Romney's Difficult Dance

Listening to snippets of the Republican presidential debate this morning on npr, you could see that the Romney camp is going to try -- correctly I think -- to pound Rick Perry on the radical statements about Social Security that appear in his book.  Romney's approach is both tactical and strategic -- on a tactical level, to try and peel off older GOP voters in places like Florida who might be frightened by Perry's rhetoric. and on a strategic level, to send the message to the broader Republican electorate that Perry will not be electable.  I think this is both Romney's best bet, but a dangerous one as well.  And it is one that is going to yield significant insights into the nature of the Republican electorate of today.

Romney is attempting to see if pragmatism can trump ideology in these contests, to see if the zeal to defeat President Obama is such that the GOP voters can back someone who is viewed as deeply suspect in terms of his political convictions.  Romney's reputation as a political shape-shifter, along with the fact that he was governor of the most liberal state in the nation and belongs to a religion many in the Party view as suspect are huge impediments in his battle with Perry.  He only overcomes these if a cool-headed assessment of electability carries the day with Republicans -- or Perry really steps on his own dick (hardly an inconceivable scenario).  

My own sense is that the voters in the Republican primaries in many states -- especially the southern ones -- are going to react poorly to electability arguments and will see Romney as a traitor to conservatism if his attacks on Social Security are deemed overly sharp.  Rush Limbaugh has already made noises on this score and I would bet we will hear much more from him on this subject.  The interesting bellwether on this score will be Fox News, an organization that will enjoy unprecedented influence in its coverage of the nomination contest.  I suspect that Fox can make or break Romney in this regard -- if they take the Limbaugh line and rally to Perry's defense, Romney is going to be in deeep trouble once the primaries are in places other than New Hampshire.  (Perry should campaign like hell in New Hampshire by the way -- it is a place that has a lot of hardcore wingnuts in the Republican ranks and there is no reason he can't make a decent showing there.)

As I have noted here before, the Republican Party has become a hard core right wing party in which a kind of strange identity politics -- the poor beleaguered conservative -- have won the day.  It is a white, southern, male dominated party, one in which Perry's stands are not viewed as generally extreme.  More importantly, Perry's views are not so much a policy plank, but rather a kind of Rorschach test about who is and what it means to be an American to this electorate.    

Romney has no choice but to fight this battle on these terms -- he is never going to out-American Perry the secessionist.  (Irony doesn't really register with Republicans.)  In the end, I think the quest for purity is going to trump pragmatism.  (In that vein, Perry's biggest weakness is his support for in-state tuition for the children of undocumented workers -- something Romney is also hitting him on from the right, always a good bet in the party of hate.)

Again, my bet is on the guy who has the better feel for the base.       

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

Romney...is never going to out-American Perry the secessionist. (Irony doesn't really register with Republicans.)

It sure doesn't, does it?

Three things that might sink Perry:

1) Even wingnuts require a candidate with a basic level of presentability - that is, you have to sound like you know what you're talking about, even if you don't. I didn't see last night's debate, but it sounds like Perry frequently fails to hurdle that low bar.

Hell, last night when Perry tried to attack Romney on changing his positions so often, Romney made it look as if Perry was the real flip-flopper. You'd think that line of attack would be impossible for any candidate with a pulse to botch up, but Perry apparently did.

2) As you note, Perry does have one Achilles' heel with the wingnut crowd: he's not nearly as anti-immigration as they are.

I think both of these factors, working together, may be enough to sink Perry. If even the wingnuts look at him and think maybe this guy just don't got game, they still need a tangible excuse to abandon their support for him. I think the immigration thing is it.

3) I think Fox has been holding its fire on Romney, because (a) if another candidate (e.g. Perry) was able to wipe the floor with him on his own, then Fox' fingerprints wouldn't be on one side of an intramural battle, and (b) they didn't want to trash Romney before it was clear that they wouldn't want him to be the nominee.

I think they'll stay on the sidelines as long as they can, but if Perry loses enough altitude, they'll help shoot him down in the end.

But it would appear that even if Perry's campaign stumbles and ultimately self-destructs, it'll have sucked the oxygen from Bachmann's campaign for long enough to sink her chances.

[Ray M]

Wouldn't it be refreshing if, instead of working out how to broaden one's appeal so as to cover the widest range of nuttiness, it were possible to campaign on things that are actually important in the real world?

The more I read about these clowns, the more I'm convinced I've fallen asleep while reading Alice in Wonderland. And that wouldn't matter, if only there wasn't a really good chance one of them might actually be elected.

[oddjob]

But it would appear that even if Perry's campaign stumbles and ultimately self-destructs, it'll have sucked the oxygen from Bachmann's campaign for long enough to sink her chances.

Which under the right circumstances would make it possible for Palin to step in late in the game (not that that would help the GOP any).

[low-tech cyclist]

It's been several months since I've worried at all about Palin. It's become quite clear that Palin's best game is to stay in the shallow waters of considering whether to be a candidate, and that she'll sink like a stone within weeks (if not days) of actually declaring she's running.

Even so, it looks like even her most ardent fans are becoming tired of the game. There's really only so long you can play footsie with a Presidential run before ordinary people realize you're not serious. (I make an exception for the Very Serious People of the Washington Post editorial staff and op-ed page, who never gave up drooling over Gingrich, no matter how many times he considered running but didn't.)

[Sir Charles]

Ray,

Welcome. Yeah, it's pretty frustrating to see the coverage of the election and the things that the media choose to focus on -- especially in these debates.

oddjob and l-t c,

I don't see how Palin could get into this thing at this late date -- you really need to lock down the activists in places like New Hampshire and Iowa early on. I would imagine that at this point most of these folks are committed to one of the declared candidates. Palin's only hope would be some sort of brokered convention -- something that strikes me as deeply unlikely.

[beckya57]

Palin's always been in this thing for money and attention. She's not really going to run--that would require actual work.

I find it a compelling commentary on the GOP and the state of our politics in general that the one statement that Perry's made that was both compassionate and sensible--that the children of immigrants shouldn't suffer for their parents' actions, and that our society will benefit if they're educated--is considered a terrible gaffe that might sink his whole campaign. Really sums it all up, doesn't it?

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Just a brief break from my 'no talking about politics' position only to point out that the collapse of Perry's campaign -- see last night's Straw Poll in Florida where he competed heavily and lost to Herman Cain -- is why I got 'off the roller coaster' for a while.

I still insist that the eventual Republican nominee will be someone not among the 'not-so-great eight.' Not Palin, I agree she'd sink like a stone. But it may come down to a Huckabee-Christie-Ryan contest or the like, simply because none of the current candidates can get a majority.

Either that, or the Vicar of Bray will simply outlast all the others, and there will be a credible 3rd (Tea Party) candidacy starring somebody from right field like, who knows, Limbaugh or Virginia Foxx or somebody totally unthought of -- Russell Fucking Pearce or somebody like that.

(There is someone named Ackerman, didn;t know him but he was on Colbert the other week talking about some initiative to get a party on the ballot in all 50 states and then hold an Internet Primary to pick the candidate. I think he expected an anti-Obama Progressive -- I'm sure he'll get a far right nutjob like Ron Paul at best.

And one more ting before I wander off on the other 'rides in the park' and that is

"Whatever Ms. Warren has been drinkng, please inform me so I can send bottles to all the other candidates."

[oddjob]

Really sums it all up, doesn't it?

Yes, it does.