It didn’t help that the GOP’s nutty base made things awkward for Romney, but that could have worked to his advantage. Romney’s record of moderation COULD have been a huge plus in the general election. But Romney’s campaign could not see their way through to capitalize on this. Romney did not have to be as hard on immigration as he was to win the nomination. I don’t believe he had to repudiate Romneycare to get the nomination. At no time were any of the mediocre crackpots opposing Mitt Romney (Huntsman being a non-crackpot) in danger of being nominated. So it blows me away to think that Romney had to (and did) hopelessly compromise his campaign during the nomination process.
It is easy to say that after the fact, but it must be remembered that Rick Perry was a serious threat in that he had that personal appeal to social conservatives and tea party types, there was a lot of hype about the "Texas miracle" and he had a crapload of oil and agra money willing to back him up (and about a quarter a million more in Wall Street Rudy/Christie money ready to come in if he proved serious). Now I knew that Romney would defeat him, and that was the big three (1) Secession/Instability/Social Security comments, (2) Ethenol subsidies and (3) Illegal Immigration.
The stable hand at the wheel part of 1 and number three were successfully leveraged against Newt. Of course Perry toppled himself obviously.
Illegal Immigration was Romney's trump card. It got him his niche of the Conservative pie in 2008 and allowed him to end run around Rick Perry, Newt and many other Conservative alternatives that came up against him who were weak on the issue. Could he have stood to avoid being pigeon holed on the issue, of course. But it is a component that was essential to his getting the nomination both times.
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