Why I Believe Mitt Romney Will Win Today

First, here is my prediction:

Final popular vote prediction: Romney 50.5%, Obama 48.5%
Final Electoral College prediction: Romney 291, Obama 247

I believe there are only 8 true tossup states that will decide this election. Here is my prediction for each of them:

1. Virginia - 51% Romney, 48% Obama
2. Ohio - 50.5% Romney, 48.5% Obama
3. Colorado - 50.5% Romney, 48.5% Obama
4. Iowa - 50% Romney, 49% Obama
5. Wisconsin - 50% Romney, 49% Obama
6. New Hampshire - 50% Obama, 49% Romney
7. Pennsylvania - 50.5% Obama, 48.5% Romney
8. Nevada - 51% Obama, 47.5% Romney

The one I am least sure about is Wisconsin -- changed it at the very last minute from Democrat to Republican.

In addition, I have 2 states classified as Leans Republican:

1. Florida - 52% Romney, 47% Obama
2. North Carolina - 53% Romney, 46% Obama

And 4 states classified as Leans Democrat:

1. Minnesota - 51.5% Obama, 47% Romney
2. Michigan - 52% Obama, 47% Romney
3. New Mexico - 53% Obama, 46% Romney
4. Oregon - 53% Obama, 45% Romney

All other states I believe are safely in one camp or the other and will go for either Obama or Romney by double digits.

The next question is why I am picking Mitt Romney to win when conventional wisdom clearly seems to favor Barack Obama.  The primary reason for why Obama is favored, of course, is due to very favorable polling for him at the state level.  The Real Clear Politics average of polls is showing Obama ahead in all the swing states, with the exception of Florida (and North Carolina if you count that as a swing state).  Also, while Mitt had a clear lead in the national poll average for most of October, Obama gained significantly in the past week in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and now leads slightly in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls as well.  So why would I pick Romney to win, when a clear majority of the polls seem to indicate that he will lose, possibly badly?

The first thing to understand is that this year is not 2008 anymore.  The political landscape has shifted dramatically.  Perhaps the most dramatic indication of this is the massive survey of national party identification that Rasmussen does each election year.  In calculating this party identification, Rasmussen surveys 15,000 likely voters nationwide, so it is a truly massive poll (more than 10 times bigger than even the largest national head-to-head election polls).  In 2008, Rasmussen found a 7 point advantage for Democrats, which ended up being very close to the final margin of victory for Obama.  In 2004 and 2010 they actually found small advantages for Democrats (+3 for Democrats in 2010), even though Republicans ended up performing extremely well in both elections.  This October, they found a 5.8% advantage for the Republicans, which a stunning turnaround for the GOP and an extremely favorable indication for the election.  And Rasmussen is not alone.  Gallup did a similar survey of national party identification and also found a 1 point Republican advantage (and 3 points when you factor in voters who lean toward one party or the other).  This data is especially extraordinary when you factor in that there has never been a presidential election in the modern era in which the Republicans have had a party identification advantage on Election Day.  The closest they have ever come was in 2004, when the party identification was even between Republicans and Democrats. 

Of course, we have many other proofs that this year will be dramatically different from 2008.  The enthusiasm for the Republicans is off the charts and significantly higher than the enthusiasm for the Democrats.  Polls have picked this up by showing the Republicans have a higher interest in the election and are more certain about voting.  Polls have also showed that those who strongly disapprove of Obama's job performance significantly outnumber those who strongly approve of his performance.  This difference in enthusiasm is also evidenced by much larger and more enthusiastic crowds for Romney compared to Obama.  This all feels like 2008 in reverse.  Peggy Noonan commented on the Republican passion bubbling under the surface in this election in her excellent column here.  Concern about Democratic turnout is doubtless what has led Obama to campaign in Democratic strongholds like Madison, WI and Boulder, CO in the final week of the campaign.

And, there is the evidence of the demeanor of the candidates and the campaigns.  Romney has seemed relaxed and confident and stayed largely positive in his campaign message, while Obama has seemed angry and his campaign ads have been overwhelmingly negative.  He was even caught telling his supporters at a recent Ohio rally to vote for revenge, while Romney countered by urging supporters to vote for love of country.  In the last presidential debate, the difference in demeanor between the two candidates clearly showed that Romney believed he was ahead and Obama believed he was behind.  Some of the Obama campaign's tactics, such as that creepy Lena Dunham "My First Time" ad, seem to be the actions of a desperate campaign, not a confident one. 

And then, of course, there is the early voting data.  We can't know for sure who people are voting for, of course, but we can discern trends relating to partisan turnout.  And the data in all the swing states indicates a huge improvement for the GOP compared to 2008.  In Ohio, there has been a more than 260,000 vote swing away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans in early voting turnout.  There has been a percentage swing toward the GOP in early voting in Florida and North Carolina that looks likely to overwhelm Obama's narrow win margin in both states from 2008.  Democrats lead big in early voting in Iowa, as they always do, but the percentage advantage for the Democrats is actually slightly less than it was in 2004 when Bush carried the state.  Early voting turnout is down significantly in key Democratic strongholds in Virginia this year compared with 2008.  Republicans have about a 2 point lead in early voting in Colorado this year, compared with a Democratic lead four years ago.  There is not early voting in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, but absentee balloting has looked very favorable to the GOP.  Even in Nevada, the GOP has improved significantly since 2008, even though it looks like Obama will still carry the state.  Most surprisingly, a recent poll from Gallup showed Republicans actually leading the early vote nationally by 6 points, which is incredible when you consider that most of Obama's national margin in 2008 came from early voting. 

Even when you look at current national polling, Gallup and Rasmussen both show a one point lead for Romney, with Obama at 48%.  Not a good place for an incumbent to be.  The latest CNN poll oversampled Democrats by 11 points, but still showed the race a tie with a 22 point advantage for Romney with independents.  The latest ABC/Washington Post poll had Obama up three, but its poll oversampled Democrats by 6.  I think a fair reading of these national polls indicates a Romney advantage and slight momentum back in his direction (after a week of Obama gains).  Remember that Romney had a steady and significant 3-6 point lead in both Gallup and Rasmussen for the week or two before the hurricane, with sizable advantages with independents.  The hurricane gave Obama a clear bounce, but I don't think it fundamentally changed the race.  Will independents, who have been negative about Obama for three years, suddenly reverse themselves and vote for Obama simply due his looking presidential for a couple of days in a hurricane a few days before the election?  I find it hard to believe, but I guess I can't completely rule it out. 

What about the state polls?  Well, some of them are very questionable in my mind -- either online polls or polls done by Democratic agenda pollsters like Public Policy Polling.  Zogby has been largely discredited as a pollster, and Gravis came out of nowhere this year and has no track record.  Most of these state pollsters are assuming the electorate will be very similar to 2008, with large oversamplings of Democrats.  Some of these state polls have shown Obama with larger leads in Ohio and Florida than his 2008 margin!  Marist and Quinnipiac have been especially guilty of this -- the Marist pollster said straight up in an interview that he is assuming a 2008 electorate.  I think many of these polls are a case of garbage in, garbage out.  Their results are inaccurate because they are making inaccurate assumptions about the electorate. 

I won't deny that this election looks to be quite close and that either Obama or Romney could easily win.  But I keep coming back to the fundamentals of this election.  Fundamentally, most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.  Overwhelmingly voters consider the economy to be the most important issue in this election, and every poll shows that voters favor Romney over Obama on this issue.  No matter how many ads about abortion and contraception Obama runs, the election is not going to be about those issues for most voters.  I think, in the end, the big issues do not favor Obama and that will cause late-deciding voters to either break for Romney or sit out the election.  And I am encouraged that much smarter political gurus like Michael Barone, Karl Rove, and Jay Cost largely agree with my view of this election.

In short, I'm putting my faith in the American electorate to make the rational decision.  Maybe I'm letting my political biases get in the way of objectivity.  We'll all know in less than 24 hours (hopefully)....

Some Random Thoughts on the Election

I just wanted to jot down some random thoughts about this upcoming election.

Much media attention has been focused on Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's recent debate comment that pregnancies resulting from rape are God's will.  Mourdock's statement was certainly foolish and ill-advised -- I think Republican candidates should completely avoid the topic of abortion resulting from rape and I'm not sure why it's so hard for them to do that.  Abortions resulting from rape are less than 1% of all abortions performed nationwide and it is the one area of abortion policy in which public opinion is strongly against the pro-life position.  Nevertheless, I think Mourdock was very clumsily expressing the belief, held by most Christians, that all human life is the creation and gift of God, which I don't think is an extreme or fringe belief at all.  Perhaps he was also expressing the Calvinistic Christian belief that all things that happen, even bad things, are part of God's will. 

By contrast, another Senate candidate, Christopher Murphy of Connecticut, recently expressed the opinion that human life begins at birth.  In my opinion, this is a far more extreme opinion than the one expressed by Mourdock and is aggressively anti-science.  The notion that a baby does not become human or alive until it comes through the birth canal is laughable.  Yet, I'm sure most or all of my readers have never heard of this story, largely because the overwhelmingly pro-choice media buried it.  Republicans are not the only ones who make stupid statements, but they are the only ones who are unable to get away with those stupid statements.

Even though I live in a state where there are no competitive statewide elections, I have been seeing and hearing a lot of Washington media market TV and radio campaign ads targeting Virginia voters in the president and Senate races.  It is not an exaggeration to say that a clear majority of the Democratic ads I have heard are focused on abortion.  Of course, they never mention the word "abortion," preferring to use euphemisms like "women's health care" and "women's rights to make their own choices about their bodies," but it is clear what they are really talking about.  The same focus was clearly on display at the Democratic National Convention this year.  With all the challenges our country faces domestically and on the world stage, the primary topic of conversation for the Democrats appears to be a celebration of abortion.  I know -- or at least know of -- evangelical Christians who are planning to vote for Obama, and it is beyond me how they can rationalize voting for a candidate whose identity is completely wrapped up in abortion.

One of the things that frustrates me as well is that Republicans are such incredible wusses when it comes to the topic of abortion.  There is no reason this issue should work to the Democrats' advantage, given the fact that more Americans actually identify as pro-life than as pro-choice and studies of past presidential elections have shown that a majority of single-issue abortion voters vote pro-life rather than pro-choice.  I understand that Romney and congressional Republican candidates don't want to make abortion the centerpiece of their campaigns, given the preeminence of the economy in most voters' minds, but I don't think they should be afraid to fight back on the issue when they are attacked.  For example, Obama attacked Romney for being against women because of his opposition to taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood several times in the second debate, and I think Romney should have responded to it at least once instead of letting the claim stand that he was against women.  If Obama is going to hammer Romney on abortion, why shouldn't Romney respond with an ad pointing out how extreme Obama is on abortion, or at least asking why Obama is obsessed with the issue with unemployment at around 8%?  If Obama is going to demand that Romney disassociate himself from Mourdock's comments, why shouldn't Romney demand that Obama disassociate himself from Murphy's comments about human life beginning at birth?  I think the GOP is unwise to entirely cede this issue to the Democrats. 

So, where does the presidential race stand?  I think it's not looking so bad for Romney right now.  A few weeks ago, I wrote a post encouraging conservatives to keep their chin up despite disappointing poll numbers.  Since then, we have had three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate, all of which I think have worked to the advantage of the Romney/Ryan ticket.  The first debate was most critical of course.  The 65 million Americans across the country who were watching got to see Romney debate Obama on the issues directly without the media spin and realized that Romney was a smart, capable man with a deep understanding of the issues and an economic plan for the country.  The Romney they saw on stage at the first debate in Denver, and in the other two subsequent debates, was nothing like the caricature of Romney that had been beaten into people's heads from months of vicious non-stop Obama attacks on Romney's character, background, and policies.  Romney's debate performances demonstrated to independent and undecided voters that he is a legitimate alternative to Obama and managed to improve his personal likability as well. 

I find the claims of some pundits, such as Nate Silver of the New York Times, that Obama is a 65% to 70% favorite to win reelection to be highly implausible and even ridiculous.  Right now, Romney is four points ahead in the Gallup tracking poll and three points ahead in the Rasmussen tracking poll, and at or above 50% in both polls.  Few if any recent national polls have shown Obama above 48%.  Under normal circumstances, voters who are still undecided in the final week or two of the campaign generally break for the challenger, and incumbents rarely end up getting a larger share of the vote than their final poll number.  The rationale for insisting that Obama is a clear favorite for reelection seems to be that poll numbers in several key swing states, especially Ohio, look more favorable to Obama and the electoral college rather than the popular vote will determine the election winner.  However, the electoral college almost always lines up with the popular vote except in cases where the difference between the two candidates' popular vote is 1% or less.  Furthermore, polling in swing states like Ohio has been less frequent, has used smaller samples, and has tended in many cases to significantly oversample Democrats.  For example, in 2008 Democrats had an 8% advantage in turnout, and some recent Ohio polls have shown a 9% advantage in turnout.  This is actually assuming an electorate that is more Democratic than 2008, which is an extremely unrealistic assumption and is belied by early voting statistics and trends.

I am far from certain that Romney will win, but I give him slightly better odds than Obama at this point.  Obama has little time left to change the narrative, absent a major "October surprise" or gaffe on Romney's part.  Overall, I feel like those of us who want to see Obama defeated have the best opportunity we could have asked for to do that.  Romney is a candidate who appeals to the middle and is difficult to paint as an extreme "right-winger."  His moral character appears to be blameless and his background and experience show him to be more than qualified to be president.  He is an eloquent speaker and an excellent debater -- far better than most other recent Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates.  He has had plenty of money to get his message out.  And voters have every reason to reject Obama.  He has clearly shown himself to be an extreme liberal over the course of his first term.  He has utterly failed to solve the biggest problems facing our country, such as an awful economy, high unemployment, a ballooning national debt, a looming entitlement crisis, runaway federal spending, and soaring health care costs.  He has offered no positive future vision for the country and run an extremely nasty and negative campaign.  I don't know how the choice could be clearer for voters or how there could be any greater incentive for non-liberal voters to reject Obama.  If we lose this election, it will be the clearest proof yet (to me at least) that our country is utterly beyond reason and beyond hope.

For those who are political junkies like me and are interested in reading political analysis from a conservative perspective, I recommend this website: http://battlegroundwatch.com/.  In less than two weeks, this long campaign will be all over!

A Few Laughs for This Friday Morning

Last night Obama and Romney spoke at a black tie Catholic charity event called the Al Smith Dinner.  Here are some lines from that event:

Host Al Smith IV to Obama: "We recognize that you have some challenges this year. It’s never good when your opponent has produced more sons than you have jobs.”

Obama: “I had a lot more energy in the second debate. I was well rested after the nice long nap I had during the first debate.”

Romney: "Speaking of Sesame Street, tonight’s dinner was brought to you by the letter ‘O’ and the number 16 trillion."

Romney: "But the press and I have different jobs. My job is to tell the American people my plans for the country, the press’ job is to make sure no one hears about it."

UPDATE: Here's the video of Romney's entire speech at the dinner. I thought it was great and had me laughing out loud at several points.

Republican Convention - Days 2 & 3

I also got to watch the better part of the last two evenings of the Republican convention last week.  With the exception of Rand Paul's rousing speech early in the evening in which gave a surprisingly strong endorsement of Romney, the only speeches of the second evening that stood out to me were the final three -- Condoleezza Rice, Susana Martinez, and Paul Ryan.  I was only half paying attention at the beginning of Rice's speech, but started listening more closely when I realized that she was giving a very eloquent speech that was dazzling the crowd.  She spoke more about domestic policy, including energy and education policy, than I expected.  She spoke movingly of the incredible story of her life, rising from her childhood in segregated Mississippi to become Secretary of State of the United States.  Among her best lines were these:

Ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement. We have not believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well. We have not been envious of one another and jealous of each other’s success. Ours has been a belief in opportunity and a constant battle — long and hard — to extend the benefits of the American dream to all — without regard to circumstances of birth.
 

Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico and the first female Hispanic governor in the U.S., spoke next and had the crowd and me cracking up with this story:

Before I ran for District Attorney, two Republicans invited my husband and me to lunch. And I knew a party-switch was exactly what they wanted.

So, I told Chuck, we'll be polite, enjoy a free lunch and then say goodbye.

But we talked about issues-they never used the words Republican, or Democrat, conservative or liberal.

We talked about many issues, like welfare - is it a way of life, or a hand-up?

Talked about the size of government -- how much should it tax families and small businesses?

And when we left that lunch, we got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and said, "I'll be damned, we're Republicans!"
 

But I thought the best speech, not just of the night, but of the entire convention, was Paul Ryan's acceptance speech for nomination for Vice President.  It was a brilliantly written and substantive speech and was delivered masterfully.  It was one of the most devastating critiques of Obama's first term that I have ever heard -- certainly the most effective attack on Obama's record that I heard during the entire convention.  Ryan cut through all the noise and explained simply and clearly why Obama has been a failure.  And he did so without coming across as nasty or angry.  He also managed to sound optimistic about our future and sincere about seeking to address the big problems we face, and he managed to weave in some very personal moments about his family and background as well as some lines that had me laughing out loud.  After so many years of having lackluster speakers on the Republican presidential and vice-presidential tickets, it is so refreshing to have someone on the 2012 ticket who can communicate conservative ideas effectively!  If you have not had the opportunity to watch Ryan's acceptance speech yet, I highly recommend watching it below:

One sign of the effectiveness of Ryan's speech was the fact that Obama and the media immediately began attacking Ryan for the supposed lies in his speech.  A sample media hit job on Ryan is this Yahoo article.  Not surprisingly, Yahoo was wrong and Ryan was right.  On every one of these points:

1. Ryan claimed ObamaCare took $716 billion out of Medicare.  That is TRUE.  Of course the cuts "do not affect Medicare recipients directly," if by directly you mean that ObamaCare doesn’t literally pull cash out of people’s wallets.  ObamaCare takes money away from the Medicare program, which means lower payments to insurance plans and health providers, which means seniors’ health coverage will be directly affected.  This is an actual cut to Medicare.  The budget endorsed by the Romney-Ryan ticket eliminates those cuts to Medicare.  So this cut by Obama would be reversed by Romney.


2. Ryan claimed that that the stimulus was political patronage and cronyism that did nothing to get the economy going.  That is TRUE.  Even Obama was forced to admit those "shovel ready" jobs weren’t so shovel ready after all.  Ryan opposed the stimulus bill and voted against it.  AFTER IT WAS ALREADY PASSED, he tried to make sure his district wasn’t left out.  That doesn’t disprove what Ryan said about the stimulus.  It just means that if the stimulus money was going to be spent anyway, he didn’t want his district to be left out.  But he didn’t want it to be passed in the first place.


3. That plant in Janesville, WI that Ryan mentioned was partially shut down in December 2008, before Obama took office, but it continued production on a much smaller scale until April 2009, when it was permanently and fully closed.  Obama made campaign promises about saving the plant, but it was shut down on his watch and never re-opened.  Obama made promises he couldn’t keep.  What Ryan said was accurate.


4. What Ryan said about Obama doing nothing with regard to the debt commissions is ABSOLUTELY TRUE.  Ryan voted no on the final findings of the debt commission – that is also true.  That was because the commission kept ObamaCare, and Ryan is opposed to ObamaCare.  However, Ryan did work with the commission on various ideas and he did propose an alternate budget that incorporated many elements of the Simpson-Bowles commission.  His alternate solution was actually praised by Erskine Bowles, the Democratic co-chair of the commission.  Obama, by contrast, completely ignored his own debt commission and proposed another completely unserious budget that did nothing about the debt at all.  It got zero votes in both the House and the Senate.  While Ryan disagreed with the debt commission’s conclusion, he worked hard to come up with alternate solutions even though he is only one out of 435 House members.  Obama is the president with more responsibility than anyone else, and yet did nothing to come up with any serious solutions.  Ryan’s attack was not only true, it was also completely fair.

This is why people need to stop letting the media do their thinking for them.  The press's latest tactic is to use the objective-sounding term "fact checking" to disguise their ideologically driven attacks against Republicans. 

I also watched most of the final night of the convention, which mostly featured a series of tributes from individuals who know Romney personally or who have worked with him professionally.  While I do not accept Mormonism as a legitimate form of Christianity, I couldn't help but be impressed by several individuals from Romney's church who movingly described the kindness, compassion, and love which Romney displayed in helping them through some incredibly tragic circumstances.  Those testimonies convinced me that Romney is not just a successful businessman, but also a deeply caring person who has spent his life helping others.  I was more familiar with Romney's experience founding and growing Bain Capital, turning around the Salt Lake City Olympics, and governing Massachusetts, but still found myself more impressed than I expected with the full weight of Romney's experiences and accomplishments throughout his life.  There is no doubt that Romney is a man who is eminently qualified to be president.

In between these tributes and Romney's acceptance speech were wedged two very different speakers: Clint Eastwood (!) and Senator Marco Rubio.  Eastwood's "speech" was actually more of an unscripted comedic routine which seemed a bit confused at times but got in some very effective shots at Obama.  Eastwood dared to do what no one else at the convention would or could: make fun of Obama (and Biden of course).  Despite a couple of crude allusions, I enjoyed the routine and would guess it played much better outside of the beltway than it did with professional pundits.  Rubio's speech was somewhat overshadowed by Eastwood but completely met my high expectations.  Among the most effective moments of his speech were his comment that "Obama was not a bad person, just a bad president" and his list of Obama's tax-and-spend, socialistic policies followed by the statement that "these are tired and old big government ideas. Ideas that people come to America to get away from."  (This last was especially effective coming from the son of Cuban immigrants.)

There was nothing really wrong with Romney's acceptance speech, but I can't say that it excited me very much.  Many pundits seemed genuinely impressed with Romney's delivery and even stated that it was the best speech of his career.  I guess I have mostly heard Romney speak in debate forums rather than straight speeches, but I didn't find his delivery very impressive.  He seemed stiff and out-of-sync with the audience for at least the first half of the speech.  He seemed like he was rushing through the speech too much and failing to articulate his words clearly and pause appropriately, although he seemed to relax and did much better in the second half of his remarks.  Also, the speech was clearly designed to soften and humanize Romney, which may have appealed to independent and undecided voters but wasn't really what I was looking for.  The first half to two-thirds of the speech was pretty non-ideological, but he did finally get more into specifics about his beliefs and policies toward the end of the speech.  It was all from 30,000 feet, of course, but you generally don't get too specific in a convention speech anyway.  Anyway, I did think Romney drew some effective contrasts between himself and Obama, especially when he contrasted Obama's grandiose promises from 2008 about slowing the rise of the oceans and healing the planet with his simple, workman-like promises to "help you and your family" by getting the economy moving again.

Although Romney's speech wasn't overly exciting to a staunch partisan like myself, I expect it helped Romney quite a bit with those all-important independent and undecided voters.  (He's already convinced me to vote for him.)  I don't know how anyone who is not already a hardened partisan could watch the tributes to Romney from people who have known and worked with him and then the speech from Romney himself and conclude that he is anything other than a decent, compassionate, hard-working, trustworthy, and successful man.  Certainly it would be hard to conclude he was anything close to that monstrous caricature the Obama campaign has been pushing of a cold, ruthless businessman who destroyed businesses and individuals for the fun of it at Bain Capital while committing felonies and murdering people.  If the bar is whether this guy is a reasonable alternative to Obama, he more than crossed that hurdle.  If people are looking for someone who is likable and trustworthy, someone they can feel comfortable with on a personal level, I think Romney helped himself significantly with the last night of his convention. 

I plan to watch at least a little bit of the Democratic convention this week -- or at least as much of it as I can stomach.  I want to try to compare the themes and emphases of the two conventions, as well as the speakers themselves.  I already know what I think of the Democratic Party, but I'm interested to see whether they are going to provide any kind of positive case for Obama whatsoever and also how much of an effort they are going to make to appeal to the center.  I certainly have seen little of either a positive case or a centrist appeal from this president's campaign so far.

Campaign Notes

Joe Biden made the following comment, speaking to an audience more than half black in Danville, VA:

Look at what they [Republicans] value, and look at their budget. And look what they're proposing. [Romney] said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks write their own rules -- unchain Wall Street. They're gonna put y'all back in chains.

Both Obama and Biden were subsequently asked about these racially charged remarks and defended them as perfectly appropriate.  (Are there any campaign tactics that are not appropriate with these people?  Murder accusations against Romney are also Obama-approved.)

Mitt Romney has been hitting his stride lately on the campaign trail, fighting back against Obama's barrage of negativity.  Here's part of what he said at a recent campaign event in Ohio (partly in response to Biden's above quote):

In 2008, Candidate Obama said, "if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters." He said, "if you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." And that, he told us, is how, "You make a big election about small things." 

That was Candidate Obama describing the strategy that is the now the heart of his campaign. 

His campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency. Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower. 

This is what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like. 

President Obama knows better, promised better and America deserves better. 

Over the last four years, this President has pushed Republicans and Democrats as far apart as they can go. And now he and his allies are pushing us all even further apart by dividing us into groups. He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces.  

If an American president wins that way, we all lose.

I think Romney is exactly correct.  Obama's re-election strategy all along has been to distract attention from the big issues, destroy his opponents with a barrage of negativity, and divide the American people by pandering to specific racial and gender groups (war on women, amnesty for illegal immigrants, gay marriage, etc.).  Romney needs to stay on the attack the rest of the campaign.

Of course, the media continues to stand as the biggest obstacle to a Romney victory.  Shannen Coffin of National Review's The Corner blog points out the biased way in which The Washington Post has covered this back-and-forth between the candidates.  There has been little coverage of the Obama team's outrageous claims, but when Romney finally fights back with far less outrageous responses The Post makes a front page news story about how Romney is "lashing out" with some of the "harshest rhetoric of his campaign." 

Meanwhile, many in the media have been doing their best to confuse the American public about Paul Ryan and the Medicare debate as well.  As an example, Patrick Brennan of National Review points out the dishonesty of CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien in regurgitating false Democratic talking points about Paul Ryan's plan and ObamaCare under the guise of objective fact-checking.  It is worth reading Brennan's articles here and here to inform yourself of the kind of subtle bias that we are facing from the media in this campaign season.

Finally, on a somewhat unrelated note, there was a shooting at the Family Research Council's headquarters in Washington, DC yesterday.  The shooter was a volunteer for The DC Center for the LGBT Community and shouted out something about FRC's values of hate before wounding a security guard.  I think this shooting is significant.  Much of the media has been echoing the vicious claims of the gay rights community that Christian groups like the Family Research Council are "hate groups" and homophobic bigots because of their opposition to gay marriage and support for the traditional family.  Left-wing groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center even produced a specific listing of "hate groups" that includes the Family Research Council.  So what a surprise.  The media makes them a huge target, and now a mentally unstable individual steeped in this rhetoric goes out and shoots somebody.  Even worse are the multitudes of Twitter responses (well documented by twitchy.com here) that condemn the shooting while suggesting that FRC had it coming to them and even suggesting a moral equivalency between the hatred of the shooter and the "hateful" beliefs of FRC.  Unbelievable.  I am not one to blame an entire group of people based on the unhinged actions of a single individual, but I think the way the media has tried to tar anyone who believes marriage is between a man and a woman as a hateful bigot is shameful and this shooting may well be a consequence of that.

UPDATE: I assumed that the media would largely ignore the FRC story, but I have actually been surprised how much coverage it seems to have gotten, from the front page of The Washington Post to MSM radio. 

The R&R Ticket

Mitt Romney made one of the most important decisions of his campaign on Saturday.  He selected Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his Vice Presidential candidate.  Who is Paul Ryan, and is he a good pick?

I was very surprised by this pick.  I felt quite sure that Romney would make a "safe" choice -- one that would be fairly vanilla and non-controversial.  This is because I have felt from the beginning that Romney wanted to coast to victory as the default candidate and felt he could win simply by keeping the focus on Obama's awful economy.  Well, I was wrong.  Paul Ryan is a "big risk, big reward" type of choice.  By picking Ryan, Romney seems to be sending a message that he wants to run an ideas-driven campaign and make this election a stark choice between two visions for the country.

Several cons could be mentioned about Ryan -- he doesn't clearly deliver any state to Romney, he has never won a statewide election, and he like Romney is not overly charismatic.  But by far the biggest reason Ryan is a risky choice is because of the budget plans that Ryan has spearheaded in the House.  These budgets are the first serious attempt anyone in Washington has made to combat the runaway growth of entitlement spending and to reform programs like Medicare, and they make Ryan an easy target for demagoguery.  Democrats now have an opportunity to take the attention away from Obama's dismal record by running Mediscare ads 24/7 targeting seniors.  Democrats have had success with this strategy in the past -- most notably in 1995-1996.  Seniors are the most reliable voting bloc in the country and comprise an large percentage of voters in several key swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania.  If the Democrats are able to convince a significant number of them that Romney & Ryan want to take away their Medicare, then Obama has a clear path to victory despite his poor job approval numbers.  That is why so many Democrats expressed glee over Romney's choice and started attacking him even before he was officially announced.

The good news is that the truth is on the side of the GOP on this issue.  The facts are that the 2012 Ryan budget, which Romney has endorsed, does not take away anyone's Medicare.  No one age 55 or older will be affected at all by the Medicare reforms, and those under age 55 are guaranteed the same health coverage at no extra cost to them under this plan.  The plan's cost savings come not from making future Medicare recipients pay more out of pocket for their coverage, but rather from unleashing the power of free market competition into the Medicare system.  The only risk associated with Ryan's plan is the risk that it may not reform Medicare enough to completely avert a debt crisis.  There can be no debating that it is better than the status quo.  Yuval Levin has an outstanding article on National Review's website explaining exactly what Ryan's plan proposes with regard to Medicare and why it is such a good idea.  I highly recommend it.

The Democrats are simply lying about Ryan's plan.  They have no plan to save Medicare and control entitlement spending.  In fact, their beloved ObamaCare raids $700 billion from Medicare.  They have no solution themselves, so they are going all in to demagogue a very good solution by the Republican team.  The good news is that Romney and his supporting PAC's are flush with cash and should be able to at least match and probably exceed Obama's level of spending over the final two and a half months of the campaign.  Republicans have the ability to win this argument and absolutely must do so -- both to win the election and to save our country from a debt crisis.  Romney's instincts have always been to play it safe, but he has no choice now but to fight back hard and to win this important debate on the issues.

There are plenty of upsides to having Paul Ryan as the Vice Presidential candidate.  He is young and energetic, yet has plenty of experience in government.  He helps to unite the Republican base around Romney, since he is a strong fiscal and social conservative.  His working class background is a nice contrast to Romney, and he is well-liked on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.  Most importantly, Ryan is a brilliant and innovative thinker who understands the ins and outs of fiscal policy as well as anyone in Washington -- and can articulate his ideas very effectively.  Here is a video of Ryan debating Obama at the White House health care summit that shows his impressive grasp of the important issues facing the country.

Perhaps George Will put it best when he said that Romney "chose a running mate whose seriousness about large problems and ideas underscores what the president has become — silly and small."  Ryan is an intellectual heavyweight who will help Romney keep the focus of the campaign on the important issues of the economy, repealing ObamaCare, reforming entitlements, controlling spending, and reducing the deficit.  Ryan helps to underscore that Obama and the Democrats have no serious plan with regard to the deficit and entitlements.  Right now, Obama's team is overconfident.  Their non-stop attacks on Romney and Ryan will backfire if Romney and his supporters can effectively communicate their positive vision for the country.  If they play their cards right, the electorate will face a stark choice in November between a Republican ticket with real ideas to fix our economy and get our deficit under control and a Democratic ticket with a failed economic record and nothing to offer but blistering negativity.  If the American people don't have the sense to reject Obama under those circumstances, then we deserve what we get.

Thoughts on Harry Reid and Mitt Romney

There are few people in politics for whom I have less respect than Harry Reid.  He ranks even below Barack Obama in my book.  He has been an embarrassment to his country and his party for years.  During the Bush Administration, he called President Bush a "loser" while speaking to a class of school age children, and he stated on the Senate floor that the U.S. had lost the war in Iraq while our troops were still fighting and in harm's way.  He made crass comments about Obama being a light-skinned Negro with no dialect during the 2008 election campaign, and he compared opponents of ObamaCare to supporters of slavery and segregation on the Senate floor.  Under his "leadership," the Senate hasn't passed a budget in several years.  Yet the Democrats are happy to have him as the highest-ranking Democrat in Congress and the public face of their party. 

Reid's latest outrage is to claim that Mitt Romney hasn't paid taxes in 10 years, claiming some secret source connected to Bain Capital.  This claim is ridiculous on its face, since there have been no audits or investigations by the IRS.  Reid has no evidence to back up his claim and refuses to name his source.  When challenged about it, Reid demonstrated his legal prowess by saying the burden of proof was on Romney to disprove this ridiculous allegation.  It seems pretty obvious to me that Reid is just making up claims out of thin air, since he knows the only way to disprove them is for Romney to release his tax returns for the past ten years and Romney has already said he will not do that.  Remember, the man doing this is the Senate Majority Leader. 

Not surprisingly, conservatives are unloading on Reid.  Rich Lowry calls Reid a "malicious hack" who cares nothing about his "reputation, [his] institution, or the truth."  The Wall Street Journal editorial page refers to Reid's accusations as "a smear from the fever swamps."  But interestingly, Reid is facing some harsh criticism from the Left as well.  Liberal Richard Cohen of The Washington Post, for example, wrote a column entitled "Harry Reid's Gutter Politics" in which he surprisingly unloads not just on Reid, but also on the Democrats in the Senate and the Obama campaign team for supporting Reid.  Cohen writes:

For Reid, this is yet another brazen and tasteless partisan attack. As majority leader, he has managed to sink the public image of the Senate even lower than it would otherwise be. He contributes to bad feelings, gridlock and the sense — nay, the reality — that everything is done for political advantage....  He is the face of the Democratic Party in the Senate and the ally of President Obama. Yet, not a single Democrat has had the spine to rebuke Reid. The White House has been given the chance and explicitly ducked its duty....  Reid has managed to draw both his party and his president into the gutter with him. When Reid accuses the Republicans of being overly partisan, he now lacks all credibility....  As for Obama, he is tarnished by this episode. The fresh new face that promised us all a different kind of politics is suddenly looking cheesy. The soaring rhetoric that Obama used in his first campaign has come to ground in the mud of Harry Reid’s latter-day McCarthyism.

Wow.  When you are getting this kind of blistering criticism from the Left, you know you have crossed a line.  Perhaps this explains why yesterday, finally, Obama's press secretary started to back away from Reid's comments.

I also wanted to briefly comment on Romney's response to the Chick-Fil-A controversy.  For those who haven't heard, Romney was asked for his opinion on Friday about Chick-Fil-A as well as Michele Bachmann's allegations about the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration of the federal government.  Romney refused to comment on either one, stating that "those are not things that are part of my campaign." 

At least with regard to Chick-Fil-A (haven't researched the other topic enough to have an informed opinion), I think this was a mistake, both on the merits and on the politics of the issue.  I have already written extensively about my opinion on the merits of this issue.  I think Romney also missed a big opportunity here politically.  I understand that he wants to keep the focus of his campaign on the economy, but that doesn't mean he can never discuss other issues that come up.  He didn't even have to get into the issue of the definition of marriage.  All he needed to say was that the Democratic mayors were out of line in trying to deny Chick-Fil-A the right to operate in their cities.  It would have been hard even for the left-wing media to twist that statement into something controversial, while at the same time it would have encouraged Romney's conservative base that he understood the free speech and government control issues behind this "gay" controversy.  Romney has already come out in support of traditional marriage, so it's not like the gay rights activists pushing for the Chick-Fil-A boycott are going to vote for him anyway.  Or, as Dennis Prager points out, he could have made an even stronger statement by eating lunch at Chick-Fil-A and dessert at Ben & Jerry's, and in so doing attempt to draw an even sharper distinction between himself and the Democrats on the issue of freedom.  By refusing to say anything at all, Romney is reinforcing the concerns that many on the Right have about him -- that he is a squish who avoids controversy at any cost and cannot be counted on to stand up for issues that we care about.  The massive Chick-Fil-A turnout last week shows that this is an issue that the Republican base is passionate about, and Romney would have been wise not to just brush it aside.  Romney failed to swing at a soft pitch that should have been hit out of the park, and I think that says something worrisome about his political instincts (possibly his principles as well).

UPDATE: Apparently Jim Geraghty of Campaign Spot shares my extreme frustration with the dirty tactics of the Democrats.  He has a great blog post entitled "Wanted: A Running Mate Who Will Fight Back, With Passion!"  He cites a recent Obama campaign that accuses Romney of killing a woman.  Yes, you read that right.  Obama is running ads claiming Mitt Romney killed someone.  That's the kind of opponent we're up against.  Geraghty is right.  We need a fighter.

Romney's Terrible Overseas Trip?

The media consensus has clearly been that Romney's recent overseas trip to England, Israel, and Poland was a gaffe-filled disaster.  Rich Lowry, Charles Krauthammer, and Marc Thiesson disagree.  Rich Lowry's Politico opinion column points out the extreme bias in press coverage of the trip, Charles Krauthammer's syndicated column praises Romney for substantive successes in Poland and Israel (two important allies that Obama has treated with contempt), and Marc Thiessen of The Washington Post notes that Romney's much-maligned comment about Israeli culture compared to Palestinian culture was completely accurate. 

I'd rather have a President who gaffes by speaking the truth awkwardly than a President who gaffes by stating un-American points of view.  (Think "You didn't build that" and "spreading the wealth around.")

Some Links from Jennifer Rubin, Andrew McCarthy, & Karl Rove

I always enjoy reading Jennifer Rubin's Right Turn blog on The Washington Post's website, but today she made a couple of exceptionally good posts.  One highlights the media's pathetic inability to distinguish important news stories from unimportant news stories, and the other has some interesting excerpts from Mitt Romney's recent stump speech in Pennsylvania which has been getting a lot of favorable attention from conservatives for its passion and substance.

Another interesting article is by Andrew McCarthy of National Review, which summarizes Obama's repeated disrespect for our constitutional system, laments the weakness of Republicans in Congress in challenging his lawless behavior, and warns against a likely attempt by Obama to circumvent Congress with regard to closing Guantanamo Bay after the election. 

Finally, Karl Rove provides a great summary of Obama's lies, distortions, and hypocritical claims directed against Romney on the campaign trail lately.  I am glad to see that Romney is starting to hit back, hard.  He certainly doesn't lack for legitimate policy issues to attack Obama on.  He should take the gloves off and keep them off until after the election.

And by the way, I think Romney should give this response every time the media or the Obama team asks him why he won't release his old tax returns: "I promise to release all my old tax returns to the public as soon as Obama agrees to release all the information requested by Congress relating to the Fast & Furious operation."

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.

If I Were a Florida Primary Voter Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is the Florida GOP presidential primary. The race has turned into a heated contest between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul lurking in the background, hoping to become spoilers. Florida has a much larger and more diverse voting population than the states that have previously voted, and its primary is winner-take-all, meaning that its results will doubtless be critical in determining the party's presidential nominee.

If I were a Florida primary voter, I would cast my vote for Mitt Romney. The fact that I have come around to supporting Romney is a bit surprising even to me, as I opposed him back in the 2008 presidential primary when many conservatives were supporting him against McCain. As recently as a few months ago, I was deadset against him being the nominee. Even now, unlike many of his fans, I am fully cognizant of his weaknesses, both with regard to his conservative credentials and his electability. He is far from a perfect candidate and far from a slam-dunk against Obama.

My support for Romney boils down to two key points: I believe he is the only candidate left in the race capable of defeating Obama, and I believe he is essentially a decent man, a competent executive, and a reasonably conservative politician who would be an acceptable Republican nominee.

Two of Romney's three remaining competitors fail on both points listed above. I believe Ron Paul is a highly unelectable candidate, for reasons I listed in a previous post, and I also find his positions on certain issues (primarily related to his views on foreign policy and the war against terrorism) to be unacceptable policy positions for our party's nominee.

Newt Gingrich, who is apparently the nominee of choice for many influential conservatives including Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, likewise fails on these two points. Gingrich's personal negatives are high, especially among independents and women, and he consistently polls much worse than Romney in nationwide and state-by-state matchups against Obama. Many of the qualities that make him appealing to GOP primary voters -- his bombthrowing rhetorical style, his tendency toward grand but controversial ideas, his open contempt for the media -- are likely to be liabilities in a general election.

In addition to Gingrich's obvious electability issues, I find his personal character and past leadership to be deeply lacking. Anyone who believes that personal integrity and morality is key to effective leadership should have grave concerns about a President Gingrich. Not once, but twice, Newt Gingrich committed adultery and divorced his wife in order to marry his mistress. Other ingredients in these sordid affairs were delinquent child support payments by Gingrich, the fact that both of the first two wives were suffering serious health problems at the time he was cheating on them, and allegations by his second wife that he wanted an open marriage. It is especially distressing to me that so many Christian conservatives seem indifferent to these character flaws, and the hypocrisy of "values voters" voting in such large numbers for Gingrich in South Carolina is certainly not lost on non-Christians.

Of course, Gingrich's adulterous behavior is far from his only character flaw. His ego appears to be nearly as big as Obama's, and his leadership style is erratic and undisciplined. Although he deserves great credit for leading the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, he proved to be an ineffective Speaker of the House and was forced out of leadership by his own party after only two terms. Few of his former colleagues have endorsed him, and many of them, including Tom Coburn, Tom DeLay, and Bob Dole, have sharply criticized him as a bullying egomaniac who was perfectly willing to sacrifice principle for power. (See this link for an example from Coburn's 2003 book.) His lobbyist connections to Freddie Mac, his criticisms of Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to tackle entitlements, his recent socialist-style attacks on Romney's business background with Bain Capital, and his past positions on federal health care mandates, climate change, and amnesty for illegal immigrants -- all of these things call into question Gingrich's claim that he is the conservative alternative to Romney. If we are going to sacrifice electability to get the most conservative candidate, we should at least make sure that the less electable candidate we are selecting is a principled and consistent conservative! It seems to me that the perception that Gingrich is more conservative than Romney is based far more on style than on substance.

With Paul and Gingrich off the table, the only other alternative to Romney is Rick Santorum. Unlike Paul or Gingrich, Santorum is an acceptable nominee in my opinion, and I could cast a primary vote for him with a clear conscience. I believe him to be a decent and devout man and a consistent conservative. Unfortunately, I also think it is highly unlikely that he could win a general election contest against Obama. Santorum's blowout Senate loss in Pennsylvania in 2006, his heavy emphasis on issues like abortion and gay marriage, his tendency to alternate between whining and bragging in the debates, and his poor showing in primary polling and voting in every state other than Iowa, call into question his ability to appeal to the broad spectrum of Republican and independent voters needed to win the White House.

That brings us back to Mitt Romney. Romney clearly is qualified to be President. His list of accomplishments include running several successful businesses, turning around a financially-troubled Olympic Commitee, and getting elected as a Republican and successfully governing a state that is usually very hostile to Republicans. These accomplishments demonstrate both an understanding of the free market and substantial executive experience. He is personally wealthy, but his wealth is largely self-made rather than inherited. From the debates I have watched, he comes across as knowledgeable and reasonably eloquent, and his answers and opinions seem consistent with conservative principles to me. His positions on the issues seem to be unchanged from 2008, when Rush Limbaugh was touting him as the presidential candidate most capable of uniting the three main factions of the Republican party (social conservatives, national defense conservatives, and economic conservatives). He appears to support the free markets and capitalism, support decreasing job-killing regulations, support developing our oil resources, oppose illegal immigration, oppose tax increases, support a strong military, and believe in American exceptionalism. There is no doubt in my mind he would sign a repeal of ObamaCare as well as most other conservative legislation sent to him by a Republican legislature. He is not as outspoken about reforming entitlements and drastically reducing spending as I would like, but he is still far better than Obama and probably no worse than Gingrich and Santorum.

Although his positions on the issues clearly seem conservative to me, he has appeal to independents and moderates because he avoids using inflammatory rhetoric, presents himself as a practical problem-solver, and was forced to govern as a centrist while governor of Massachusetts (due to the state's overwhelmingly Democratic legislature). For these reasons, he polls very competitively against Obama and is far more popular than his GOP rivals among the critical independent voting bloc.

Although Romney has been consistent throughout this campaign and his previous campaign for president in his pro-life and pro-traditional marriage positions, many Christian conservatives remain suspicious of him because of the fact that he was once pro-choice and the perception that he is a typical liberal Massachusetts Republican. I found this letter, signed by numerous social conservative leaders from the state, to be very reassuring, and I would encourage everyone who doubts Romney's commitment to traditional family values to read it. It is clear that pro-life and pro-family organizations in Massachusetts considered Romney to be a rare friend and ally. Ironically, the very fact that Romney is a Mormon -- a sore point for some evangelicals -- reassures me even further that Romney's socially conservative beliefs are probably sincere. On other policy issues too, including RomneyCare, it is easy to fault Romney for not being a perfect conservative during his time as governor, but it appears that he accomplished as much as he could given the opposition he faced. Does anyone doubt that Massachusetts would have passed a government health care law, with or without Romney?

No, Romney is not a perfect candidate. He needs to do much better at convincing the GOP base that he is a conservative and is their ally. He can come across as emotionally detached and insincere, and his upscale background can make it hard for him to connect to working class voters. He has deviated from conservative ideology significantly in the past, although the most damning quotes are all a decade or more old. He needs to sharpen his attacks on Obama in the months ahead. But overall, Romney is an acceptable nominee and the best option that I see right now, since my candidates of choice Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels chose not to run. And don't underestimate the importance of choosing a nominee who can beat Obama. Every conservative should be able to agree that Romney would be a dramatic improvement over Obama, and having a "pure conservative" nominee like Santorum is useless if it only results in four more years of the most left-wing administration our country has ever had.

It has been a divisive primary, largely because of the weaknesses of the candidates running. The voters will have a chance to speak tomorrow in Florida, and in many other states over the next couple of months. I believe that Republicans voters should and will rally around Romney as the best of the available options. Once he is the nominee, conservatives everywhere should make it their top priority to get him elected to the White House. To fail to do so would be extremely harmful to our conservative principles and our country.