Could Romney have won the primary vote if he had hewed more to the center?
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  Could Romney have won the primary vote if he had hewed more to the center?
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Author Topic: Could Romney have won the primary vote if he had hewed more to the center?  (Read 5291 times)
hopper
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« Reply #25 on: September 11, 2013, 12:46:16 PM »

In answer to the OP, no screwing way. Romnay BARELY beat Santorum in states like OH and MI, plus robbed him of election-night accolades by the skin of his ass. Lose those states and the resulting momentum effects on each campaign, and it's Mittins who drops out in April, not Santorum.
Santorm lead by 12% in polling 2 weeks before the Michigan Primary but self-destructed. He talked about abortion too much in those 2 weeks that's why he lost MI. Ohio was still close.
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IceSpear
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« Reply #26 on: September 16, 2013, 10:54:05 PM »

No. He still barely beat back Santorum after vigorous etch-a-sketching.
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Fuzzy Stands With His Friend, Chairman Sanchez
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« Reply #27 on: November 04, 2013, 11:13:02 PM »

In answer to the OP, no screwing way. Romnay BARELY beat Santorum in states like OH and MI, plus robbed him of election-night accolades by the skin of his ass. Lose those states and the resulting momentum effects on each campaign, and it's Mittins who drops out in April, not Santorum.
Romney could have won the primary vote if he swung to the center because he would have, under those circumstances, been a more believable, credible candidate, instead of a "severely conservative" poser.  I remember Romney's speech at CPAC; the repeated use of the phrase "We conservatives" was the lamest thing I had ever seen.  He was like a fraternity pledge acting like a frat brother before the fact, acting that way just because he was at a frat party during rush week.  Winning primaries by running on who you are and what you have done would (A) have made Romney more likeable to his fellow Republicans, and (B) would have drawn Republicans' attention to Romney's superior electability.

There were so many disasters in Romney's campaign, but the biggest one was the decision to run Romney as a "job creator", avoiding discussion of his Governorship (his SUCCESSFUL Governorship, mind you.  This had the effect of making Romney appearing less experienced then he was, and it blew up in Romney's face when it was shown that Romney was a WEALTH creator, but not a JOB creator.  He was a leveraged buyout guy, like Edward Lewis, Richard Gere's character in PRETTY WOMAN (without the "hired help").  People would have felt OK with this had he not been a phony about it; his phoniness and stretching the truth about his "job creation experience" made it hard for him to adequately respond to the accounts of jobs lost in communities as a result of Romney, devastated communities left in Mitt's wake.  It precluded that kind of discussion Romney could credibly make; that he was a guy with experience of attempting to work with troubled firms to stay afloat while forcing them to live within their means.  I don't think Romney viewed his real experience as something the average American wouldn't like.  I think that was a conclusion of his handlers, who ran one of the worst Presidential campaigns in American history.
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Badger
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« Reply #28 on: November 05, 2013, 06:24:19 AM »

In answer to the OP, no screwing way. Romnay BARELY beat Santorum in states like OH and MI, plus robbed him of election-night accolades in IA by the skin of his ass. Lose those states and the resulting momentum effects on each campaign, and it's Mittins who drops out in April, not Santorum.
Romney could have won the primary vote if he swung to the center because he would have, under those circumstances, been a more believable, credible candidate, instead of a "severely conservative" poser.  I remember Romney's speech at CPAC; the repeated use of the phrase "We conservatives" was the lamest thing I had ever seen.  He was like a fraternity pledge acting like a frat brother before the fact, acting that way just because he was at a frat party during rush week.  Winning primaries by running on who you are and what you have done would (A) have made Romney more likeable to his fellow Republicans, and (B) would have drawn Republicans' attention to Romney's superior electability.

There were so many disasters in Romney's campaign, but the biggest one was the decision to run Romney as a "job creator", avoiding discussion of his Governorship (his SUCCESSFUL Governorship, mind you.  This had the effect of making Romney appearing less experienced then he was, and it blew up in Romney's face when it was shown that Romney was a WEALTH creator, but not a JOB creator.  He was a leveraged buyout guy, like Edward Lewis, Richard Gere's character in PRETTY WOMAN (without the "hired help").  People would have felt OK with this had he not been a phony about it; his phoniness and stretching the truth about his "job creation experience" made it hard for him to adequately respond to the accounts of jobs lost in communities as a result of Romney, devastated communities left in Mitt's wake.  It precluded that kind of discussion Romney could credibly make; that he was a guy with experience of attempting to work with troubled firms to stay afloat while forcing them to live within their means.  I don't think Romney viewed his real experience as something the average American wouldn't like.  I think that was a conclusion of his handlers, who ran one of the worst Presidential campaigns in American history.

For Romney to be 'honest' about his record as governor would've required him to run left of center to liberal on gun control, gay rights, universal health care, abortion, etc, etc. How would that have gone over in the GOP primaries.
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Fuzzy Stands With His Friend, Chairman Sanchez
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« Reply #29 on: November 09, 2013, 05:39:13 PM »

In answer to the OP, no screwing way. Romnay BARELY beat Santorum in states like OH and MI, plus robbed him of election-night accolades in IA by the skin of his ass. Lose those states and the resulting momentum effects on each campaign, and it's Mittins who drops out in April, not Santorum.
Romney could have won the primary vote if he swung to the center because he would have, under those circumstances, been a more believable, credible candidate, instead of a "severely conservative" poser.  I remember Romney's speech at CPAC; the repeated use of the phrase "We conservatives" was the lamest thing I had ever seen.  He was like a fraternity pledge acting like a frat brother before the fact, acting that way just because he was at a frat party during rush week.  Winning primaries by running on who you are and what you have done would (A) have made Romney more likeable to his fellow Republicans, and (B) would have drawn Republicans' attention to Romney's superior electability.

There were so many disasters in Romney's campaign, but the biggest one was the decision to run Romney as a "job creator", avoiding discussion of his Governorship (his SUCCESSFUL Governorship, mind you.  This had the effect of making Romney appearing less experienced then he was, and it blew up in Romney's face when it was shown that Romney was a WEALTH creator, but not a JOB creator.  He was a leveraged buyout guy, like Edward Lewis, Richard Gere's character in PRETTY WOMAN (without the "hired help").  People would have felt OK with this had he not been a phony about it; his phoniness and stretching the truth about his "job creation experience" made it hard for him to adequately respond to the accounts of jobs lost in communities as a result of Romney, devastated communities left in Mitt's wake.  It precluded that kind of discussion Romney could credibly make; that he was a guy with experience of attempting to work with troubled firms to stay afloat while forcing them to live within their means.  I don't think Romney viewed his real experience as something the average American wouldn't like.  I think that was a conclusion of his handlers, who ran one of the worst Presidential campaigns in American history.

For Romney to be 'honest' about his record as governor would've required him to run left of center to liberal on gun control, gay rights, universal health care, abortion, etc, etc. How would that have gone over in the GOP primaries.

In the past, the GOP has been willing to take its medicine and nominate the guy who is considered the "most qualified" and "next on the list".  Romney was both, and was not a guy who was out of the GOP mainstream in most years.  Most GOP primary voters understood to a point that Romney was not a liberal, but a guy who had the unenviable task of being a GOP gubernatorial candidate in liberal Massachusetts.  He also had the potential to have proposed the most coherent response to Obamacare, but he was not bold enough to be himself on the issue. 

Romney would have been a "me-too" candidate of a sort, but given how much Republicans are screaming now, would that have been so bad?  Had Romney been THAT sort of candidate, would the GOP candidates that lost in MT, IN, MO, ND, and MA have had better luck?  If Romney had been THAT sort of candidate, would he have made his 47% remark, even in private?  (Nothing is really private today, is it?)  He chose not to be; he chose to be a poser, and that hurt him bad.  I'll say this for Chris Christie; I haven't always liked him, but he is who he is, and he's not a phony, and that is, more often then not, a major plus for a candidate.
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Indy Texas
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« Reply #30 on: November 10, 2013, 01:04:29 AM »

If he had run that way, he wouldn't have won the primaries. Though he would have had a better shot at winning the general election, assuming he was able to win the primaries.

Ultimately, what the Republican Party wanted was someone who could attack Obama on Obamacare. Mitt Romney was the worst possible candidate to do that, because he had no basis to oppose the ACA after adopting something practically identical in his home state. It would be like if Alf Landon had created a state-level New Deal-type program in Kansas and then criticized FDR for enacting the New Deal during the 1936 election.

When your base insists that it's fed up because of the Wall Street bailout and Obamacare, and then they turn around and nominate someone who supported the Wall Street bailout and more or less created Obamacare and wants illegals to "self-deport" by making their lives miserable, it's hard to convince people that the GOP isn't just a den of unapologetic racists.
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