Romney, GOP stuck in old America

When GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney loses in November, Republicans will ask themselves, ?How did this happen?? How did they blow their best opportunity to capture the White House since 1980?

They are likely to come up with the wrong answer. They will blame everything on the candidate.

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That is certainly part of the answer but not all of it. Romney is the worst presidential nominee since Barry Goldwater and George McGovern. Don?t expect Romney?s vote to collapse to the 38 percent that both Goldwater and McGovern got, however. There are probably enough anti-Obama voters out there to keep Romney?s share of the vote above 45 percent. But not much above that.

Romney?s gaffes have exposed him as painfully out of touch with ordinary Americans. Things like, ?Corporations are people? and ?Ten thousand dollar bet?? and ?My wife drives a couple of Cadillacs? and ?I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners? and ?I like being able to fire people.?

The latest revelations from a Florida fundraiser make things worse. They show Romney as not just out of touch but disdainful of ordinary Americans. He depicted half the country as moochers and parasites. He sounded like he was talking to the board of the country club. If President Bill Clinton is a political natural, Romney is a political doofus.

Republicans may be reluctant to admit it, but picking Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate was a serious blunder. Ryan changed the election from a referendum on the economy, which Republicans could win, to a referendum on the safety net, which is the Democrats? turf.

Now we find out that Romney has contempt for Americans who depend on the safety net: ?My job is not to worry about those people,? he said at that fundraiser, ?I?ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.?

A lot of Republicans will very likely conclude that Romney lost because he was too moderate. After Sen. John McCain?s failure in 2008 and now Romney?s defeat, Republicans may well say, ?If only we had nominated a real conservative, we would have won.? As a result, the tea party will become more aggressive and push Republicans even further to the right.

That?s the opposite of what the Democrats did in the 1980s, when they suffered successive defeats by Ronald Reagan. Democrats figured out that they were getting too far out of the mainstream and ultimately came up with a centrist who led them back to victory. Clinton a centrist? Yes. His major policy achievements ? free trade, welfare reform and a balanced budget ? got more support from Republicans than Democrats.

Source: http://feeds.politico.com/click.phdo?i=cf5130057c910e113dfdec803413b22d

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