I have no reason to think Romney better than Obama, in fact his deceptiveness will make it harder to gage what he's up to if he wins...but like yourself I do not see how Romney can win this, even if the Mormon machine comes on strong, which they surely will do.
There's been little mud thrown Romney's way since the start.....they're withholding their fire til they can make direct hits he will not be ready for, nor will he survive them. ....He's not quick on his feet and actually comes across rather dumb-faced far too often and easily blindsided without much effort. So when the real ammo begins to fly he'll have difficulty , at best, ducking it, which has been his forte up to this point.
Romney can win for one simple reason, all Obama has is mudslinging against him, that’s it, Obama cannot run on his record and win. Santorum can easily be painted as extreme, he gives soundbites daily almost that make him look a monster, this can’t be done with Romney.
This election is boiling down to a simple referendum on Obama, nothing more. Every poll shows the electorate wants Obozo gone. All they need to know is the guy they are offered to replace him with isn’t a monster. That’s it.
Romney, as bad as he is from my perspective and most conservatives perspectives, is an acceptable replacement to the swing voter. He can’t easily be painted as a radical right wing hatemonger. The press will attack and so will Obama, and Romney takes Obamacare basically out of play because he passed something nearly identical in MA... but at the end of the day, when its a referendum vote which is what this election is going to be, its simply a matter of when the 40% of swing voters look at Obama, and look at the alternative, do they find the alternative scarier than Obama, that’s it.
This race has always been the republicans to lose.
What is going to be, and already is interesting, is that Obama and his surrogates are going to be the ones stirring up the Romney isn’t conservative enough line, I GUARANTEE IT! Obama will not win the swing vote, so their only, and probably most effective attack will be to attempt to depress the Republican conservative vote. Its going to be a crazy election.
Romney winning or losing boils down to whether the Republican base will hold for him, nothing more. Obama and his surrogates will unload with every ounce of mud they can dig up and thug tactic they can come up with, and its not going to matter. The general election is a matter of simply this, will the base hold their nose and vote for Romney? Is Obama so bad that even though Romney is without quesiton the most liberal Republican ever to run for the white house, will the conservative base show up and pull the trigger for him because OBama is so much worse.
That’s the real question. I admit I hate Romey, and find the fact I am going to likely vote for him repugnant to my core, but when my options are continued unfettered hemmoraging that is Obama to a festering wound that is Romney, I have to take the festering wound. Yes, it sucks, but a festering wound won’t kill me directly. Lesser of two evils, nothimg more.
Mark my words, by the time the election cycle is over, you will be able to track money directly back to Obama funding groups attacking Romney for being too liberal.
Obama won largely on Conservative Base disgust in ‘08, had turnout in 08 been the same as it had been in 04, Obama would not have won, even with his big turnout of blacks in urban areas. Too many conservatives stayed home in 08, hopefully as bad as the choice is now, they won’t repeat the same mistakes.
I don’t know how we clean up the fustercluck that is the GOP, but it clearly isn’t going to happen before November.