JONATHAN COHN MAY 23, 2011
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Mitch Daniels announced over the weekend that he will not seek the presidency. As far as I can tell, conventional wisdom holds this is good for Mitt Romney, the frontrunner about whom no Republicans seem particularly enthusiastic.
The theory goes like this: Daniels, the governor of Indiana, had great potential as a candidate. He was smart and conservative. He was likeable, with a few endearing quirks. (When he travels around the state, he eschews hotels and stays with average folks willing to open up their homes.) And what he lacked in physical stature—he’s officially five-foot-seven—he made up for with the political kind, having served in the cabinet of George W. Bush. For these reasons, many were arguing, Daniels had the best shot to wrest the nomination from Romney.
And maybe he did. But don’t kid yourself: You could make a case against Daniels just as easily as you could make a case for him. Daniels raised taxes in order to pay for his state’s revamp of Medicaid. That is a problem in Republicanland. He also reconciled and remarried his wife, after divorcing her. Apparently that, too, is a problem in Republicanland, because his willingness to “take back” his wife means he might make a weak leader. (No, I’m not making that up. Yes, I think it’s an absurd reason to reject a presidential nominee.) And, while it’s true Daniels served in the Bush administration, it’s also true that he was director of the budget office. Somebody was bound to notice that the deficit went way up while he was supposedly watching over it.
In a perverse sense, then, Romney might have benefited from Daniels’s presence, since he could have divided the anti-Romney vote without posing an existential threat. The longer Romney can keep hostile voters from coalescing around a single alternative, like Jon Huntsman or Tim Pawlenty, the more likely he can create a sense of inevitability about his candidacy—and, no less important, pile up the delegates. It’s just a theory, of course. But so is the argument that Romney is better off with Daniels out of the race.
Of course, I’m not really down on Romney’s chances overall. On the contrary, I seem to be more confident about his prospects than most people I know, including my colleague and friend Jonathan Chait. They doubt Romney can overcome his support for an individual mandate in the Massachusetts health care reforms he signed. And, even if he did, they suggest, he’d have to deal with the record of flip-flops that memorably led the late Ted Kennedy to dub him “Multiple Choice Mitt.”
These are real liabilities. But I’m not convinced they are fatal. And mainly, that’s because I believe the other candidates all have serious liabilities of their own. They just haven’t attracted the kind of scrutiny that Romney’s has. Rest assured, voters will find plenty not to like about Huntsman (he supported civil unions and served in the Obama Administration?), Pawlenty (he supported cap-and-trade?), and any other GOP contender once they start paying attention.
Meanwhile, Romney probably did the right thing by addressing the health care issue head-on, many months before caucus and primary voters make their first choices. As one Republican operative told Greg Sargent, “He knows he’s going to get killed on health care. He’d rather get killed today than a month before the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary.”
If you want to put it in investment terms, Romney’s problems are priced into his stock. Shares for the other candidates are probably trading too high. Keep in mind that Romney has been through a presidential campaign before. He knows how to defend against attacks--and how to retaliate. Plus he has a huge fundraising advantage.
Pawlenty and Huntsman would be novices, as would just about anybody else who might get in the race at this point. And, as my colleague Walter Shapiro notes, they would have to spend a lot time raising money instead of campaigning. Those are just two more reasons to expect they will look less attractive, and not more, as the campaign goes on.
Does Romney have a lock on the nomination? Hardly. But he’s the clear, and legitimate, frontrunner.
Advisory: As this item consists almost entirely of political speculation, with almost no policy content, please treat it with appropriate skepticism.
7 comments
Pointed and a lot of flavor in the writing. I expect the election to come down to the Republicans offering a "no tax" pledge and trying to figure out a way to offer no details about anything else; and they will warn that the Democrats will raise taxes. The Democrats will try to warn about the "details" where the ACA will give them wind at their back. The Ryan plan will be an albatross because of its details. I expect the Ryan plan to give Romney the same sort of problem it gave Newt.
- Nusholtz
May 23, 2011 at 7:57am
A little off topic, but Sunday I listened to a very instructive interview of a tea party activist. The person interviewed, a woman, was calm, articulate, committed. What struck me though was her description of the tea partiers' complaint: that the federal government wants to substitute the judgment of "experts" for the common sense jugment of the people. She must have repeated the same complaint, in different ways, a dozen times, the only time coming close to a concrete example when she asked the rhetorical question whose judgment does one seek when sick or injured, implying either that the "experts" are clueless or that "national" health care would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. Except for the syntax, it all sounded very Palinesque. What this signals to me is that, if the tea partiers will determine the Republican nominee, he or she must be an outsider and free of the "expert" taint. Being a former director of OMB would seem to disqualify Daniels, so his departure doesn't seem all that significant. As for The Newt, he is both an insider and an "expert" in everything, so I would think he has no chance at all. That leaves Romney and Pawlenty, left to fight over who is the most outsider and the least expert of the two. At this stage, both are strong outsiders but both suffer from the "expert" taint, Romney in health care and Pawlenty in climate change. I would give the advantage to Pawlenty, a self-described evangelical Christian, whose entire career, except for a short stint in a law firm, has been in politics, and whose positions on most of the issues (including his revised position on climate change) indicate that he will have no trouble avoiding the expert taint. By contrast, Romney has spent his entire career, both in business as a management consultant and in politics, selling himself as an "expert".
- rayward
May 23, 2011 at 8:15am
"the rhetorical question whose judgment does one seek when sick or injured" : Surely doctors, who are supposed to be experts, right? But rayward makes a good point; even before the Tea Party, American voters have long distrusted presidential candidates who seem to be smarter than they are and choose instead according to the "have a beer with" factor. I've never understood this; the idea of some people I've had beers with running the country is a terrifyingly sobering thought.
- frippo
May 23, 2011 at 10:29am
Good points, Rayward. I'd also point out that all liabilities are not created equal. To the current Republican voter, Romney's health care history is far worse than Pawlenty's climate change advocacy. Especially considering that Pawlenty has plainly repudiated his former views, while Romney continues to try to have it both ways. Add that to the business-executive-vibe that Romney casts off and the plainness that Pawlenty communicates, and I think it's ludicrous to say that Romney is a clear frontrunner.
- polcereal
May 23, 2011 at 10:33am
Rayward's post that the Tea Party will only vote for someone who doesn't know what he or she is doing sounds like the Monty Python Twit Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRBkgshj8Cw
- Nusholtz
May 23, 2011 at 11:14am
At this point (and almost certainly going forward), Republicans have a choice between a bland and uncharismatic former governor with standard right-wing positions and a too-slick but not especially charismatic former governor with formlery liberal/moderate positions that he has reversed for more-or-less standard right-wing positions. While either Pawlenty or Romney would have a good shot at winning the nomination, I can't see for the life of me how an average Republican voter (and especially an Evangelical Christian voter) would ever get excited about either of them.
- wildboy
May 23, 2011 at 1:42pm
The Republicans are hosed for 2012. We know it and they know it. I know it's Cohn's job to write about this stuff, but honestly it's a big waste of time. Romney? Pawlenty? Palin? Feh...
- AaronW
May 25, 2011 at 5:35pm