I agree with much of what you say, darrell, but not this.
If you know what happened here in Columbus when Obama "began" his campaign, you'll understand the trouble he's in. They were going door to door begging for people to come, they bussed students in from OU and they still only filled half the arena.
The kids were Obama's bread and butter, and they're no longer interested. He's given up on trying to win white blue collar voters, he's lost independents, and his horrific policies will continue to fail in front of the American people's eyes until November.
His speech was reduced to admitting that it's going to take a long time for his policies to work, but that we have to keep moving "forward" not backward.
The whole thing was a joke.
Yes, he has endless money, but unlike what some people think here on FR, people will come out in droves to work to defeat him....in spite of the fact that Romney may have been their last choice in the primaries.
People out here in the country "get it." Obama MUST go, ergo Romney WILL win.
Here in Ohio, there is an incredible young man running against Sherrod Brown for Senator. His name is Josh Mandel, and he's bright, courageous, rock solid conservative, and he told us, ready to take on "President Romney" if he has to. (And he will).
We need to work like crazy to get a majority of conservatives in the Senate, a bigger majority in the House, and hold President Romney's feet to the fire every single day of his presidency.
Thank you to ohioWfan, wagglebee, Graewoulf, Godzilla, and Seizethecarp for your comments. I'm responding to each below, in a lot of cases overlapping.
First, for Godzilla and Seizethecarp — yes, I did read the thread from beginning to end. In fact, I read every single one of the 1100-plus posts on this thread last night, waited overnight to calm down before sending my note this morning, and have now read the additional posts this morning. I realize the thread topic has been changed significantly.
Seizethecarp, I am very sorry to hear of your medical issues. I'm not going to pry; it's none of my business. What counts is that if this thread had stayed on topic I would not have responded.
I do not have a problem with “Anybody but Romney” people — they include the vast majority of my Republican friends in my county who supported Rick Santorum. On the contrary, I do have a major concern about a resurgence of the attacks on social conservatives that we saw earlier in the primary. I've got zero problems with someone thinking Santorum wasn't the best candidate for president — I had my own reservations, became a Santorum supporter very late in the process, basically after Iowa, and then kept my word to back Gingrich if Santorum dropped out. I could have been happy with Gingrich as the nominee and defended him repeatedly in public and in private. The problem is that too many comments against Santorum weren't so much attacks on Santorum but rather attacks on the social conservative wing of the Republican Party and/or the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States.
That is a much bigger issue to me.
However, let's say I wasn't firmly committed to being a politically active evangelical. Let's say my goal was pure pragmatism, namely, assembling enough of a coalition to win 50 percent of the vote for the Republican nominee by any means possible.
The Democratic Party has to be rejoicing watching social conservatives, economic conservatives and national defense conservatives fight each other when we have far more in common with each other than any of us have with Barack Obama. Mitt Romney used divisions in the conservative wing of the Republican Party to get nominated, and unfortunately, he's given Obama proof that a divide-and-conquer strategy can work against Republican conservatives because many of us care deeply about principles and we now have a nominee who, to put it mildly, has not been known for standing on principles.
On a related point, thanks to Wagglebee for his comments about Roman Catholics rejecting both John Kerry and Rudy Giuliani, and Catholic FReepers going after Giuliani during the last presidential election cycle. Mormons need to do some serious housecleaning when this election is over; 2012 could do a great deal of damage to their well-honed efforts over the years to present themselves to the public as a religion of discipline and family values. Of course as an evangelical I'm not unhappy with people seeing the dark side of the LDS, but I would think a faithful LDS member would be very upset by the prospect of Romney repeating the Catholic Kennedy experience.
Also to Graewoulf: I appreciate your post as well. You make some important comments I need to analyze and I'm too exhausted to do it now beyond what I'm writing below regarding Romney and the dangers of a focus primarily on economic conservative views in the election.
Just as focusing primarily on social issues can antagonize some swing voters, focusing primarily on economic issues can antagonize some swing voters as well. But your post raises issues I need to look at more closely and I'm just responding to you and to ohioWfan in broad brushstrokes.
For OhioWFan... there are dynamics to the 2008 and 2012 elections that are significantly different from modern electoral history. Some of the old rules about turnout and about campaign financing no longer apply, and I do not count Romney out entirely.
I don't think it's impossible for Romney to win, but I do believe he has many factors stacked against him that would not have been the case with most of the other major Republican candidates, and on the other hand, his major advantage in money won't be as much of a factor in the general election.
(In fairness to Romney, however, he does have access to major funding sources that might have been hard for Santorum or Gingrich to get. Being part of the elite East Coast establishment has undeniable advantages. Rather than being a David and Goliath fight between an underfunded Republican candidate relying on lots of small donors and a well-funded Democratic candidate, the 2012 presidential campaign will be a very wealthy Republican and his friends versus a Democrat from a poor background who has very wealthy friends.)
Here are some details on why I'm seriously concerned that we are facing a disaster this November.
First, the Democrats believe demographics are on their side long-term, and they've got a good case if something isn't done within a generation to get Hispanics to vote Republican. Certain key large states are today reliably Republican, but as their Hispanic population grows, Republicans will be forced to divert resources to keeping those states in the Republican column by getting lots of white rural Southern conservatives to the polls. Even now, in a close election such as what we face this year, that means Republicans will be on the defensive keeping red states from turning purple when we need to be on the offensive turning purple states into red states and making Democrats spend their money keeping blue states in their column. That could become a cascade of problems leading to a disastrous electoral blowout.
Both Santorum and Gingrich could have made a credible appeal to Mass-going Roman Catholic Hispanics that will be very hard for Romney to make, especially because of the Massachusetts health care history. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see Romney having any sort of solid history of demonstrated appeal to Roman Catholics.
Secondly, and more seriously in the short-term, during the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections, the Democrats said — in my opinion, correctly — that if they could get the same electorate to the polls that voted in 2008, they would win by a large margin. Instead, they lost due to a number of different factors, one of the most important being the energy of the Tea Party movement.
We simply cannot ignore the fact that Obama energizes his own base voters and our base will not be energized in 2012 — or at least won't be to the extent they were in 2008.
Key components of the Republican base — evangelical Christians, rural white voters, blue collar “Reagan Democrats,” and others — either have a long history of low voter turnout or are willing to vote for Democrats under the right circumstances. On the other side of the spectrum, Republicans are kidding ourselves if we don't understand the appeal that Obama has to black Democratic voters. I don't blame Obama for that; it's the same sort of appeal that Kennedy had to Roman Catholics in 1960. That wasn't a factor in 2010, but it will be in 2012 with Obama at the top of the ticket.
The other side of the aisle is going to paint Romney as a spoiled rich son of a career corporate executive who became a company president, and then to make things even worse, became a robber baron corporate raider destroying companies rather than repairing them.
What is our response going to be? “Yes, Romney really does like to fire people, and lots of Washington bureaucrats need to be fired?”
There are a lot of reasons for Republicans to vote against Obama, but as far as I can tell, the only actual positive thing Romney brings to the table other than being “anyone but Obama” is Romney's expertise in the corporate world. If we focus on that, I believe we risk losing by massive margins in key industrial states that we must have to win the general election. I'm all for capitalism, but “Vote for Romney's Corporate Raiders” is not a winning campaign slogan in the industrial heartland states.
I hope I'm wrong. I really wish I could see a good path to a Republican victory this fall, because I fully understand how much damage Barack Obama can do.
I just don't see it.