This is Not 2008
Mar. 8th, 2012 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribSo, John Scalzi over on his site said of Mitt Romney, he's not winning, he's just not losing. John's got a point, and it led me to think about the seemingly never-ending Republican primary. I've seen various Republican types saying that this will be good for the party, much like the long Democratic primary of 2008 was good for Obama.
I think what the Republicans are missing is that the 2008 Democratic primary wasn’t about who was The One True Democrat ™. Clinton and Obama had nearly identical policy and party credentials. The 2008 argument was “who can win a general election?” In that argument, Obama grinding out primary wins on a retail basis proved (or at least suggested) that he would be better at winning the general than Clinton.
The Republican 2012 argument isn’t over competence, but rather what being Republican means. Romney is a perfectly-acceptable Bush Republican (AKA, “Big Business” or “Country Club”). Usually, the social conservatives and libertarians suck it up and vote for those people, at least at the Presidential level. Apparently not so much this year.
I think what the Republicans are missing is that the 2008 Democratic primary wasn’t about who was The One True Democrat ™. Clinton and Obama had nearly identical policy and party credentials. The 2008 argument was “who can win a general election?” In that argument, Obama grinding out primary wins on a retail basis proved (or at least suggested) that he would be better at winning the general than Clinton.
The Republican 2012 argument isn’t over competence, but rather what being Republican means. Romney is a perfectly-acceptable Bush Republican (AKA, “Big Business” or “Country Club”). Usually, the social conservatives and libertarians suck it up and vote for those people, at least at the Presidential level. Apparently not so much this year.
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Date: 2012-03-08 08:36 pm (UTC)I was partly hoping they'd pick Santorum so they could get this 'true conservative' nonsense out of their systems for 2016. I suspect that they'll go Romney, he'll lose, then they'll go the full Gingrinch (or whatever you want to call it) for 2016 and get obliterated again and THEN get back to sanity.
This scenario would have them without a president until at least 2020 though, possibly 2024.