Brief Thoughts on Yesterday's Primary/Caucus Results

I don't have much time to blog now, but I wanted to just post a couple of quick thoughts on the outcome of the primaries and caucuses from yesterday. For those who haven't been following closely, Santorum won huge victories in the caucus in Minnesota and the primary in Missouri, and also pulled a shocker by upsetting Romney in the Colorado caucus as well. He ran the table, 3 for 3. Strangely, all three of these races were non-binding, which means Santorum did not win any actual delegates yesterday. But still, the results were a clear expression of dissatisfaction with the frontrunner, Mitt Romney. Romney actually finished 3rd behind Santorum and Paul in Minnesota, despite an endorsement from the state's former governor Tim Pawlenty.

Just a week and a half ago, I wrote a long post expressing my support for Mitt Romney as the best of the choices available to us. Since then, Romney has made some horrible gaffes ("I'm not concerned about the very poor") and has given conservatives more ammunition against him (among other things, by coming out in support of an automatic minimum wage increase tied to inflation). He has done a poor job defending his Bain Capital record and his 15% tax rate on his tax returns. His recent stumbles have called into question both his electability and his conservative credentials. (Obviously, many conservatives have questioned those things all along, but I am questioning them much more now than I was a few weeks ago.) The results yesterday confirmed the message also sent by South Carolina: Romney has a problem with conservative voters.

On one of the pro-Romney websites I frequent, some of the posters are attacking the "stupid" Republican base voters for supporting candidates like Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul who are "unelectable," accusing them of being anti-Mormon extremists who would rather lose an election rather than compromise their conservative purity. I find these attacks to be deeply misguided at best, and offensive at worst. The problem here is not with Republican voters. The problem is with Mitt Romney, who is doing an exceptionally poor job of getting conservatives to vote for him. Conservatives are not obligated to vote for the frontrunner just because the pundits say he is the only electable one. Candidates are not awarded votes automatically based on their resume and endorsements. They have to earn those votes.

Romney is sort of acting like he can just put it on cruise control and coast across the finish line. He seems to just want to play it safe, rather than showing real passion against Obama and his policies. He doesn't seem to be talking about issues that conservatives care about, except in very vague generalities. His super-PAC's are well funded and able to attack his GOP rivals, but he isn't convincing people to positively support him with his speeches and campaign activities. Republicans are angry about Obama and what he is doing to our country, and they want a nominee who is in touch with those concerns and who will effectively give voice to them. So far, Romney is not doing that. In fact, his cautious approach to the campaign is confirming the fears of many conservatives that he is a wishy-washy moderate who will say and do anything to get elected. It's not a coincidence that turnout is down in so many of these state primaries. Romney (and the entire field, for that matter) is not giving people a reason to come out and vote.

I badly want to see Obama defeated. I desperately want our party to nominate someone who is able to do that. On paper, Romney seems well-positioned to do that. He has a strong resume, executive experience, is a reasonably good speaker and debater, and appears to check all the right boxes with regard to the issues. I genuinely believe he is a social conservative and a man with morals and integrity. He seems able to appeal to independents and has raised a large amount of money. But his campaign up to this point is sending a different message. It suggests a man who is passionless, weak, cautious, slow on his feet, incapable of articulating voters' concerns, and less than fully committed to conservative principles on at least some issues. Can such a candidate defeat Obama? Not likely. If Romney doesn't improve significantly, he will do poorly both with independents/moderates and also with his base in the fall.

Santorum earned his victories yesterday. He campaigned hard, made a positive case for himself, and talked about issues voters care about, like Obama's HHS contraception/abortion mandate that Romney seems so afraid to bring up. His commitment to conservative principles is beyond dispute, and he seems ready to bring the fight to Obama. I question whether he can win a general election against Obama, but if Romney doesn't get his act together and start articulating a consistently conservative issue-driven alternative to Obama, then he probably won't win either.

I was very worried about Gingrich being the nominee, and that was part of the reason why I said that I would vote for Romney if I were a Florida primary voter. But now that Gingrich seems to be fading, and an opponent more worthy of being the conservative alternative to Romney is emerging, I am much more willing to see a good primary fight. Let Santorum and Romney fight it out for a while. If Romney can find his message and convince conservatives to support him, then he will be much better positioned for the fall campaign against Obama. If he can't, he doesn't deserve to be the nominee and would fail in a general election anyway.

Romney has nobody to blame but himself for his problems with the GOP base. And it's not the fault of Republican primary voters that all their options are so problematic. So Romney supporters had better stop smearing conservative Tea Party and evangelical voters as dumb, and start making a positive case for their candidate before it's too late.