Mitt the Inevitable

I usually agree with almost everything John Hinderaker has to say but this post is just really off base.  Hinderaker argues that Republican in-fighting is going to cause the election to tilt in favor of Obama, and we should all just do what we know is right in our heart of hearts and support Mitt Romney.  About once a week now, he has written one of these types of posts, always arguing that Romney is the most electable Republican and that this in-fighting will doom Republicans in the general election.

Romney though is far from the inevitable president that Hinderaker makes him out to be.  As Republicans and conservatives have gotten to know Romney--remember, this isn't his first rodeo--they seem to like him less and less.  Romney's seeming lack of principles in light of his continued defense of Romneycare among other things is making them look for an alternative who can articulate the principles of conservatism--the principles of the American Founding.  Rather than this being a negative, it is a positive that they are scouring the field for the best defender of those principles as opposed to looking for the next cult of personality.  It seems better that they go with someone they genuinely believe is the best representation of conservatism than someone who they begrudgingly back just because they are the next in line (e.g., see Dole, Bob and McCain, John).  It seems as though principled conservative candidates have lost not because they are too conservative but because they haven't gone about educating and persuading the American people on the principles of conservatism.

John then argues that nominating Rick Santorum will simply focus this election on social conservatism when it should be focused above all on the economy.  Rightly understood, social, economic, and all other major political issues emanate from the same central principles.  I am not sure why John buys into the idea of sectioning off these issues into distinct and separate categories; they are all interconnected.  Also, it wasn't the Republicans who wanted to talk primarily about the so-called social issues:  it was the media who began asking these types of questions months ago before the HHS mandate and the Susan G. Komen Foundation vs. Planned Parenthood battle.  Does John honestly believe that by nominating Romney, all of this will just magically disappear?  What about Romney's supposed gaffes around a month ago about not caring about the very poor?  The media seemed to focus on that pretty heavily, and that had nothing to do with abortion or contraception.  And what about Romney's Mormonism, which polls show seems to scare away more Democrats than Republicans?  As low a form of politics as it is, do not be surprised if this, even by implications left unsaid, becomes a focus of Obama's re-election strategy should Romney win the nomination.

Whoever wins the nomination, whether it be Romney or Santorum, the media will focus on anything they can to drag them down.  So just because Bob Schieffer asked Rick Santorum a bunch of questions on social issues this morning on Face the Nation, do not think that he and rest of the media would not do something similar if Romney becomes the nominee.