Romney's Road to Nowhere; GOP's Fusion Candidate

[dajoki]

Road to Nowhere
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: January 1, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The most impressive thing about Mitt Romney is his clarity of mind. When he set out to pursue his party’s nomination, he studied the contours of the Republican coalition and molded himself to its forms.

Earnestly and methodically, he has appealed to each of the major constituency groups. For national security conservatives, he vowed to double the size of the prison at Guantánamo Bay. For social conservatives, he embraced a culture war against the faithless. For immigration skeptics, he swung so far right he earned the endorsement of Tom Tancredo.

<<snip>>

And he has turned himself into the party’s fusion candidate. Some of his rivals are stronger among social conservatives. Others are stronger among security conservatives, but no candidate has a foot in all camps the way Romney does. No candidate offends so few, or is the acceptable choice of so many.

And that is why Romney is at the fulcrum of the Republican race. He’s looking strong in Iowa and is the only candidate who can afford to lose an important state and still win the nomination.

And yet as any true conservative can tell you, the sort of rational planning Mitt Romney embodies never works. The world is too complicated and human reason too limited. The PowerPoint mentality always fails to anticipate something. It always yields unintended consequences.

And what Romney failed to anticipate is this: In turning himself into an old-fashioned, orthodox Republican, he has made himself unelectable in the fall. When you look inside his numbers, you see tremendous weaknesses.

[Xipe Totec]

1. Poor cousin Romney,

must be hard being the son of illegal immigrants, AND a Republican.

Good luck with that fusion thing.

[Betty]

2. romney will say anything to be elected

except the stuff he's saying would only work if the whole country was made up of right wing, religious zealot, xenophobic assholes. He won't win in a general election because there aren't enough of those people. Of course, I am naively assuming the voting won't be tampered with. What I mean is that in an honest election, he couldn't win.

[Mojambo]

3. What a ridiculous first sentence! Romney? Clarity of mind?

ROTFLMAO

[loveangelc]

4. lol.Romney has no chance. I hope he's the nominee.

[AlCzervik]

5. the best line from this article "His triumph this month would mean a Democratic victory in November"

[dajoki]

6. And he earned the endorsement of Tom Tancredo n/t