Could Romney have won the primary vote if he had hewed more to the center?

[Badger]

I stated in an earlier post on a different thread:

Social conservatives/populists made their statement with Santorum, and they still lost. The truth is for all the crazies in the Republican Party, run-of-the-mill conservatives still dominate the GOP primaries. That is why Romney won. They are the "Silent Majority" in the primaries. Romney still would've won the primaries on electability and business experience.

I would guess Romney still would've won the primaries, but it would've been very close.

The current GOP base is obssessed with idealogical purity, but as in real life, regular conservatives/moderates still are the majority in the GOP, plus a good number of people who dreamed of Santorum/Gingrich would realize their best shot to defeat Obama was Romney. Instead of winning 52% of the primary vote, it might've been closer to 45%!

But in the long run, Romney would've done better in the general election even if he doesn't win.

You have a point about ideology in the GOP, but the Democrats are starting to become the same way. Prior to the housing market collapse in 2008, if the Democrats' main focus was electability, then Clinton should've defeated Obama. He really wasn't convincing in his ability to win until the middle of September.

Except that Obama was a whole lot more electable than Hillary in 2008.

not even close!

He was seen as a wild eyed liberal who would tax and spend to appease his base while his wife was finally proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

Shaddup troll.

[Badger]

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.

[Badger]

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.