Election 2012: Post Two

If you like to follow Presidential politics in the U.S., this promises to be an exciting year. You know, it happens only every fourth year.

Today's news (according to CNN) include some statements by Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich that border on racial stereotyping of the sort that often seems to pop up in advance of the South Carolina primary (which is scheduled for January 21st this year.)

It's weird how election cycles tend to repeat themselves like endless versions of the film Groundhog Day, trying to get it right.

Iowa, especially the Republican Party in Iowa, is made up mainly of white people, Christians, farmers, hard-working, decent, parochial folks with little interaction with the diverse, immigration-rich societies that dominate our coasts.

So what these nice people think reflects little beyond what that -- what they think. It is not reflective of the nation at large.

The winner in Iowa, Mitt Romney, stands to claim New Hampshire next. I'm not sure who is going to win South Carolina -- probably not Romney. Whoever does win becomes the automatic alternative to Romney, and perhaps the candidate that could mobilize the conservative base for the GOP.

Thus, today's attention on Santorum and Gingrich is relevant in that either of them could be that candidate.

Gingrich, the intellectual with tremendous baggage, is an investigative reporter's dream candidate. Let me assure you that even an inexperienced journalist who digs hard enough can expose things about Gingrich that would alienate a large swath of voters.

Yet Gingrich also has always been a man of ideas, and some of his ideas have wide appeal to American voters who like to think about political issues, not just vote from an emotional place.

As a political analyst, I understand both the emotional and the intellectual aspects of campaign-year dynamics. People want to both feel good about the candidate they support and also believe to be in league with his or her ideas and positions.

But to get elected, candidates have to espouse centrist ideas, because there are not enough leftists or rightists to carry an election. Enough voters are capable of swinging between the parties that no one can get elected from an extreme, except in rare circumstances, such as occurred in 1980 when Ronald Reagan swept to power.

Republicans like to demonize Barack Obama as a leftist but that only shows they don't know what a true leftist is. This guy, our President, is a centrist -- that's why he won in 2008.

The GOP's best chance to unseat him is Romney, another centrist. But if the radicals of the party undermine Romney enough to destroy his chances to win the centrist vote, he will go down to a definitive defeat.

I haven't mentioned the ideological purist yet, Ron Paul. The libertarian in me loves him. But the problem with Paul is he connects with only one small slice of our common Americanism. Let's call it one-fifth of who we are.

That will never lead to him winning an election.

Obama's dream scenario? Paul leaves the GOP and runs as an independent. Then the final numbers will look like this: Obama 45%, Romney 35%, Paul 20%.

You read that here first.

Stay tuned.

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