David Corn, MoJo: Mitt Romney's Zombie Problem

[highplainsdem]

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/super-tuesday-mitt-romney-zombie-hunter

The fundamental reality of the Republican GOP 2012 death march is that none of the candidates ought to win. Romney is a robot reprogrammed to appeal to a base that isn't keen on a former Massachusetts governor who once proudly proclaimed his fealty to moderation and progressivism. It's taken millions of dollars (much of that spent on mud-encrusted negative ads) and a Titanic boatload of cajoling from the GOP establishment to raise Romney to the mid-30s in Republican polls and election results. And, for what it's worth at this point, in national surveys this clubhouse buddy of NASCAR team owners trails a president who is presiding over an anemic economy at a moment when nearly 60 percent of the public fears the nation is stumbling in the wrong direction.

Yet Romney is heads, hair, and broad shoulders above what remains in the Republican field. (Woody Allen might have predicted this race in his 1977 film, Annie Hall, when he quoted the old joke about two elderly women at a Catskills mountain resort. One says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and such small portions.&quot After Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and Herman Cain self-deported from the circus, GOP voters were left with—besides Romney—a maniacally self-aggrandizing former House speaker with more baggage than a 747 who is better suited for a reality TV show than residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a little-known senator who lost his last election (in his home state) by a historic margin and who seems to believe Cotton Mather was a wimp, and a conspiracy theorist who supports drug legalization and decries American empire (positions not usually embraced by garden-variety Republicans).

They are each damaged goods. (Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were, in earlier times, even pronounced politically dead.) In a perfect—or less imperfect world—none of the Republican Final Four should win the crown. But absent some made-for-HBO-movie surprise development, one of these fundamentally flawed candidates will win.

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Romney doesn't have much leverage over them. Zombies are hard to reason with. They're already dead. They're tough to bribe. They want to kill you. Santorum need only look at Mike Huckabee to see that there's life (and great profit) as a social conservative leader following a presidential race. Gingrich has, undoubtedly, already calculated how much his lecture fees will rise with each week he stays in the race. With his alternative-reality crusade, Ron Paul can continue to bolster and build a fiefdom he can hand over to son Rand (and perhaps avoid the estate tax). Pressure from Romney's pals in the Republican establishment (Vin Weber, this means you!) may not be sufficient to trump these other possible benefits.

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