Romney just dodged a "bullet" so to speak by squeaking out a victory in Michigan which will stop the talk of Republicans working hard to try push any "white knight" into the race at the eleventh hour but these primaries may have already cost Romney the general election.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/...
Romney has been pushed so far to the right that it may be nearly impossible for him to hug the middle in a general election. He may lose the Hispanic vote at even a larger margin than McCain in 2008 because of his pandering to the anti-immigration folks in his party (vetoing the DREAM act, cheering on the Arizona illegal immigration law, etc). That alone may mean that Romney has lost the general since in order to win the presidency a GOP presidential candidate needs to win at least 40% of the Latino vote and Romney will be lucky to win 25%.
But I would argue that Romney's tax plan paired with medicare and social security benefit cuts will seal Romeny's fate as the general election loser.
Ross Douthat points out in his column that Romney may win the battle but he has already lost the war.
The battle:
In the end, Mitt Romney didn’t lose the Michigan primary, and he didn’t lose his near-lock on the Republican nomination. Rick Santorum isn’t going away, but a solid victory in Michigan and an easy win in Arizona leaves the Romney campaign’s basic math more or less intact. If their candidate can keep winning contests in the West and Northeast and holding serve across the Midwest, Romney’s rivals won’t be able to stop him from grinding out a victory.
But the frontrunner did lose something in the days leading up to the Michigan vote. He lost his general election narrative.
The war will be about tax plans vs entitlements:
...Romney’s campaign decided to have him come out for the first time with a big tax reform plan of his own, which he unveiled last week in a speech at Ford Field. In its broadest strokes, the plan isn’t terrible: It promises lower rates and a broader base, which is the goal of just about every sensible tax reform proposal, and it cuts rates for most taxpayers, not just businesses and the rich. But the Romney campaign has declined to explain exactly how the cuts will be paid for, offering vague promises of loophole closing and spending cuts that suggest a return to supply-side irresponsibility.
Romney will lose because he cuts medicare and social security benefits in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
If left unrevised and unaddressed, this irresponsibility threatens to demolish the pillars of Romney’s general-election argument. First, it will make it considerably harder for him to attack the White House’s record on deficits, which would otherwise be a central part of the case against the president. Second, it will make Romney’s own vision for entitlement reform easy to demagogue and dismiss, since President Obama will have grounds to argue that his opponent only wants to cut Medicare and Social Security in order to cut taxes on the rich.
The White House may have preferred to go up against Santorum but Romney is just as vulnerable.
Both of these problems, needless to say, will be exacerbated if Romney continues to be unable to talk about his wealth in anything save the most clueless and flatfooted fashion. The White House might prefer to face Rick Santorum in the general election, but an out-of-touch rich guy running on Medicare cuts and an ill-considered tax plan will make for a pretty inviting target in his own right.
In summary:
Thanks to the voters of Michigan, Romney’s path to the nomination is as wide open as ever. But his path to the White House has narrowed considerably.