Still no love for Mitt. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
It's been the story of the campaign: Conservatives
aren't feeling much love for Mitt Romney, and
Super Tuesday did nothing to help convince them. Politico has a rundown of conservative pundits and sortof-pundits
saying mean things about Romney. Included is Inexplicably On CNN Guy:
“I’d be wondering who on my campaign staff gets fired first,” wrote Erick Erickson at the conservative blog RedState. “Were I Mitt Romney I’d be wondering how I spent 5.5 times as much money as Rick Santorum and barely won Ohio…
Oh, and here's the guy voted Most Likely To Be Next One Drummed From The Movement:
“Mitt Romney will exit the ten Super Tuesday contests with more delegates than anyone else, but his political reputation damaged,” said conservative writer John Fund at National Review. “Given his crushing financial advantage, Romney should have done better tonight.”
The general tenor is exactly what we (and they) thought it would be, after Mitt's weak showing yesterday. Here's a candidate who can barely hold his own against notable crazy person Rick Santorum, and who generally looks weaker every time he opens his mouth. He's been blessed with a series of truly incompetent rivals this year (among the things his competing candidates can't quite be bothered to do: get on all state ballots) and still is barely squeaking by. As pundit Rich Lowry put it, "Rarely has a candidate seemed so inevitable and so weak at the same time."
The central problem of the campaign is that Republicans demand a strict adherence to conservatism that only the most radical of candidates can meet (when Newt freaking Gingrich is having to tack right, and when Rick freaking Perry is dismissed for being too soft on brown people, you know things have gone of the rails). Mitt, on the other hand, is a far more conventional Republican candidate. He's into the corporate-coddling parts of the movement, but generally indifferent to the social stuff. He had the audacity to promote healthcare reform back when Republicans thought it was a good idea, which was the period from about 1990 to exactly 10 seconds after Barack Obama proposed a similar thing. He's a standard-issue Republican running for nomination of a party whose base has shifted out from under it. Not even people like Orrin Hatch count as "true Republicans" these days, so what chance does a sap like Mitt have?
People like to note how Romney is outspending his rivals by a wide margin, but still not getting anywhere. Inexplicably On CNN Guy blames Mitt's staff, but you can't make a silk purse out of, well, whatever Mitt Romney is. You can't make him seem sincere. You can't ask him to stand by his convictions when his (past) convictions would quickly get him drummed out of the race. He may be the worst Republican presidential frontrunner to come along in some time, but he's still a damn site more plausible a nominee than the assortment of clowns "the base" has flitted to and from throughout the season.
So yes, conservatives are grumping about Mitt Romney. Some are grumping that he can't put away his obviously weak opponents. Others are grumping about his more true-to-spirit opponents not being able to find traction against such an obvious fraud. I'm not sure that I could suggest a solution even if I sincerely wanted to. Yes, as a candidate he sucks. And yes, your party has gone so far off the rails that the only people you can put up against him are getting laughed off the national stage one by one.