Why Mitt Romney's Presidential Prospects May Not Be Salvageable

[babylonsister]

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100866/caucuses-primary-election-party-nomination

Why Mitt Romney's Presidential Prospects May Not Be Salvageable

Walter Shapiro

Business School Case Study: Company R has the financial resources, the professional staff, the marketing know-how, and the business expertise to dominate its competition. But despite the near-universal familiarity of its signature product, Company R has been dramatically losing market share to upstart challenger Company S, which until recently was little-noticed outside of rural Iowa.

Company R is obviously due for a major re-branding. But there is a major obstacle—Company R has changed its marketing strategy so often in the last decade that consumers have no clear idea what makes it distinctive. Asked to describe Company R’s positive attributes, focus-group participants constantly say things like “It’s rich” and “It’s safe” and “It’s there.”

Because Company R’s sales are plunging in Michigan, the state where it got its start, the futures markets are shorting the stock. Suddenly, a total collapse seems possible. Assignment: Prepare a PowerPoint showing how you would execute a rapid-fire turnaround.

THE MITT ROMNEY CRISIS transcends the seven straight national polls showing Rick Santorum in the lead. It goes beyond the embarrassing reality that the son of an auto executive and two-term governor has been behind in every Michigan poll conducted since Groundhog’s Day. Even more devastating for Romney is that elite Republicans have begun to conclude that he cannot, if nominated, beat Barack Obama. About the only argument that still works for Romney among GOP insiders is that he would be less of a drag on the ticket than the strident Santorum or the mercurial Newt Gingrich.

snip//

The brutal truth is that there are some business-school problems that are as hard to solve as Fermat’s Last Theorem. A new marketing campaign or a clever slogan cannot save a dog food that the dogs don’t like. So too is it with the Romney campaign. At this point, his only hope is to prevail by using about the oldest argument in politics: “The other guys are worse.” And considering the caliber of his opponents (the Three Horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse), Mitt Romney may just get away with it in the primary. But this is not the stuff that promising general election campaigns are made of.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. Four little words: "No one likes him."

For all of his millions spent, for all of the attack ads, the debates, the sad attempts by his handlers to make Romney "human," the sad fact remains...no one likes him, especially in his "base."

The Koch boys and all of the other "money men" need to consider the Meg Whitman factor...can a politician be so universally disliked that no amount of money will put them in office?

If it weren't for differing genders, Mitt and Whitman COULD be "twin brothers from another mother," as Herman Cain would say. So they're brother and sister. But they are cut from the same cloth and people don't like them.

As we are finally...slowly...pulling ourselves up out of the financial muck of the last 3-plus years, the last thing we need in the Oval Office is a poster child for the one percenters.

No one likes him...except for his fellow one percenters...and since he gives them a bad name, maybe they don't like him either.

[caseymoz]

14. They prove you can have a product so bad marketing can't save it.

The difference between Rmoney and Whitman: Rmoney has spent five years campaigning. If i spent that long trying to garner votes and I couldn't win 30% of my constituency against the likes of Cain, Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Paul and Sanatorum, (and whoever else I've forgotten) I would have given up last November. Why is he even still in the race?

It's as if his ego sucks most the blood that goes to his brain.

[Hugabear]

15. One word...MORMON

If Romney were a Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, or any other "mainstream" Christian religion I'm sure that there wouldn't be anywhere near as much resistance. But because many rethugs - primarily those who would support a theocrat like Santorum - view Mormonism as something akin to the Branch Davidian cult, they just can't bring themselves to embrace him.

[Relentless Bitch]

22. Agree

Chris Matthews has alluded to this prejudoce on several occasions.

[XemaSab]

26. I think if he seemed like a "regular guy" that wouldn't be a problem

but he always seems like he's the stand-in for the real candidate, speaking his lines with no conviction whatsoever.

Harry Reid's a Mormon, and he seems like a normal enough dude. My local congresscritter is a Mormon, and while he's a smarmy SOB, he doesn't act like he just landed here from another planet.

People already think Mormons are weird, and the fact that Rmoney doesn't seem well-oriented in society just underlines that anti-Mormon bias.

Here's a long Frank Rich article that covers some of it:

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/mitt-romney-2012-2/

"His greatest passion is something he’s determined to keep secret."

[rhett o rick]

2. However, I believe the grass-roots Republicans are in for a big surprise.

They dont control the party. I believe that when the smoke clears, Rmoney will emerge as the "people's" choice.

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Bwaahaaaa! Fortuitous or intentional?

"A new marketing campaign or a clever slogan cannot save a dog food that the dogs don’t like."

And the dogs have spoken--"don't let us anywhere near that guy!"

SG

[Arugula Latte]

11. Seamus' Revenge.

[trusty elf]

23. ........

Last edited Tue Feb 21, 2012, 07:22 AM - Edit history (1)

[IMG][/IMG]

[Arugula Latte]

27. Bwa ha ha!

[hifiguy]

24. That sums it up in a nutshell.

A perfect description.

[K Gardner]

4. Beautiful article ! K&$

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. What's even more disturbing for me is that more & more Repukes see Santorum as "electable".

The author is probably right, the establishment wants to mitigate the collateral damage that a Newt or a Santorum might have on down ballot races, but in all honesty, I'm beginning to think they're not gonna perform much better with Mitt. They should have steered clear of the social issues this go round.

[Nay]

8. More disturbing than that is that the pubs think ANY of their nominees can beat Obama. It will take

major voter suppression combined with hinky electronic voting machines to make any of their candidates even come close. It all comes down to whom the 1% want to win -- that guy will be the nominee, and to hell with what the GOP rabble want.

[Tarheel_Dem]

9. I pretty much agree with you. Sadly, whoever has the biggest warchest will be the nominee.

And I agree with you that there should be a lot more attention on the GOP attempts to disenfranchise certain demographics of voters. But our M$M is so busy raking in the buckets of money that these candidates are spending, that they seem timid about broaching the topic.

[grantcart]

6. Actually that has been clear for four years.

It just delights me that Tim Pawlenty and a bunch of other Republicans got out of his way because they couldn't see the obvious.


Go Mitt Go.

No seriously Mitt, just go. Please leave.

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. excellent article

some nice snips:

The solution to many problems of political authenticity is for the candidate to abandon the dictates of his handlers and just go with his instincts. The problem for Romney is that the doctrine of “Let Mitt Be Mitt” would probably produce a candidate with the warmth of a business consultant and the inner conviction of a market-based algorithm. In short, hiding behind that Mitt Romney mask is (yikes) another Mitt Romney mask.

....

Romney, in contrast, went into this campaign offering Republican activists little more than the promise that he would be the strongest candidate against Obama. But as Romney’s scorched-earth campaign tactics drive down his general-election poll numbers and his campaign-trail awkwardness jeopardizes his argument for electability, he is left without a rationale for his candidacy. If Republicans don’t feel good about Romney and don’t think he will win in November, then why would they vote for him in the primaries?

..

[CAPHAVOC]

10. Santorum will probably win.

Mitty I think loses Mich. and Arizona. Then gets the big Kibosh on the Super Tuesday. Little Ricky will probably pick Rubio to be VP. Just what it looks like to me. Don't forget. They run to the right then veer to the middle for the election. The voters have very short attention spans.

[caseymoz]

12. This is so funny. Five years of campaigning down the drain.

Like George Bush Sr., the only depth the guy has is a Presidential-size ego. Unlike Bush Sr. the last half-decade he's spent scratching it have been wasted. And he'll live his entire life knowing that all the money he's expropriated, all the money his friends are willing to spend can't get him what he wants.

Plus, he'll live knowing he's not likeable enough for his own constituency, and knowing these egomaniacs, he'll probably blame them for it.

[Surya Gayatri]

13. But, bordering on the obscene,

if you think of the tens of millions he's thrown down the crapper!
SG

[caseymoz]

19. And it trickles through the crapper to the 99 percent!

I mean, if his maniacal ego didn't compel him to spend it, it would be in his Caribbean bank accounts drawing interest from the rest of us like a black hole. His waste is our paycheck!

[LiberalFighter]

16. To save the company and turn it around: Fire the CEO.

Whoops! That doesn't work well in politics.

[lonestarnot]

17. He can't even convince Mesa AZ.

Pathetic dog abuser.

[greiner3]

18. I'm sure glad;

I did not study business.

[Bruce Wayne]

20. I generally agree. But do not COUNT this man as out yet.

He may not be able to win, but he can still do a lot of damage if we don't put him down hard. The heavy negative barrages he fields when he's falling behind are troubling. Even if you beat an opponent who fights with a scorched earth strategy, the ground you win often ends up destroyed anyway.

[DCBob]

21. He can still win the GOP primary but he is dead meat against the President.

He is boring, predictable, fake, uninspiring, a serious flip-flopper and a tremendous gaffe machine. The dopey GOPers might fall for that but not the majority of American voters.

[hifiguy]

25. In pro wrestling there is something called "heat"

or crowd reaction. A wrestler that can really get the crowd to hate him has "heel heat" - the crowd wants to see the guy destroyed. A wrestler that no one cares about, or who is actively disliked, gets another kind of heat, whether he's a "good guy" or a "bad guy." That heat is known as "Go Away Heat" and it's the only kind of heat Mittens has ever had.

[BanTheGOP]

28. This is why the GOP needs to be banned, pure and simple

The GOP is NOT a political party by ANY stretch of the imagination as much as it is an instrument of human depravity, insanity, and human destruction. It is far more vile than the German Nazi's and any other repressionist regime, as its actions devastatingly affect the lives not just of over 300 million inhabitants of the US, but over 6 billion people on a worldwide scale. I consider ANY action that does ANYTHING to destroy the republican party to be valid, no matter what current law states. And I mean ANYTHING.