No.
Team Obama would be mortified to be running against them and would be far more negative and race-card-playing than they already are. I don't think Gingrich or Cain would play soft with Obama's record. Maybe FBI files would help them tone down the rhetoric - but with what they say is at stake - maybe they would go all in against Obama.
The fact the media and Obama's people were on the circuit early last year telegraphing that their 'most difficult opponent would be Romney' - told me everything I needed to know about the set-up we are now suffering.
The fact the media and Obama's people were on the circuit early last year telegraphing that their 'most difficult opponent would be Romney' - told me everything I needed to know about the set-up we are now suffering.
I think they expected Romneycare to become the great equalizer between Romney and Obama. But Gingrich and Cain also had baggage that would have been effectively exploited. Newt would have been painted as a mean old white guy as well as a hypocrite because he had once supported an individual mandate along with the Heritage Foundation. Newt's and Herman's philandering ways would have been exploited in order to turn off women voters, both conservative and liberal. Independents and women would have run away in droves because they are squeamish when it comes to tough talk by conservatives, and are foolishly convinced that conservatives are out to forcibly impose their social values on others.
All the primary candidates had their flaws. Romney had the most effective machine, without which no one wins.