Well, it's fairly clear that, barring some major surprise, that Mitt Romney of Massachusetts will be the Republican Party's nominee for President this year against incumbent President Barack Obama, a Democrat. He's more or less won the Iowa caucuses tonight and will no doubt win the New Hampshire primary soon. After that, his momentum will be hard to slow, unless someone more conservative emerges in South Carolina.
Rick Santorum is not going to be the nominee. Can you imagine a candidate campaigning on something as obscure and meaningless a political issue as abortion? And there is no other credible Republican candidate for President. Newt Gingrich, probably the GOP's best chance, crashed and burned too quickly under fire, so he faces an uphill battle to get back.
Despite the horrible economy, and the substantial anger in many quarters of our society about the state of things, from the Tea Party on the right to the Occupy movement on the left, the Republicans can only offer Romney as their alternative?
IMHO, if Obama was going to be defeated this year, some sort of populist candidate would have had to emerge. To tell you the truth, until recently, I expected that to happen. Someone connected to the Tea Party would have seemed to be the GOP's best choice.
But that has not happened, at least not yet.
So, instead, it appears a milktoast Republican, Romney, is the best the opposing party can muster.
Obama, a master campaigner and debater, will eat him for lunch.
As it stands now, our President will be re-elected, despite his deserved unenthusiastic support from his own base. Let's hope, if that happens, for the good of our country, that he can at least sweep in some Democrats to the Senate and House as well, because this country does not need four more years of the pathetic kind of gridlock a split government has delivered us these past two years.
It's a long time from here to November. As of now, the Republicans stand to win the Senate, and re-claim the House, but lose the White House.
That, too, may change, especially with the lack of enthusiasm for Romney by the party's conservative faction.
I suppose, as a journalist, I hope some of this will change, so there is something to write about. But for now, it will be Obama defeating Romney easily in November. The situation in Congress remains too unsettled to call.
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1 comment:
Recently had dinner with someone from overseas who was curious as to how the American people decide on who to vote for- they weren't curious about the process...they were well aware of that...but the choices...the why and where for behind the choices.
I too thought there would be someone more substantial running on the republican side. Maybe the republicans fear a tea party backed candidate will alienate the independent voters - and they are hoping a more middle liner will satisfy all sides. Who knows!
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