The Weakness That Saps the Strength of GOP Candidates

Townhall.com ^ | January 7, 2012 | Michael Barone

[Kaslin]

A presidential campaign exposes candidates' strengths and weaknesses. The strengths they're eager to tell you about. So let's look at the weaknesses.

Start with Rick Santorum, whose poll numbers in New Hampshire and South Carolina have been surging since (by last count) he lost the Iowa caucuses by the Chinese lucky number of 8 votes.

Santorum's weakness is that he can't resist concentrating on peripheral issues. The prime example is his leadership in 2005 in getting the Senate summoned into voting for a law preventing the removal of life support for Terri Schiavo.

Santorum's position was intellectually defensible (and shared by Democrats like Tom Harkin). But voters considered it weird to devote so much energy to a single unhappy legal case. I think this accounted more than anything else for Santorum's 59 percent to 41 percent defeat in Pennsylvania in 2006.

In New Hampshire, Santorum was unable Thursday to resist Boston radio talk show host Michael Graham's invitation to characterize himself as a "Jesus guy." Again, he had an intellectually coherent rationale.

And at an appearance in Windham that evening, he made it clear that he doesn't believe a candidate has to be a Christian -- a necessary concession in a nation whose Constitution bars any religious test for office.

But in discussing these issues, he needlessly gave credence to those who dismiss him as nothing more than a religious conservative when in fact he has a serious record on, and has been talking about, economic and foreign issues.

Jon Huntsman, even more dependent on a breakout in New Hampshire than Santorum, has a different weakness. His disdainful dismissal of other Republicans, even more than his service as Barack Obama's ambassador to China, has antagonized many conservatives.

At the same time it has attracted people who, like Huntsman supporters I've interviewed after his town halls, characterize him as the least bad alternative among the Republican candidates. And it's netted him the endorsement of liberal papers like the Concord Monitor and the Boston Globe.

Yet Huntsman's positions on economic issues are solidly conservative and have been praised by The Wall Street Journal. On education, he is a thoughtful backer of school choice. As governor of Utah, he took many smart conservative initiatives.

The tension between the anti-conservative aura he gives off and his genuinely conservative positions seems to have left Huntsman between two stools and struggling to achieve the solid third place finish in New Hampshire that might plausibly give him a ticket to other states.

Other candidates' weaknesses are so obvious that they can be quickly summarized. Ron Paul looks and sounds zany.

Yes, his attacks on the Federal Reserve are more plausible than they were four years ago, and he's on his way to doubling his percentage in New Hampshire, as he did in Iowa. But he's not going to attract more votes with a brochure cluttered with arcane verbiage and with keywords in ALL CAPS.

As for Rick Perry, all you have to do is watch that agonizing 53 second brain freeze again. Perry's weakness is that he's never had a secret ambition to be president of the United States.

He got into the race when other politicians' decisions not to run seemed to create an opening for the governor of the nation's second largest and best job-creating state. But his sketchy knowledge of national and foreign issues revealed him as a man who had already achieved his life's ambition as governor of Texas.

Newt Gingrich's weaknesses? Where do we start? On the stump in Iowa, he was constantly detouring off message, and his pledge not to campaign negatively was at odds with the attack dog tactics that enabled him to end Democrats' 40-year majority in the House.

But his greatest weakness, I think, is that he sees himself as a world historical figure. Being derailed in Iowa by negative ads pointing out the $1.6 million he pocketed from Freddie Mac seems to him as enraging as if Winston Churchill had been shoved aside in May 1940 because of his (genuinely) dodgy finances. But rage doesn't attract votes.

Which leaves Mitt Romney, well ahead in New Hampshire polls, ahead in post-Christmas polls in South Carolina, with the resources and organization needed to win in giant Florida.

His weakness is that he never experienced the cultural revolution of the 1960s and so sounds corny and insincere. So far, that hasn't been disabling.

[Diogenesis]

Are you not tired of posting for Mitt Romney?

ROMNEY DID NOT WIN IOWA WITH HONOR.
Romney cheated and backstabbed, as usual.

"Vote Count Error? Did Rick Santorum Really Win the Iowa Caucuses?
DES MOINES, Iowa - Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes
and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page.
He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa
got the count right, he said he was shocked to find they hadn’t.
“When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I’ve got a
20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa,” True said. “Not Mitt Romney.”

"Several UNREPORTED news reports have it that Romney
did not win the Iowa Caucuses.
Barring any objective, verifiable proof that shows more than 12 votes mistakenly
being credited to Santorum, Romney lost."

"Could Typo Rewrite Caucus History? (Santorum may regain win)"

IT’S UNANIMOUS FOR RINO ROMNEY

Mitt Romney wins much coveted Jimmy Carter endorsement

Gore Praises Romney's 'Climate Protection Plan'

Carville(D):
"It's a feel-good story, this Romney thing.
Romney is an ascendant guy."

Sen. John Kerry (D) to Don Imus on RomneyCARE:
"I like this health care bill".

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) on RomneyCARE:
"To come up with a bipartisan plan in this polarized environment is commendable."

[cake_crumb]

Reads like a “nit pick Rick” article. Though he did through huntsman in at the end as an aferthought.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***CLICK***

[dirtboy]

Gawd, is Barone this dense?

Santorum's weakness is that he can't resist concentrating on peripheral issues. The prime example is his leadership in 2005 in getting the Senate summoned into voting for a law preventing the removal of life support for Terri Schiavo.

Santorum's position was intellectually defensible (and shared by Democrats like Tom Harkin). But voters considered it weird to devote so much energy to a single unhappy legal case. I think this accounted more than anything else for Santorum's 59 percent to 41 percent defeat in Pennsylvania in 2006.

Yeah, Santorum's position here hurt him badly in staunchly pro-life PA. Not.

And Santorum was the only pubbie in 2006 who got decked by the prevailing political winds.

Not.

And the Dems finally got smart and ran an ostensibly pro-life candidate against Santorum. And unleashed a barrage of hatchet attacks against him.

One can find weaknesses with Santorum, but this sure as heck ain't one of them.

[dirtboy]

Which leaves Mitt Romney, well ahead in New Hampshire polls, ahead in post-Christmas polls in South Carolina, with the resources and organization needed to win in giant Florida.

His weakness is that he never experienced the cultural revolution of the 1960s and so sounds corny and insincere. So far, that hasn't been disabling.

That's the ONLY weakness with Romney? Not his flip-flops, lack of core pricinciples and Romneycare?

Well, we see what this article is about. Pretend-objectivity in the name of pimping Mitt.

[dirtboy]

As for Rick Perry, all you have to do is watch that agonizing 53 second brain freeze again. Perry's weakness is that he's never had a secret ambition to be president of the United States.

As opposed to Mitt, who has run non-stop for what, six years, and who appears to be so driven to win the White House that he will destroy any pubbie running against him, thereby turning the GOP landscape into scorched earth?

Barone lands on my bozo list with this column.

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you.

Yeah. I think the right to life is hardly a peripheral issue.

[NKP_Vet]

And no matter what the left-leaning Romney loving polls say,
he is not leading in South Carolina. Wait till the actual voting and see if LIBERAL MORMAN Romney wins SC. Aint gonna happen.

[DJ MacWoW]

Did You Know?

The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?

Now That You Do, Donate And Keep FR Running

[dirtboy]

Yeah, what is utterly ignorant about this column is that Santorum’s staunch pro-life stance is what gave him a leg up in two Senate elections in purplish-blue Pennsylvania. It sure as heck isn’t what cost him in 2006.

[rintense]

Funny how the one ‘weakness’ for Santorum is protecting life. Barone is a moron.

[ncalburt]

Mike Barone is a jerk for writing this Mittens Rot.
Being a DC elite means you hate Catholics like Rick who actually practice their belief vs vile frauds like San Fran Nan who
Fund abortion factory but uses their supposed catholic faith as a pr tool.
So now the attack on Rick is his Christian beliefs from these
Sicko pundits.
How did we get to this point in the amoral media ?

[SuzyQue]

I’d say the main weakness is the lack of willingness to stand up for their beliefs and unwillingness to attack the other side and/or or inability to so with any effectiveness.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

I want to know if any of the remaining candidates for ‘12 GOP POTUS are, really, going to become “Small Government Conservatives”, as the next POTUS.

[redpoll]

On a whim I decided to check out what happened in the 1936 presidential election. It’s a fascinating read.

Like the Republicans today, the establishment candidate was a moderate politician and wealthy businessman (Alf Landon). Landon was a Teddy Roosevelt progressive. There were many contenders, including Earl Warren (!!!) and a guy named William Borah, who is described at the site I’m looking at as an “insurgent,” and a newspaper publisher. There were a couple of cranks out there, too, like Huey Long (killed in 1935) and Father Coughlin (on the Democrat side). The party machinery backed Landon, though, and he got the nod at the convention. Polls showed that Landon would win, although a guy named George Gallup predicted a Roosevelt victory. In the end, Roosevelt won in one of the biggest landslides in American history.

Well, here we are ready to nominate a moderate who’s a rich businessman going up against the party of the state.

Just a metaphor.

God help us.

[WestSylvanian]

To add to Santorum’s woes in Pennsylvania in 2006 that Barone doesn’t even mention—Pennsylvania voters were fed up with Bush’s stubborn insistence that he would keep Rumsfield in office and stay the course in Iraq. The war was going badly and Bush didn’t seem to get it that people wanted a change. Santorum was joined at the hip with Bush as a leader in the Republican-controlled Senate. Pennsylvanians thought he wasn’t independent enough. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 in Pennsylvania. They’ll vote for a pro-life, conservative, gun-supporting, blue collar Republican if he or she is seen as independent. Santorum got the shaft from Democrats in Pennsylvania because of his loyalty to George Bush as a Republican leader in the Senate.