{"id":2608,"date":"2012-02-26T19:21:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T00:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2012-02-26T19:26:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T00:26:38","slug":"what-next-for-romney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=2608","title":{"rendered":"What Next for Romney?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I was pondering the wacky, wacky world of GOP candidate politics, and I opined that<\/a> Mitt Romney might want to consider buying Rick Santorum out in return for the VP spot on his ticket. It seemed like a good way to vanquish the then-surging Newt Gingrich, and finally make peace between Romney and \u201cthe GOP base\u201d. I myself don’t understand this \u201cbase\u201d, nor their alleged demands for a pure, red-blooded, old-fashioned conservative; perhaps they dream of a second coming of Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

But OK, I have previously noted<\/a> that there is a lot of conservative sentiment reflected in the polls regarding GOP candidates. Romney still isn’t pulling better than 30%, and the total between the two remaining \u201cbase\u201d candidates, i.e. Santorum and Gingrich, is close to 50%; the total for all of the \u201cbase\u201d conservatives has hovered around 50% for many months now, while Romney has remained in the 20’s.<\/p>\n

It looks like it’s now too late for a Santorum deal. Santorum seems to have caught fire, which puts him square in Romney’s cross-hairs. Romney has the money and the expertise to bring down any threat, as he did with Perry, Cain, Bachmann and Gingrich. So in the end, Romney will probably be the last man standing. But all his negative ads and ruthless campaigning against the conservative sweethearts has probably burned his bridges with this \u201cbase\u201d (including the Tea Party supporters). <\/p>\n

So, Romney can’t expect a lot of enthusiasm and turnout in November. Likewise, Obama won’t get the near God-like worship of the young and young-at-heart liberal factions either, as in 2008. The magic is over. Unless the economy takes a severe turn downward in the next 6 months, I would bet that Obama will serve a second term. But rising gasoline prices will make things a bit uncomfortable for him in getting there. <\/p>\n

The autumn Presidential campaign will thus be an exercise in post-enthusiasm politics. A recent Gallup poll showed<\/a> that Mr. Obama is suffering record low favorability rankings; he is lower than any Presidential candidate since Bob Dole, who ran against Bill Clinton in 1996. <\/p>\n

But then again, public favorability for both Romney and Santorum are at similar levels. The public seems in a \u201cnone of the above\u201d mood right now. Don’t expect a record turnout in November, nor any great public enthusiasm for the second Obama term. Obama may be like Harry Truman in that regard; his reputation will get better over the years once his Presidency is over. But he will leave office a scorned, bitter and unloved man. A long way down from that magic night in Grant Park in 2008.<\/p>\n

And Romney? Well, Bob Dole managed to make some money hawking Viagra on TV in his post-political life. For a handsome guy like Mitt, who knows \u2013 maybe he will get into acting, making films about national high-stakes politics. Reagan proved that there’s not much difference between the two, these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I was pondering the wacky, wacky world of GOP candidate politics, and I opined that Mitt Romney might want to consider buying Rick Santorum out in return for the VP spot on his ticket. It seemed like a good way to vanquish the then-surging Newt Gingrich, and finally make peace between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2610,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}