I know, some of you are reading my headline and shaking your head, thinking that I’ve got it wrong. The winner of the Iowa caucus was Mitt Romney by eight votes. But did Romney really win? Clearly, one can say that he didn’t loose. But when the generally favored candidate, the most mainstream candidate the Republican party is fielding as a potential nominee, only beats the leading “not Romney” by eight votes…well…that’s not exactly a victory that you can ride to the White House.
And make no mistake—Rick Santorum is fringe. He believes that birth control should be illegal (if a state wants it to be). He recently talked about winning the illegal alien vote—before clarifying that he meant “latino” vote—because clearly all Hispanics are illegal. He said “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better” as his way of saying we need to cut welfare. He’s anti-science. His own nephew (who loves him) doesn’t support his candidacy. He not even an “orthodox tea party” adherent, having sent home lots of earmarks (which he defends) to Pennsylvania when he was Senator. He’s just an extreme social/religious conservative, as pure an example of one as you can find.
Romney’s strength is that while he may be to the right of those of us who are left-of-center, he comes off as a reasonable person. He’s had to try and prove himself a staunch conservative to appeal to primary voters, however, and clearly they’re not convinced. At this point, the GOP candidates fit into one of three categories: Romney (a man they fear to be a closeted moderate), Ron Paul (an intellectually honest, completely out of the closet Libertarian), and “not-Romney.” So to me, Iowa showed us that not-Romney is basically tied with Romney, with Ron Paul a close third.
The Obama campaign, of course, is loving it. There’s no way that if Santorum was the nominee, the mainstream of American society would vote for him. He’s basically Bachmann with less overt crazy but perhaps even more hardcore hate underneath. He’s already alienated the hispanic and African American vote, he’d drive even the most Obama-disappointed liberals to the polls out of fear, and the Independents looking for an alternative to Obama wouldn’t find one in Santorum.
But I’m not looking at this from the perspective of a pundit or campaign advisor. I’m looking at this from the perspective of a citizen who wants a working government. Regardless of whether I would end up voting for Romney or not in a general election, he is a serious, capable, reasonable man, who deserves to be judged against Obama on his policies. But Santorum isn’t. He was a third tier candidate until very recently, because he’s just too fringe; if it wasn’t for the fall of the other not-Romneys, he’d still be. And his ascension means that a significant portion of the USA is not even interested in nominating a serious executive. This doesn’t bode well.
Why all the hate for Romney? He’s been a Republican governor and businessman. The people who’ve worked for him have good things to say about him (unlike Gingrich, in who’s case the people who worked for him…support Romney). And he’s the candidate that the Obama camp is the most afraid of, because he’s got the best chance in the general election. If the GOP wants to win, why is is the not-Romney category so successful?
As Jon Stewart joked, a Massachusetts Republican is “still considered a gay Democrat” in the rest of the GOP. He’s gone out of his way to try and backtrack on all his moderate views, but they’re still afraid of them. God forbid that Romney suggest that he’d want to lead the entire country, not simply the angry white male minority.
As an American, I’d like to see a real debate of ideas. I’d like options. I’d like serious political parties that are proposing serious solutions while being sensitive that this is a very pluralistic nation. What Iowa told us was that in the opening event in the official Republican nomination race, a significant portion of the GOP simply wants to impose their own fringe, radical agenda on all Americans. And while a possible Santorum nomination may guarantee an Obama re-election, I would rather a closer contest that results in a valuable dialog, as opposed to a very ugly, racist election between a race-baiting religious extremist and a centrist black president that does more to turn Americans off politics than get us closer to any sort of solution.
