what if romney is the nominee?

[gmo]

What kind of campaign would he run in the general as the nominee?  Would he maintain the current tack of being an outsider agent of change?  Even (maybe especially) if concerns about the economy grow I get the feeling that will not have a whole lot of traction, particularly versus Obama.  How much can he make out his experience?

I definitely think he could be competitive for several of the reasons mentioned previously.  But the currents are against his party, and he seems to lack the "it" to actually draw a majority in such an environment.  Judging from the reactions and feelings of many people such as the other GOP candidates and some posters here, he may have a Kerry-esque too much opposite of "it".  At this point I would say he loses by between a few to several percent - not what I would call blowout, but not really close.

[gmo]

Do you people really have no idea what is going on?  How many times have I factually debunked all the mindless dribble you just posted?  I can't even count them.  Seriously, take a look at reality once in a while and come up with your own arguments against Romney.  Who knows, maybe you'll be the first one to actually find something to criticize him on that he really did!

You can say it is all media spin or is for no good reason at all, or you might totally disagree with this thesis.  But here is one place where I think this board mirrors the general public - a major fraction of people seem to dislike Romney and a lot of them quite strongly.

Being new to most of the electorate means there should be a lot of indifference.  Considering his emergence into the national spotlight with relatively strong early results and that he may be positioned as the best coalition conservative candidate, his unfavorable ratings are surprisingly high to me.  At least they are in a vacuum.  Not so surprising considering the pre-IA&NH attacking and the plastic candidate label.

This is not somebody like Clinton or McCain long in the public view with plenty of time to antagonize a lot of people.  On the other side of that coin he has not had a lot of time to get many people really behind him.  As the nominee I expect a lot of the GOP would fall in line behind him, though very likely not nearly enough to upend the Dems in a year where the playing field is tilted in their favor.  His sort of national first impression developed over recent weeks to months has not been very good.

How can Romney reverse the negativity toward him?  Setting aside the "flip-flopper" issue, which I do not like much in general, Romney should be the least distasteful to the conservative masses compared to "liberal" McCain, "socially liberal" Guiliani, and "big government" Huckabee.  Though maybe okay across all the big issues, Romney does not seem to be inspiring many people with any of them.  If the current message of change and cleaning up Washington is to be the central theme I do not see that doing too well coming from the party of the very unpopular incumbent.  If folks want change and pandering, why not go with the Dems?