We've been tracking the aftermath of the GOP primaries and watching the superficial spin by the mainstream media. Where you win, county by county, is almost more important than by how much in American primary politics. Toss in Romney's popularity polling numbers, and the clowns are very much in charge of the GOP circus.
In Florida and Michigan, at t2P, we crunched the polling numbers and broke down the race county by county.
What we found is that Romney wins big in Blue counties that will stay in the Democratic column (or the Democrat column for our Fox News friends) in a general election.
It's a rat poison victory. Romney can gorge all he wants on the delegates from those areas, but his campaign is slowly politically starving to death.
Nothing seems to be improving for his campaign either. True, they can boast they took Guam, but they have made more miscalculations this week. For a candidate with the deepest pockets and the broadest organization, to "miss" a state like Kansas may be cost-effective campaigning, it sends out yet another signal of weakness with the hard Right base.
More important, though, is that Mr. Romney is not demonstrating anything that looks like savvy, strong leadership. He is not vying for governor, or the finale of some reality show. He is trying to become the leader of the free world. How do you pull that off with confidence when you can't even convince a majority of your own hard cores that you can do the job?
HuffPo pegs Romney's unfavorable rating with the general voter passing 48.4% and rising. The number is actually generous. Several national polls have him well over 50%.
The mainstream media loves to talk the tradition of unfavorable polls for Mr. Obama, but they haven't spent equal time on Romney. The good news for the Obama campaign is that his numbers are trending better exactly as Romney's are nose-diving.
Everyone in the punditocracy is presuming that Romney will be the nominee. If he doesn't get the number of delegates to take it on the first ballot, though, and it is looking very much like he will not, then it will be his weakness in Red states like Kansas and his strength in meaningless Blue counties in other states that may give Mr. Santorum, or a dark-horse candidate like Jeb Bush the outside edge.
With an economy on the mend, the Congressional Teahadis having to back off of contraception and health care reform, and other blunders, it is unlikely that the large portion of the voting public is going to see the Republicans as the salvation from the mess of their own making under George W. Bush.
If anything, the GOP looks a lot less grand these days. It is a fractured, bickering mass, Libertarians largely in-fighting with the Christian crusaders and the Wall Streeters for control of a party that has spun out of control.
There is the election at hand though. If Mr. Obama happened to be white, this would be a walk in the park, even with the high jobless numbers. Unfortunately, though, racism, which places a close third to economics and religion in political importance in this country, will give whomever the GOP candidate will be a HUGE bump up. Voter suppression drives likewise are intended to level the playing field.
There are a lot of Americans who will vote for Jojo the Dog-faced Boy rather than a black man for President, even when Mr. Obama has made call after call on everything from the auto industry to Osama Bin Laden to limiting exposure to Libya that have all been spot on.
The media likes to buzzword short-hand his march as 'invevitability.' It's not though. There is nothing certain, and Mr. Romney is vulnerable, both in his primary fight and in the general election, should he survive.
His Mormon faith is almost as repugnant to Christian conservatives as the color of Mr. Obama's skin is to them and to the large white racist wing filled with Tea Party whack-jobs. Romney is waffling in the wind with every major issue, which has enough people from the general electorate mistrusting his ability to lead. Those that don't like him, and can't vote for Mr. Obama may just stay home in November, which equalizes the push to exclude minority voters and the young and old.
It will be close, to be sure, but, were we a better America, it shouldn't be.
My shiny two.
Brian Ross blogs at truth-2-Power.com and has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.