Thursday, September 12, 2019

TOTES ADORBS

How little does The Washington Post understand the last three and a half years?  The newsletter of the Washington, DC office of the Democratic Party Steno Pool believes that conservatives still care what Life-Sized Cardboard Mitt Romney Cutout says or does about anything.

The former GOP presidential nominee and current U.S. senator from Utah said Thursday ahead of the third Democratic debate that he does not intend to endorse anyone in 2020.

Mitt Romney told CNN he would not endorse in the Republican primary or the general election. Romney’s decision to sit out the GOP primary isn’t surprising given his friend and predecessor, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, is running against President Trump. But it would be extraordinary if Romney held back his endorsement when Trump is up against a Democratic nominee in the general election.

3 comments:

Art Deco said...

Romney's behavior in recent years has been puzzling. It always seemed he ran for President for about the same reason George Bush the Elder did: he's a competitive man who likes a challenge. Issues were fungible. (Dale Price referred to him as 'windsock Romney'. So what's he doing in Congress? He had to establish a residence in Utah to get there and the time he devotes to this takes him away from his wife and his 20 grandchildren. He'd have plenty to do just making the rounds between his sons' households. He likes to fix things, but he cannot do that in his current position and he's never been one for causes which require a bully pulpit. None of this makes sense.

unreconstructed rebel said...

You don't suppose that he is setting himself up to be the white knight who will rescue & reconstitute the Republican Party once Jennifer Rubin et al get their wish that it be destroyed so that it can then be saved?

Art Deco said...

You don't suppose that he is setting himself up to be the white knight who will rescue & reconstitute the Republican Party once Jennifer Rubin et al get their wish that it be destroyed so that it can then be saved?

He's never struck me as particularly vain. He's 72, rather late in the day for that sort of thing. That aside, he has to be aware of the observable patterns in intramural primary and caucus donnybrooks. The people who in Romney's lifetime waged competitive campaigns for the nomination more than twice are as follows:

George Bush the Elder
Ronald Reagan
Richard Nixon
George Wallace
Hubert Humphrey
Lyndon Johnson
Adlai Stevenson

1. All of Stevenson's and Johnson's campaigns, three of Humphrey's four campaigns, and two of Nixon's three campaigns, and one of Reagan's four campaigns were under the ancien regime where delegates were chosen by esoteric methods and blocs of them could be delivered by brokers. (A residue of that system persisted in 1972 and 1976 as well) Ronald Reagan won about 180 votes at the 1968 Republican convention. He announced his candidacy one day before the balloting. Humphrey entered one primary in 1952 and not a one in 1968.

2. During the last campaigns of Bush, Reagan, Nixon, and Johnson, each was facing the electorate as an incumbent.

3. Wallace's first campaign was a petition effort, bypassing conventions and primaries.


I'm trying to imagine the 77 year old Mitt Romney attempting his 3d campaign in 2024 having failed in 2012. In September 2012, the survey researchers at Gallup were saying Obama had been underwater with the general public for 28 months. Bracketing out people who vote Democratic reflexively, only a single-digit minority were fond of him and the Democratic Party had been given a historic shellacking in 2010. Lets just say Mr. Romney underperformed over the succeeding six weeks.