Tucker Carlson thinks that Mitt Romney has been spending a good part of the General Election season putting his 2012 game plan in place:
Romney dropped out of the presidential race in February, but he never went away. He quickly became a regular guest on cable news, started a political action committee (which, according to National Review, has already given away more than $200,000 in donations), and this fall began stumping in earnest for various Republican candidates, including John McCain.
In the past four days, Romney has hit nearly a dozen states on behalf of the McCain campaign, but really on his own behalf. This is what groundwork looks like when it’s being laid.
It’s the oldest cliche in politics that the next campaign starts the day after the election, and this year that is especially true on the Republican side. Republicans hate chaos and uncertainty, but after eight years of an unpopular administration,they no longer have the luxury of an orderly succession. As one Republican consultant said to me the other day, come Wednesday morning the party will resemble post-Soviet Afghanistan: “Everybody’s going to declare themselves warlord.”
Romney’s biggest advantage over other candidates will be his financial resources, but his millions didn’t help him last time and Carlson thinks he might have problems against Sarah Palin:
At this point, Sarah Palin would seem to have the most powerful arsenal. While Democrats tend to revile their losing candidates, Republicans revere theirs. Losing to Obama and Biden won’t destroy Palin’s reputation within the party. It might enhance it. Palin also has the advantage of being world famous, she’s admired by party activists, and she can draw huge crowds. And unlike Romney, she’ll never be accused of being a phony.
Authenticity was always Romney’s biggest problem. Being a Mormon hurt him with evangelicals, especially in the South. But what sunk Romney was the suspicion that he was playing a part. A self-described free market conservative, as governor of Massachusetts he instituted health care reforms that look very much like what Obama is proposing now. (Anyone who supports Obama’s heath care plan ought to take a look at how Romney’s program is working out. Not well.)
Now a proud social conservative, the formerly pro-choice Romney once told a gay group that he was more for gay rights that Ted Kennedy, when everybody knows that’s almost by definition impossible. (You’d have to be living with a man to be more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy.) Romney came off as a slick phony. That’s why he lost the nomination.
As I noted way back in January, Mitt Romney was the one Republican Presidential candidate who was least liked by his opponents, and his phony-ness was apparent way back then:
Romney’s always struck me as a used-car salesman — willing to say whatever it takes to close the deal, even if it’s not exactly true. That the people who know him better than most would figure that out before the general public is not entirely surprising.
Say what you will about her, but Sarah Palin is likable in a way that Mitt Romney just isn’t. If he wants 2012 to be different from this year, Romney is going need to give his image a major overhaul.
