Romney Is the Best You've Got

This is another post for Daily Kos, but I'm posting it here first, because Halloween seems like a bad time to post something on DK -- it will be lost before anyone has a chance to see it.

There has been a lot of talk about Mitt Romney being a lousy candidate for President, but I think that if you look at him in the context of the Republican Party, they are lucky to have him.  I believe that this is about the best the Republican Party can do, in all seriousness.  Consider:

·         A candidate has to be a nutcase conservative to survive the Republican primaries, yet only a moderate could win the general election.  Romney can be both with equal conviction, and as a former Republican Governor of a very blue state, he has some background to support either.

·         Romney is a good salesman.  He managed to sell his switch to moderate Republican to some independents without losing the hard case right-wingers, even after his campaign spokesman said that was what he would do.

·         He has convinced evangelicals to vote against the only Christian in the race.

·         He has a built-in constituency – Mormons – who will vote for him by a huge margin and give money and time to his campaign.

·         He is intelligent and articulate.

·         He can win a debate even when the facts are against him.

·         He manages to avoid specifics that can be attacked politically and sells it as bipartisanship with a straight face.

·         The man has no scruples about what he says.  Whatever it takes.

·         Consider the alternatives, in something like decreasing order of viability:  Pawlenty, Perry, Santorum, Gingrich, Huntsman, Bachmann, Cain, Trump.  Palin maybe should be in there, just ahead of Bachmann.  That’s a horrible field.  Obviously, it isn’t easy to find a Republican candidate who can survive the primaries who isn’t out-and-out crazy.

It is just hard for me to imagine anymore what a viable Republican candidate for President would even look like.  Anyone truly crazy enough to believe in this party will get killed in the general election.  A true moderate will be shouted down and chased away.  The Romney solution – a guy with no specific policies and no philosophy who can sell different versions of himself to different crowds – is better than I thought they would do.  With less than a week to go, he still has a chance, which is pretty remarkable.

It’s the party, not the candidate.  There is a reason that Democrats have better candidates:  you don’t have to be crazy or dishonest to be one.  If Republicans don’t like Romney as a candidate, I would love to see them go with a true believer next time.  Then they'll know what a terrible candidate means.

Rick Santorum is still young.  Oh please oh please oh please.