It Ain't Easy Being a GOP Candidate These Days

For years, the Democrats would batter each other so badly in the primaries that when the dust settled and a candidate was chosen they were so beat up it was hard for them to win the national election. Even in 2008, Hillary Clinton continued to hit out at Obama as it became increasingly clear that she was going to lose her bid for the White House. Obama's team was acute enough to weather the proverbial storm and crush the rather pathetic campaign of McCain. So what will happen to the GOP this year? 

One interesting subtext as we have moved from one favorite to the next, with each subsequently self-imploding in new and exciting ways, was that Romney was always sitting in the wings as the only viable choice (in fact the increasingly desperate campaign he is running has recruited the "vituperative one" Ann Coulter to say just that in a new ad). Yet is Romney really a viable candidate for the office of President? He certainly looked it when compared with right-wing firebombs like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann or let them eat cake self-made millionaires with too many skeletons in his closet Herman Caine. But what about up against the once disgraced Newt Gingrich? Well, Romney has not done himself any favors in recent days.

When George Bush ran for President he actually convinced many in the country that he was one of them, even though most of them didn't grow up rich, go to the most exclusive private schools on the East Coast, get into the Ivy League with average grades, continue on to an MBA with even more average grades, fail in one business after another, become President of a baseball team and do enough Cocaine to kill a horse and drink enough to supply a small Russian village for a few weeks. But he bought a lovely ranch in 1999, started talking with a Texas drawl that made little sense given his upbringing and railed against the elites that were destroying the country (ignoring his own family, of course). And it worked!

So why can't Romney just do the same thing? Well, hmm, maybe people in the heartland started listening. First, Romney joked that he was unemployed just like the unemployed Floridians he was listening to in June: Crooks & Liars. Then the multi-millionaire said in September that he was seeking tax relief for the middle-class, just like him: C&R. And now he is making $10,000 bets with fellow candidates: NYT. The reality of the Republican field is that it is a group of millionaires that seem to have limited understanding of or empathy for the increasingly large ranks of unemployed and poor in America today. Is this the party that can still win elections? Only if it convinces people that the problem lies with the government they will run and not the corporations that made them rich and that they somehow continue to speak the real language of Americans ... which appears to be apocalyptic these days.