Last week, a knowledgeable DC friend of mine told me that I was wrong about Perry being doomed by his poor debate performances, that no one cares about debates, that what really matters is paid media (mailers, radio and tv ads) not earned media (debates), that Perry is the kind of winger who’s built to last, that he “doesn’t give a fuck” and is just “kill kill kill”. He said Perry’s going to get some hard pipe-hitting ad consultants to go to work on the homes (Romney) with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. TV shill Alex Castellanos says the same thing:
“My guess is they believe that if they can kill Romney, no one else can get the nomination but Perry,” Castellanos said. “I expect that a few Perry positives will soon hit the TV airwaves, but they will just be cover for a brutal assault on Romney from the Perry campaign and his super PAC.”
He warned: “Perry won’t just go negative. He’ll make your television bleed and beg for mercy.”
I remember during the last election, some reporter who usually covered the Democratic primary (might have been Ben Smith) covered the Republicans for a week or two and said that the Republicans regularly went after each other in ways that the Democratic candidates never did, that they just fought a lot tougher and dirtier among each other. That’s my impression too. That’s at odds with the 11th Commandment stuff, but think of a gang. When she (I always refer to a gang as “she” — link added) faces enemies, there may be total unity, but when it’s an internecine struggle for power, things get nasty.
It’s unusual for a primary to hurt candidates enough that it affects their general election performance, but I’m hoping that this Republican primary is the exception to that rule. They’ve already hurt themselves with the electric fences and the sharks with frickin’ laser beams on the border, that’s for sure.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
There’s that relentless optimism of yours showing again, Doug.
cleek
that’d be a fine strategy if Romney was leading.
Davis X. Machina
They’ll get 42.5% of the vote regardless of whom they nominate and what they do. That’s what’s keeping me up nights.
Elections are won and lost at the margins.
jayjaybear
And if they didn’t hurt themselves already with the Great Middle, it’s up to the Democratic side to make sure all of those electric fences and such break out of the primary ghetto come late summer.
mistermix
@cleek: And if Perry weren’t at 6% in the latest nationwide poll:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20125120-503544/herman-cain-tops-mitt-romney-in-latest-cbs-nyt-poll/
Ron Paul beat Perry, and Herman is on top, as he has been for the last couple of weeks.
a.j.
sharks with frickin’ layzer beams FTW!
right up there with “gay Mexican abortion doctors” from a Washington Monthly post last week.
bkny
he’s also apparently pulled in joseph albaugh from the bush camp…
Rhoda
I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Republican nomination; but I’ll just say again I really don’t believe that Romney is going to be the nominee. We won’t know for sure until the votes start happening; but given the resistance to him not simply in the polls but among the donor class is greater than it was with McCain. He’s got a lot of problems. He’s handling them the best he can given his circumstances; but he’s got to many things going against him to get the nomination IMO. So if not Romney; who the hell is going to pull this off?
Rick Perry looks like the answer to that question; but I wouldn’t discount Herman Cain. It looks to me like the Koch brothers can use Cain’s candidacy for their own ends. That’s why I agree with mistermix; Cain might pull this off.
maya
So the Republicans are, like, our own Sinaloa.
General Stuck
I said from the beginning, the optics of prevailing wingnuttery are all with Perry to win the nom, or, that it is his nom to lose. Which he has done a pretty good job of accomplishing so far. But the dynamics remain for the mentality of majority GOP base voters, who want to win, but can’t stand Romney. So for now, those hyper wingnuts are siding with Cain, who is obviously not running a serious POTUS campaign. The debates have battered Perry’s approval, and for now, the natural votes of the insane 27 percenters who will most likely vote in high numbers, like they usually do in GOP primaries, is still up for grabs, when Herman figures he’s soaked the rubes for as much as he wants. Don’t know if Perry can rally to get those votes, or maybe just shut his pie hole long enough to wave, grunt, and kiss a few white babies for a rebound. He needs a roaring case of recurring debate flu.
Special Patrol Group
In addition to the obvious similarities (both Texas Governors, cheerleaders, and what have you), Perry is also a shit-stupid debater, just as George Bush, Jr. was. For some reason, this also obvious similarity hasn’t come up in Teh Village. Go back to that first debate with Gore (holy fucking shit was that a smackdown). Bush was lost at sea, same as Perry is now. The difference is that Bush was the anointed candidate and had the Big Money lined up behind him (and unlike Perry, Rove on his side). Should Perry somehow win the nomination (not at all out of the question with so much time to go and Mitt Romney being a member of a godless cult and all), we’ll hear how his sheer dumbfuckery is merely evidence that he knows his way around the Applebee’s salad bar unlike that Elitist Barry Hussein Obama. Fuckers.
Hoodie
@mistermix: Rommey and Perry are the ones to beat because they have the money and they’re the paradigmatic alpha males in the group. Paul and Cain are just stage props. Perry’s “playing” with birtherism may, in fact, be part of the assault on Romney, because that’s all about who’s willing to do the dirty work to take on Obama. It’s like a gang, and birtherism is like doing a drive-by. With the Republican base, it’s not about the truth of the allegations, because they wouldn’t think Obama’s an American regardless of whether he was born in Hawaii or on the moon. It’s the “fuckin’ with Obama” that matters. This is a male dominance show for mating season.
Martin
The only one not really damaged in all of this is Mitt. Unlike the others he doesn’t have a mountain of debate video that Obama can use against him. It’s all pretty soft-core flip-floppy stuff rather than him on the record demanding that mexican virgin blood be spilled to reveal the hidden satanic message on Obama’s so-called birth certificate.
Hopefully the long knives will come out against Mitt. An Obama/Cain matchup would be glorious to live through, and the wingnut ‘analysis’ at the end explaining how all the black people obviously voted for the half-white guy because they are racist would be icing on the cake.
General Stuck
And another thing. Though Perry sucks to high heavens in formal debates, I have seen him do one on ones, and be much better with that format. Like his visits to The Daily Show.
boss bitch
I keep hearing about this guy but I have yet to see him.
The Moar You Know
Last one I can really remember was Carter in 1980, kneecapped by Ted Kennedy. That gave us King Reagan. Thanks, Ted.
I don’t count Perry out either, namely for the provable fact that Americans have a bottomless fount of love for voting stupid dickheads into positions of high authority.
EdTheRed
@Hoodie:
Reminds me of the Moontower scene in “Dazed & Confused”:
Reporter: Somebody’s going all Birther.
Perry: Hey man, hey slow down.
Reporter: How’s it going?
Reporter: What?
Perry: What did you just say?
Reporter: What?
Perry: Just now, man. When you walked past, what’d you say?
Reporter: About what?
Perry: You said, “Someone’s going all Birther.”
Reporter: No, I meant somewhere I heard something about a birth certificate, you know? It was just an observation.
Perry: Oh, an observation, huh? Well who the hell are you, man? Isaac f*cking Newton? Well guess what genius I’m the one going Birther motherf*cker. You got a problem with that?
Reporter: No, of course not.
Perry: Well why’d you say that chief? Come on man don’t let your mouth write a check your butt can’t cash. So I’m Birthing with my friends man. So I’m a f*cking Birther man. What’s it to you huh? What’s the matter p*ssy? Out of observations? Well why don’t you observe while I punch your f*cking teeth down your throat? Come on.
Fox News Correspondent: You guys relax, relax. He’s cool man. Relax.
Perry: Hey, I’ll be watching you Newton. I only came here to do two things man. Kick some ass and drink some beer. Looks like we’re almost out of beer.
Keith G
GOP activists certainly are not fans of Romney, but Romney will win much support from the large reservoir of conservative voters who do not ID as GOPers. The proportional delegate tally will help Romney scoop up delegates from the batshit states that in the past he would have been shut out of.
If Romney can get those non GOPer conservative voters to the polls, he will be okay.
Edited ’cause I blew a link.
Paul in KY
Let them tear each other apart & give us some good info to use in the general against whichever whackjob gets the nomination.
evap
@mistermix: Yes, this is silly. Look at those numbers for Perry: 23% to 12% to 6% in a month. I don’t see Perry recovering from that.
Southern Beale
I think this comment deserves an explanation.
Martin
@Keith G:
Sure, but he loses the base probably to the same degree. This is the problem the GOP has created – the two groups they need to support them are almost mutually exclusive in terms of what they want out of a candidate. They really should be two parties.
cleek
@General Stuck:
i’m not really understanding this criticism of Cain. no, he’s not doing all the traditional campaign things in the traditional way. but, those traditional campaign things are done for one purpose: to gather support. but he already has that support.
if he can get GOP voters to like him without going through the standard checklist, maybe the checklist isn’t as determinative as people want it to be.
different-church-lady
Maybe the difference between republicans and democrats is: republicans go at each other’s throats before the election. Democrats wait until after.
David Hunt
Even worse: If they ever get into power, they’ll hand the details to some crony of a contractor and he’ll substitute ill-tempered mutant see-bass for the sharks.
Senyordave
The big money wants Romney because they know he is one of them. Ultimately Romney wins the nomination going away. Cain’s another grifter, and Perry really is a stupid SOB.
Other than Romney the GOP field is an ovesized clown car.
Cacti
@Rhoda:
Romney has a glass jaw.
He’s been running for POTUS for 6 years now, and he can’t crack 30 percent support.
He’s the choice of yankees and mormons, which isn’t a big enough coalition to win the Repuke nomination.
Tom Hilton
@Rhoda:
As I’ve said elsewhere, Romney is Schrödinger’s nominee: simultaneously inevitable and impossible. There are compelling, virtually irrefutable arguments for both.
Joel
Man, I hope Perry goes through with this. I’d like to see Cain steal the nomination.
General Stuck
@cleek:
He has no GOTV operation, and has shown little interest in developing the campaign infrastructure needed, even for winning a primary. And making ads with a campaign manager sucking on a cancer stick, ending with Herman giving a shit eating grin. I suppose he could win the GOP nom running a campaign about nothing, and coming out both for and against abortion, and that his personal number of “45” will see him to victory. Not to mention the tea tard voters going for a black guy after running around with Obama witchdoctor signs. It could happen, like the Apocalypse.
me
Thankfully my state has a late primary so I will miss most of the television bleeding.
Cacti
@cleek:
Those traditional campaign things are also done for another reason – to raise $$$.
The money isn’t flowing to Cain because the money boys don’t take him seriously. And the money boys don’t take him seriously because every reliable poll shows him getting clobbered by Obama in the general.
Martin
@cleek: He’s got no ground game. You can’t win actual elections without a ground game. Obama beat Clinton almost entirely on the ground – with his Iowa win being the most illustrative.
We’re now 3 months out from the first primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire are both states that are almost immune to going big in media, simply because they’re saturated in them. But they’re full of small communities where people actually talk to each other before voting, and they feel entitled to the kind of special treatment that they’ve always earned by being first on the calendar. If Cain doesn’t have someone in every town ready to buy donuts for every accidental gathering of Republicans, ready to answer every random question about abortion or taxes or corn or dairy subsidies, then he’s going to lose those states badly.
Obama and Clinton split the difference there. Obama put up his big ground game in Iowa, thinking that to be the easier win and Clinton put it up in New Hampshire. The result was that by the end of the 2nd race, there were effectively two candidates left.
Cain is going to have to win at least one of those two races, or hope he comes in a strong 2nd in both and rallies in SC or one of the next prominent states for a win, or the money is simply going to vanish for him. It vanished for Clinton after Super Tuesday. Early momentum is critical.
Forgoing a lot of the big media campaigning I think is fine for Cain and I think there’s a lot of other ways he can safely buck convention, but the lack of ground game will destroy him and he’s got absolutely nothing as far as anyone can tell.
Yutsano
@Tom Hilton:
So if we observe him, does he vanish?
cleek
@General Stuck:
none of what Cain has done or said makes sense to me, either. but that’s irrelevant since we’re not the GOP base. and so far the GOP base seems to like him.
Violet
@Keith G:
Teabagger types and Limbaugh listeners self-identify as “conservatives” but claim not to be Republicans. I don’t think that collection of folks are fans of Romney. Are you speaking of the “independent conservative” — the type who doesn’t want to identify as one? That’s a dying breed. Romney may get a few of those votes, but there are fewer of those votes left to go around.
zmulls
When do the pundits start rubbing themselves and dreaming of a brokered convention?
KG
I keep telling you… Romney will win for the same reason McCain won in 2008 (to the howls and bellyaching of Limbaugh, et al), and Dole won in ’96, and GHWBush won in ’88, and Reagan won in ’80, and Ford won in ’76, and Nixon won in ’60 and ’68… it’s Romney’s turn. That’s how the GOP works, you go with the guy who is next in line.
Anonymous At Work
If you view Republican primaries as theological struggles to prove who is “most pure” in their faith, then all viciousness is both acceptable and predictable. It is only once the “most pure” is nominated that the 11th Commandment kicks in, since the struggle turns to those of the faith vs. those of heretical faiths.
Zifnab
Even Reagan didn’t adhere to the 11th Commandment. During the ’76 GOP nomination, after losing five consecutive primary states, he went hard negative against Gerald Ford and won North Carolina 52-46.
Perry is going to be more than happy to go negative against Romney. Nobody really like Romney to begin with. And as for all that paid media/earned media bullshit, the media is going to get behind whomever their corporate masters tell them to get behind. Perry better have some close friends down at FOX or ABC if he wants his punches to stick. Romney’s little “Nobody likes Rick Perry” ad was absolutely brutal, but CNN made him yank it. There’s no way that will resonate now.
General Stuck
@cleek:
I would suspect that it is more the GOP base cannot stand the choices of candidates they have. But I agree that the GOP is bugfuck crazy these days, and nothing can be ruled out completely, what comes out of that asylum when all the votes are counted.
catclub
@KG: If Limbaugh was howling and bellyaching against McCain in 2008, then he was FOR Romney then, right? Now, I did hear him say that Romney is ‘just not a conservative’, so who is Limbaugh pushing? Cain?
Perry?
Curious, but not curious enough to listen to him.
Cacti
@KG:
That’s the conventional wisdom of course, and has plenty of history to back it up, but conventional wisdom does get turned on its head from time to time.
The wild card in Romney’s case is his Mormon faith. I don’t think it can be overstated how big a turn-off this is for evangelical voters at the primary level.
Cacti
@Zifnab:
I’m still waiting for the first whispers about Romney being the grandson of a “Mexican polygamist”.
Martin
@cleek: Polling isn’t winning elections. Obama was still well below Clinton at this stage and he closed that gap by turning actual voters out, and at a rate faster than Clinton could (who had a pretty good ground game herself).
If Romney runs a decent ground game and Cain has nothing, he’s going to get destroyed. He can win primaries in 30% turnout states, but not in 50% turnout states. That extra turnout happens when you’re knocking on doors, kissing babies and driving people to the polls. It’s almost as though there’s two different elections taking place – an on-the-grid one, and an off-the-grid one.
Remember Texas in 2008? Clinton won the on-the-grid race – the primary. Obama won the off-the-grid one – the caucus. Obama won by winning every caucus but Nevada, by not relying on the on-the-grid race (the media blitz) but by also getting people into every single town and making the case in person. That extra turnout won him the nomination.
Zifnab
@KG:
It was McCain’s turn in 2000, but GB Jr upset him. And Nixon in ’68 was definitely a funny case, because he already had his turn in ’60 and blew it.
Given how the Republican electorate feels about Romney (he’s a limousine liberal from the East Coast who just happened to put an (R) in front of his name because he needed to run against a Kennedy in the general), I think the election is ripe for stealing. The only thing keeping Romney in the running is the lack of any serious alternative contender.
cokane
the fact that Reagan had to say the 11th commandment and the fact that it’s so often repeated by Republicans is proof, imo, of how nasty they go after each other. Why else would it need to be said?
cokane
@KG: This is the correct logic
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti:
As in “the curse of the Hill” and “no Democrat can get elected without a Southerner on the ticket”. Like boss bitch said above, I keep hearing Perry’s going start shelling Romney and at least come back some, if not all the way, but it never happens. Of course, for non-political junkies, actual votes are still a very long time away. And I agree with you about the Mormon thing. Pundits keep talking about New Hampshire, as if that GOP is representative of the national party.
Speaking of negative ads, Karl Rove’s darkly lit ads of Obama the tax-raiser are back here in Colorado. Haven’t seen any in a few weeks. He’s now added clips of Bill Clinton saying we shouldn’t raise taxes, and that “exhausted of defending you” lady that Jon Stewart gave a Nothing medal to.
Mino
Cain appears to be the Koch candidate, so money won’t be a problem. And astroturf is covered, too. I think we’ll know more after NH, if a new technique is being rolled out.
This is the first big primary after Citizens United. A bell-wether, if you please.
handsmile
As Esquire’s Charles Pierce seems to have become the most lauded and linked-to political pundit by Balloon Juice front-pagers, perhaps it’s worth looking at what he had to say about Herman Cain on October 10, “The GOP is not giving up 50 years of bigotry for this guy”: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rise-of-herman-cain-2012-race-6510425
One can address at length the Cain campaign’s failure to establish a “ground game” in the early GOP primary states, but the far more pertinent factor is that GOP voters did not cast ballots for black people for federal office or for governorships. Don’t take my typing for it: simply go to Wikipedia’s entry for “African Americans in the US Congress” and look at the lists of office-holders and their party affiliations.
What GOP voters may say to pollsters, for whatever reasons, does not reflect their voting behavior. Also, according to pollsters, most GOP voters are not racists.
Tom Q
Tom Hilton has it exactly right: there are solid arguments both for Romney being the nominee and for almost anyone else bring able to beat him, and we’re all talking through our hats if we claim to know the outcome before a single vote has been cast (not that it’ll stop any of us).
It’s pretty close to a half-full/half-empty glass scenario — does the fact that Romney can never get above that mid-20s number mean he has a solid base that, along with ferocious/panicked establishmnent support, will carry the day for him (as it did for McCain), or does it mean he’ll never be able to appeal to the vast non-Romney vote, and once some weak performers are off the slate, someone (Perry or Cain or whoever) will gather up all that anti-Mitt feeling and startle everyone by running away with it?
I lean toward the latter, because I think the 2010 Senate/gubernatorial primaries showed a marked tendency of GOP voters to flaunt the establishment pick — a tendency that had never shown up so dramatically before. I also think McCain’s win in 2008 — for those taking “the GOP always picks the next in line” theory — was considerably closer than Dole’s, and largely due to his facing terminally-split opposition in a bunch of early winner-take-all primaries (even after essentially clinching the nomination, he lost a bunch of primaries — something Kerry, for instance, didn’t face in ’04). I don’ see Romney having quite that good fortune.
But, as I say, it’s all sophistry until actual votes turn up.
Violet
@catclub:
In 2008, Limbaugh wouldn’t say who he was supporting. After McCain won, he reluctantly supported him.
I haven’t listened to Limbaugh much in the last few months, but a few months ago he was speaking very highly of Sarah Palin. And Chris Christie. Obviously those two aren’t options now, so I don’t know who he’s supporting. He did make a point of saying he wouldn’t come out and support anyone specifically in 2008 until the primaries were over. He might be doing the same thing now.
As for Cain, he would be a good option for the Kochs and the money boys. He’d probably just do what they say, since he’s really just running to promote himself, not to become president. So despite his lack of ground game now, that kind of thing can be put together. If he strikes a deal with the monied wing and the Kochs think he’d do what they say, then it wouldn’t surprise me to see the money start going his direction.
cokane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think NH is considered important because it played a crucial role in the 2008 Republican nomination, where McCain won. For many voters who are not political junkies, it is really important to seem like a winner, and that primary helped McCain seem that way. People love to hop on the bandwagon, and be able to claim doing so at the earliest possible opportunity. This is especially true in primaries where ideologies and policy matter less as there’s less differentiation.
harlana
@David Hunt:
lol
rikyrah
I wanna see Good Hair unload on Willard. let’s see him be brutal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cokane: Yeah, but I think South Carolina, and Iowa caucus-goers, are more typical of the GOP base than NH. IIRC McCain’s 2000 win in NH was seen as a game-changing upset, the Rove started pressing buttons in South Carolina.
@rikyrah: Oh yeah. There could be blood
RareSanity
I’m rooting for Perry to go all nuke-yu-lar on Romney’s ass! Bush, The Lesser, had a bonafide political support system, between Daddy Bush’s people and Rove. They were adept at keeping things from completely running off the rails.
Perry has no such structure. When this dude starts to get desperate, and go for the kill, it is going to be political destruction, on a scale of which we have never seen.
Also, Cain has no chance of winning the nomination. If it even starts to look like he may be a threat to Mittens or Doc Perry, the money boys of the GOP will do what they do, change all the rules in the middle of the game.
Cain getting the nomination, necessarily negates most aspects of the southern strategy. The GOP money men are evil, not stupid. They know Obama would absolutely shred Herman Cain in a head-to-head match up.
Cain’s only use right now, is to continue to siphon off support for Romney. Once Perry gets his shit together, the rug will be pulled, so that the Cain supporters can comfortably move into the Perry camp.
Last thing, I live in one of the “regular people” parts, of one of the most affluent, northern suburbs in Atlanta. Generally, I hate it, but it’s close to work. However, seeing these raging teatard “conservatives”, drive around with their “Cain 2012” bumper stickers is hilarious to me.
Of course, they bought new cars since the GWB era, but the sticker is in the same place that all of the “W – The President” stickers were. Bieber help me, I hate living in the belly of the beast…
Dougerhead
@Southern Beale:
It’s from The Jerk.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
I think he’s also popular with the Galtian Overlords, which is a very important constituency within the party.
Biff Longbotham
@different-church-lady: re:#24
KA-CHING!!
Now then, what can we do about this? It may be true that our infighting is a sign of freer thinking, greater reliance upon critical thinking, mo’ better big-tentism,etc. But boy does it screw with the realpolitik! It would be nice to get a few of those 100% party line votes in congress on the bills that really matter every once in a while…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore:
and the media. David Broder’s ghost is going to be haunting the keyboards of the WaPo, cranking out paeans to Willard’s old-fashioned moderation and common-sense. But he does have some powerful opposition, the Koch Bros, the fundies, and hasn’t Rove put out “save us from Romney” signals? Not that they all won’t fall in line if he does rack up the delegates.
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’d go a little further: I think Romney is the only one in this ludicrous GOP field who allows the media to maintain their Both Sides Are Basically Reasonable and The Same fantasy, so they’ll fluff him till the end.
Tom Hilton
@Yutsano: Yes, but only metaphorically. Alas.
JC
@Tom Hilton:
This is an awesome observation, on this particular situation, as has been stated by others. And nails it.
Quite fascinating, really.
I lean the other way from Tom Q – ‘it’s Romney’s turn’ and the money boys backing Romney, will get him over the finish line.
This would be different, if Perry was a better candidate. And there is still time for him to get better. But so far, he hasn’t been able to put it together.
Brachiator
@Dougerhead:
Whether it’s mainstream punditry or blogging, “knowledgeable DC friend” is short for “some guy with an opinion.” And since I don’t know anything about this guy’s track record independent of your vetting of him, I have no reason to pay attention to him (and this is NOT a slam against you, Doug).
But he sounds like any other cynical insider. I don’t know anybody in the real world who cares about the distinction between “paid media” and “earned media.” And there are hints here of the typical view that all voters are a bunch or rubes waiting to be manipulated by campaign mavens.
But I do know this: much of this speculation about Perry is based on whatever portion of GOP voters watched the debates or got a filtered observation about the debates from Fox News or other conservative sources. And even here, Perry appears to be losing ground according to some polls.
But again, the bottom line is that none of this means squat until people actually start voting in the primaries.
@Violet:
Cain is an amateur and while Sarah Palin and all the Tea Party People like to believe is all you need is the Christian deity and common sense behind you (and Koch money), if you don’t have a professional organization working for you, and if you don’t know how to deploy them, you don’t stand a chance, no matter how much money is thrown at you.
Mark
As tired as I already am of Republican debates it’ll be interesting to see what happens at their foreign policy debate on the 15th.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/think-tanked/post/gop-debate-heritage-aei-and-cnn-to-host-foreign-policy-debate/2011/10/18/gIQAKC36tL_blog.html
Who can claim any foreign policy expertise amongst these clowns? Does Utah count as a foreign country?
SRW1
It’s now or never for The Mittster. Makes it pretty likely that he’ll bite back viciously when attacked by Perry. Matter of fact, I suspect there’s already a bunch of “Is this man ready” ads against Perry in Mittens vault.
Hilariously, the possible outcome of such a slugfest: Cain, by default.
TimmyB
In a rational world, Romney would be the guy. However, in our world, where the GOP base consists of right-wing Christian fanatics, the Mormon (non-christian) ex-Massachusetts Gov. who forced Obama care on the people of his state will NEVER win.
Maybe Romney could win the general election against Obama, but he could never win the GOP nomination. I don’t see how he could ever win the GOP nomination, with the GOP base being what it is.
Ben Cisco
@Dougerhead: Not sure if this was a mirror universe Bill Withers reference, but that’s how I’m going to read it.
AA+ Bonds
If Romney’s campaign is limping going into the general, that’s all we need from Perry.
Paul in KY
@Tom Hilton: I like that turn of phrase: “schrodinger’s nominee”
Romney is a causality lesson
Paul in KY
@RareSanity: If Cain was the nominee, I would expect him to win S. Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisianna just because he has ‘R’ after his name (and our nominee happens to be black too).