Eric Thomas: The Michigan Primary Might Be Crucial
Mitt Romney has picked a bad time to fall apart. His performance at Thursday's debate in Palmetto state was a remarkable crescendo to what had already been a bad week. He was limping a bit because Newt had not relented on Bain Capital's business practices, and the governor has still yet to produce a compelling answer. He also face planted at the debate on Monday night, stammering his way through a question about releasing his tax returns.
Thursday night was a disaster for the Romney campaign. He needed a win, and badly. In some parts of the debate he laid an egg. In others he made his problems worse. Even my dog knew Romney was going to get another question about his tax returns, and again he was evasive. The South Carolina cheap seats actually booed him when he stiff armed John King, who asked if Romney would follow in his father's footsteps and release 12 years of returns. I imagine that the higher ups in the GOP all face palmed in unison on that disaster.
The conservative elders have to be mainlining Rolaids. They spent the better part of a year trying to pony up candidates for this march. Haley Barbour, Chris Christie, and others all took the car for a test drive before flipping the keys back to them. Romney did well in the year leading up to the primaries, and looked unstoppable in the debates. Mitt now looks like the 2008 Lions. He was undefeated when it didn't matter then gored when they started playing for keeps.
This would not be such a problem if the other candidates were more qualified. I love Newt Gingrich, I really do. Newt started with nothing, born to a single mother who later married a military man. Newt spent his childhood as an army brat, and wound up becoming third in line for the presidency. But Newt is the political equivalent of a ride on a 1920s Coney Island roller coaster: Part of the thrill is you might actually die. No one and I mean no one, flames out like Newt Gingrich. When he finally exits this race it's going to a blaze of glory, and I will rattle a chair up to the TV to watch. If he is the nominee the Dems could win everything from president to local drain commissioner on every ballot.
Santorum's economic message can resonate, but his social issues will doom him. He is just too extreme. Ron Paul will never be the nominee because … well I don't know why the Republicans have rejected him. Too bad he has a large youth movement and seems to be actually getting votes. I actually heard Rush Limbaugh decrying the congressman in New Hampshire because he got a lot of "support from liberals." Isn't that how you win the presidency?
He is the only member of the presidential field that is not a total follower, who participates in seemingly endless group think. This paradigm where every candidate has to meet a certain level of purity has done nothing to help the party. Didn't we used to be a "big tent" party? Why did we stop that?
The poo bahs have to be thinking of going to the bullpen, because this game is going to be a massacre. It might look disorganized and weak to go to another candidate this late in the game, but the GOP has a massive problem here. This is going to be a landslide. It cannot escape their attention that Newt and Rick Perry trotted out the cornerstones of Obama's indictment on Romney, and Mitt has yet to produce an answer. He simply giggles and sidesteps the question. That works once.
This is where Michigan comes in. The Michigan and Arizona primaries are the last (Feb 28th) before Super Tuesday. If the GOP goes to Jeb Bush or Chris Christie and convinces them to run (I vote for Bush), Michigan is going to be vitally important. The last poll had Mitt way out in front but that was before Romney seemed determined to embarrass himself on camera. This is only going to get worse. Someone else is going to drop out of the race after South Carolina, leaving Mitt with even more time to fill and that does not help him. Even if Romney wins on Saturday, you have to wonder if there isn't going to be an effort to draft a candidate. Romney looked really bad this week, and if it continues to be this bad, the conservatives could lose the house.
The problem isn't that Mitt Romney has a glass jaw; it's that he doesn't know how to fight.
