August 16th, 2011
So I asked for three betting lines the other day–(1) how long until Perry passed Romney, (2) how long until Romney got painted by the sympathetic liberal media as being the sort of wise, moderate Republican who would have won in a walk once upon a time, and (3) when Hugh Hewitt would abandon ship on Romney’s (latest) doomed campaign.
Today we have answers to all three!
Then Richard Cohen stepped up to the plate.
And now we have Hugh Hewitt’s assessment of the Perry campaign. Who does it benefit most? You’ll never guess . . .
The arrival this weekend of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the race further shatters all the crystal balls brought by all the pundits. Perry upset some Iowa elites by declaring his own rules and timetable, but individual voters in the 2012 caucuses won’t care, and Perry has a powerful appeal to the social conservatives who believe he has the courage, charisma and smarts to return their agenda to the center of the conversation.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin seems to understand that if she sits out 2012 she will forfeit the leadership of the party of faith within the Republican Party (a subparty that exists alongside and in cooperation with the party of growth and the party of national security).
If she plunges in, as more and more observers conclude she will, the values voters spread out in as many directions as mercury spilled upon a tabletop.
All of this leaves Mitt Romney a happy opponent of none of them and constant scourge of President Obama. Romney is the champion of the growth agenda, with only Herman Cain elbowing onto the space. Pawlenty had hoped to campaign in this issues terrain, but the map forced him into a battle with Bachmann and Santorum. It was a battle he admitted Sunday he could not win.
Only Perry seems positioned to make it a quick two-man race, and then only if he can consolidate the evangelicals with the Tea Party small-government activists and do it quickly — in Iowa, in fact.
The New Hampshire-Nevada-Michigan-Florida board is set up well for the Romney campaign, and the deep urgency felt across the party to beat the president has provided the former Massachusetts governor a floor that will not crumble.
“A floor that will not crumble.” Put that one in the vault, right next to the 2009 Limbaugh speech that will be “talked about for decades.” [Quick–what’s your favorite passage? I couldn’t pick just one . . . -ed], Mark Levin’s “extraordinary intellect,” and the rejection of Harriet Miers that “strenghtened the Democrats’ hand” in regards to the Supreme Court.
So I think we have our answer: Hugh Hewitt will jump off the Romney ship the day after he writes his New York Times op-ed tsk-tsking what a mistake Republicans made in rejecting the great man. (I don’t blame him–he’s got books to sell!)
Exit Question: Let’s set a new line–how many primary/caucus victories will Romney notch this time around? I’ll start the over/under at 3.
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Remind me how over/under works again? If I think Romney is only going to win New Hampshire (i.e. one primary) then I’m within your spread and I can’t bet against you?
By the way, did you know Perry grew all his hair at 18…seconds!!
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[…] At the end of the day, the only committed Romney voters out there are his co-religionists (see the 2007 Utah primary where he took 89% of the vote) and people who have written books about him. […]
JamesB. August 30, 2011 at 11:34 pm
I live in L.A. where Hugh broadcasts from and I’ve listened to him for years be wrong about almost everything on the planet. Nothing he says EVER comes true. Hugh won’t show up at his own funeral because he’ll pick the wrong day. “The Klochubar Collapse,” multiple “Romney Rising” ‘s from the last election cycle and on and on and on and on. If you listen to him and you’re not a right wing nutter, you know as well as I do that Hugh Hewitt is wrong about everything. What also made me laugh, and vomit in my mouth at the same time, is hearing Hugh say these days that he “hasn’t endorsed” a candidate so far, just in case there were new listeners who didn’t know that Hugh is Mittsy’s long time political lap dog and even wrote a book called “A Mormon in the White House” But I love him old Hugh, even though he throws a three hour a day Wrong- a- Thon. It’s mostly because he’s from Ohio and I cut Ohio people slack, always.