Our political Quote of the Day comes from The Beast’s John Avlon, who in his must-read-in-full post on the Republican Michigan primary and what the results mean going foward says this:
By eking out a win in Michigan, Mitt Romney has avoided the outright revolt of Republican leaders looking for a winner in November. The most inspired argument even some supporters have been able to muster in recent days is that at least Romney would be less of a drag on down-ticket races than Rick Santorum as the nominee. He does not inspire love, and his organizational advantage no longer intimidates. Romney’s willingness to win with negative ads is showing signs of backfiring among conservatives, let alone independents. And the ugliness of this primary race, combined with its obsessive courtship of the far right and its weak candidate field is contributing to the low turnout we’ve seen in state after state.
Yes, Mitt Romney is a deeply flawed and unusually disingenuous candidate. But let’s be honest—among this crowd he is the most electable nominee. Combined with the news of center-right Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe’s decision not to run for reelection—making control of the Senate a steeper climb—the GOP is faced with the need to reconcile activists’ rabid contempt for centrists with the realities of winning elections beyond their hyperpartisan base. The party leaders’ barely muted panic about the possibility of Romney losing Michigan—and the prospect of a general election cliff dive with any other declared candidate—was a reflection of this dynamic.
Republicans are learning that some of the conservative populist forces they encouraged to angrily shout down President Obama cannot be appeased without absolutism. You reap what you sow. In this extreme ideological cage match, removed from the majority of the American people, the GOP is left bloodied, bruised, and unenthused. The stakes right now feel like less about actually winning the White House than fighting to avoid general-election suicide.
Indeed, the GOP primaries often seem like a race not just away from the center, but to disparage the center.
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.