Over at Post Partisan yesterday, I pointed out two oddities. One is the one I talk about all the time, which is that conservative leaders continue to talk about how Mitt Romney is not what they want, but they don't actually embrace Rick Santorum. The other is that Santorum, for some reason, is going along with the group decision to end the televised debates, even though it sure seems to be in his interest to have debates (and, barring that, to at least bash Romney for it). I speculate that perhaps they all know that it's over.
The idea that I'm working towards is of an "immaculate nomination." What if the normal process involves high profile party actors using endorsements as a signal to everyone of what the party has decided -- but under current conditions, many party politicians are terrified that endorsing the candidate they've chosen might backfire? Normally, no one is going to be punished by constituents for something as obscure as a presidential endorsement, but that's probably not how most Republican politicians are thinking about it these days. So they're pretty reluctant to endorse Mitt Romney, and (in part) therefore, Republican voters aren't told that he's conservative enough, and so it's harder for him to win.
And yet the actual decision-making process was wrapped up long ago, perhaps (I suspect) about the time that Rick Perry got to that third department he wanted to cut. Specifically, my guess is that virtually everyone, no matter how conservative, prefers Romney to Santorum, probably because they're afraid of a bloodbath with Santorum. It's just that given a choice between Romney winning it in June without their visible help and winning it in February or March with it, they'll pick June.
By the way, this may even apply to Republican party actors who are not politicians. Could the leaders of GOP-aligned interest groups get in trouble for supporting a (perceived) RINO? I don't know. The real question, however, is -- could such leaders believe that supporting a RINO would put them at risk?
If Romney was in danger, then all those who support him but don't want to say so publicly would swing into action. Certainly that's what happened during the Newt surges. Of course, that could have been dislike of the former Speaker and not stealth support for Romney.
I underline: this is all speculative. But it's my guess about what's happening right now.
Let's see if I understand the logic:
ReplyDeletea) It's toxic in today's GOP to support a RINO
b) Only a RINO can win the general
c) Better to have the RINO thrust upon you by anonymous collective default.
This dynamic suggests a kind of reversal of the conventional GOP psychoanalysis: the ego wants ideological purity but the id wants to win.
A further twist is the self-cancelling nature of Romney's campaign logic: only a moderate can win/I'm not a moderate. Rather than running to the right now and the center later, he's sort of doing both at once.
This sounds like post-hoc justification for the Romney-as-inevitable thesis that you've been pushing since at least January.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your premise: it is odd that conservative leaders complain about Romney all the time and yet they haven't thrown their support to any viable alternative. So, what's the explanation for this? Here are two possibilities:
(1) Even though they whine incessantly about Romney, "virtually every[]one" of these prominent party leaders actually secretly supports Mitt (because they're afraid of Santorum getting demolished in the GE) and yet they are afraid to say so because of some hypothetical backlash from constituents that "[n]ormally" doesn't even exist;
or
(2) They don't like Romney and they don't like Santorum (and it goes without saying that they don't like the other two also-rans); so they are genuinely undecided.
Which explanation seems more likely?
Just a quick clarification about what I've said: I said that it was over after Florida, and that I should have said it was over after South Carolina. However, the line of thought in this post -- which again, as I say, is speculative -- suggests it really was all over once Perry was done for (which, to be sure, might have been as late as Iowa, but was probably earlier).
DeleteAs to the question you ask...I don't know. I think that #1 is plausible. That's all.
interesting theory. I think you're overthinking it a bit much. Conservative elites know that Santorum is a loser so they're not going to embrace him. Ever. They don't like Romney because he's not one of them. Never has been. But he's willing to endorse every single policy position that they want him to and I'm sure he's given every assurance necessary that he'll govern as a movement conservative, even if he isn't one. So the result of all these calculations is that Romney will win this by default and conservative elites get exactly what they want: the candidate with the best chance to beat Obama, and a candidate that has adopted the policy positions of a movememnt conservative. If this is all weird and unprecedented, this shouldn't be surprising. The GOP went hard to the right in 2008 after Obama won, when normal survival instints for a party should have kicked in and told them to moderate.
ReplyDeleteThus we have the paradox that explains the 2012 election: the GOP's hard right turn and obstruction made Obama beatable (by watering down his policy achievements and blocking him from further fiscal stimulus), however it also pushed the party so far right it was difficult to nominate a competent, moderate politician that could capitalize on Obama's vulnerability. The reluctant but inevitable embrace of Romney is the GOP's attempt to thread that needle.
I disagree with some of what you wrote. The GOP didn't go hard right in response to Obama winning. It started in the base before that with the Bush implosion that became even clearer in 2008. This isn't based on memory--I wondered about the start of the Tea Party movement and researched conservative blogs back to 2007 to trace the hard right swing.
DeleteHow do you reconcile this with the recent Fox News interview where Romney was forced to watch a videotape of himself endorsing a federal health care mandate in 2009?
ReplyDeleteOr do you think that interviewer was acting independently?
This is all party of the public shaming that conservative elites want Romney to go through to prove that he regrets being a moderate and not a movement conservative. The "mau-mauing" of Romney is what Chait calls it and I think that's a decent term for it. Conservative elites have lots of reasons to distrust Romney, namely that he's not really one of them. So before they hand the keys to the party over to him, he's got to go through this shaming process which involves much more than just parroting back policy positions. Again, this is all painful to watch as Romney squirms as if to say, "Just tell me what you want me to say, I'll say it!" But this ugly process gets them what they want: the "moderate" candidate who's been forged into a movement conservative.
DeleteMy dad would call this Republican nomination a race up a ladder.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there's another dynamic here. For a long time, Republicans have seemed to set great store in saying one thing, while doing another. Talk of fiscal responsibility while running up the deficit's a great example. A lot of the focus-grouped buzz words we've had in recent years -- Clear Skies, health forests, no child left behind, say one thing, do another.
ReplyDeleteSort of a 'do as I say, not as I do' politicking. It's the appearance that matters, the reality only matters if you get caught in a wide stance.
If that's the case, then Romney needs to say the right things rather then do the right things.
could such leaders believe that supporting a RINO would put them at risk?
ReplyDeleteTwo words: debt ceiling. Per current projections, it will need to be increased just before the election. The GOP no doubt plans to hold the house, plus win the senate and the Presidency in November.
Depending on how the 2012 debt ceiling fiasco plays out, if all goes according to GOP plan in November, that party will have to fully own one or two increases of the ceiling in the 113th Congress, unless they get the miraculous relief of skyrocketing revenues from something like another tech bubble.
Those debt ceiling increases will not go over well among grass-roots Republicans, especially with no liberals to blame them on, no? President Romney the RINO will likely be the pariah-in-chief at that time; his friends list will double as a grassroots enemies list.
Which raises an intriguing speculation: assuming the Right wants to win in November (why wouldn't they?), they have the realistic problem of not being able to avoid ownership of a debt ceiling increase. In that case, they'll need someone to take the heat.
What a perfect candidate RINO Romney is for a moment like this.
But President Romney would still need 217 votes in the House for a debt limit increase. Are you saying those votes would come mainly from House Democrats? I guess that's possible.... but it seems likely that the base would blame Congressional Republicans for the increase anyway (why couldn't they filibuster it?!???!).
DeleteGoverning ain't easy! If the GOP sweeps this November, the Tea Party will find that out the hard way.
Are you saying those votes would come mainly from House Democrats?
DeleteIf I'm a GOP insider, I wouldn't expect a single vote from a Democrat when a unified Republican government has no choice but to raise the debt ceiling. The Democrats are obviously smart enough to demagogue such a vote and remain on the sidelines.
The question is, then, which phony Republican to hang this thing on? Over to you, Mitt.
See, I'm not sure that they are. During the whole debt ceiling debacle in summer 2011, they largely played like responsible adults. It seems like they're unable to play truly nasty hardball in the Democratic House.
DeleteEven if current non-endorsers DID break for Romney, I doubt it would do much.
ReplyDeleteFor conservatives or pretend conservatives, Romney's already got:
Alexander, Ayotte, Blunt, Burr, Coburn, Cochran, Hatch, Hoeven, Johanns, McCain, Portman, Risch, and Thune; Brewer, Christie, Haley, McDonnell, and Snyder (I'm sure he told Walker and Scott to stay away); Pawlenty; Dan Quayle; Cantor, Chaffetz, Foxx, Issa.
So who are the remaining "conservative leaders" who could form the as yet unrealized stampede?
McConnell, Kyl, DeMint, Grassley, Inhofe, Sessions, Shelby, Toomey, Boehner, Ryan, Hensarling, Jordan, Blackburn.
That's about it, isn't it? And a few of them just are not going to endorse at all. I guess Ryan would have the most juice on his own. If several of them endorsed at once, along with a big chunk of the more anonymous members of the RSC, that could be a big deal.
Otherwise, I don't see much of a boost for Romney coming from conservatives.
I'd say DeMint, Daniels, Jindal, Kasich, J. Bush, Barbour, and Rubio are all pretty big names. Overall, only 12 of 29 GOP govs have endorsed a current candidate, and only 17 of 47 Senators. I don't expect the Congressional leadership to endorse until it's all over, and there are always some who don't at all, but it's still a pretty low total.
Deletewell Jindal endorsed Perry, so his judgment is not really in high demand right now. All the others have said they won't endorse. I believe Barbour and DeMint. but Daniels, Rubio, Kasich, and Bush still could. However, given the circumstances, I doubt they will mean much. If Daniels did, I imagine he would wait till just before the IN primary, and that might help a bit but it would still be rather late. Kasich and Rubio missed their big chance, and any endorsement now would probably come after some big Romney win, and would seem pretty inconsequential--it would only be a sign of conservative acceptance, not a persuader. Jeb Bush is the one who could still turn all heads, but he's been so loathe to do so, I can't see it happening now.
DeleteRemember, endorsements aren't usually important because of their direct effect on voters; they're important because they have been good indications of what party actors in general are thinking (and in fact may be used to signal other party actors).
DeleteSo Jeb and DeMint both could contribute useful resources to the campaign, but generally a whole bunch of endorsements would be a strong signal that party actors consider the race over.
I understand, but since, like you, they already *know* it's over, and they haven't moved yet, they are already sending a strong signal that they will not be the ones to tell their base that Santorum is not viable. For that, they're going to wait for a big enough external event. That could be Santorum committing some kind of Ford-level gaffe. But most likely it will be an overwhelming Romney victory, something that will look and feel decisive enough for them to hide behind. I bet it happens on April 24, if Mitt easily takes CT, DE, NY, and RI, even with Santorum winning PA.
DeleteMaybe conservatives are waiting because want him to keep sweating and keep committing himself to more and more conservative positions to win their favor. Too early a victory allows hims to forget them and to navigate back toward the center.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty likely one of the effects. But, is it a cause? Are they THAT strategic? I don't know the answer; just thought I'd toss it out there.
DeletePerhaps, if they're not that strategic, it could start out as an effect of their general reluctance to commit to Romney. With time, as they see the effect taking hold, they might see the value in milking it for all it's worth. Hard to prove either way, I suppose.
Delete