his mansion in New York City for about 16 million USD and moved to Singapore. Rogers claimed that he moved because now is a ground-breaking time for investment potential in Asian markets. Rogers's first daughter is now being tutored in Mandarin to prepare her for the future. He is quoted as saying: "If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia." In a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo broadcast on May 5, 2008, Rogers said that people in China are extremely motivated and driven, and he wants to be in that type of environment, so his daughters are motivated and driven. He also stated that this is how America and Europe used to be. He chose not to move to Chinese cities like Hong Kong or Shanghai due to the high levels of pollution causing potential health problems for his family; hence, he chose Singapore. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rogers