Our political Quote of the Day comes from the Christian Science Monitor’s Brad Knickerbocker, who raises the question of whether despite the new and old media political horse race coverage, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney doesn’t really have the Republican presidential nomination wrapped up:
One by one, Mitt Romney’s GOP rivals have taken runs at him, trumpeting his failures as a true conservative and his flip-flopping. But one by one, they’ve stumbled, and at the moment the race for the GOP nomination seems like Romney’s to lose.
It’s looking more and more like Mitt Romney has the Republican presidential nomination in the bag.
One by one, his declared GOP rivals have taken runs at him, trumpeting his failures as a true conservative (see “Romneycare” with its dreaded individual mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts) and his flip-flopping on such issues as abortion, climate change, and the auto industry bailout (see http://mittromneyflipflops.com/).
Sometimes they’ve gotten him hot under his normally well-starched collar, as Rick Perry did on immigration in last week’s debate when he accused Romney of the “height of hypocrisy” – a charge you might think would be reserved for something a little more important than who a lawn care contractor hired.
But one by one, they’ve stumbled – Perry on immigration himself, his family’s hunting camp with its racist name, and a prominent evangelical supporter’s slur about Romney’s Mormon religion; Herman Cain’s own flip-flopping on abortion, the holes in his “9-9-9” economic plan, and an apparent lack of knowledge on foreign affairs.
Cain jokes about being “the flavor of the month” (he identifies with Haagen-Dazs Black Walnut). But there’s truth to the ice cream imagery, especially the tendency to melt. Ask Michele Bachmann, once thought to be the tea party favorite – until Perry and then Cain rose in the polling charts, knocking her down to single digits.
And now Rick Perry has joined the birther side — doing it with the typical statement allowing some plausible-if-you-are-a-cabbage deniability, with the typical comment that in effect says, well, the President says he was born here, it’s a distraction but not completely rejecting the birther movement as something out of a Rod Serling episode. This may play well with some in the GOP but with the exception of Romney most candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination seem to be in a heated race to alienate big chunk of independent voters and complete the process of so-called RINOS (the label given to moderate Republicans marginalized or exiled from their former party) from the Republican Party. Romney seems to be the one candidate who’s running who could rope in some of these votes and piece together strong election coalition.
Still Romney has a basic problem: he remains widely distrusted and disliked in his own party — which is a bit of a problem for someone who wants to get his party’s nomination.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.