The Romney Fix: Conservatives Speak Out

"Democrats do believe that Romney is eminently beatable, the perfect foil for President Obama, in fact. . . from the start, it’s been clear that Romney is the choice of the Beltway GOP establishment, which regards conservatives and Tea Partiers as the grubby unwashed. Meanwhile, Democrats and their media allies have been busy measuring Romney for the Occupy Wall Street/One Percenter memorial bad-guy suit. They can’t wait to rip him apart over his background as a corporate turnaround specialist who may have saved some golden parachutes but put ordinary folks out of work."

--Michael A. Walsh, New York Post

"[Republicans’] non-Mitt mood just won't go away. Indeed, it's intensifying. [People] doubt whether he is in fact the best candidate to beat President Obama. For instance, you hear conservatives wondering more and more whether all of the attention from the White House is a head fake. Romney certainly makes a convenient foil for a presidential campaign already in populist overdrive."

--Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times

"Today's historical moment is one shaped by recession and belt-tightening. It's also shot through with outrage. The American people are animatedly angry at their political and corporate elites. Romney is both a political and corporate elite, and it's difficult to imagine him animated about anything, much less angry. All the open shirt collars and appearances on Letterman can't . . . blot that damning picture from Bain Capital, where Romney grins as dollar bills flutter downwards [see above]."

-- Matt Thomas, American Spectator

"What most pundits think of as 'electable,' a safe candidate attractive to moderate voters, has historically been highly unlikely to unseat an incumbent president. In the five elections since World War II in which the party out of power has picked a 'safe' candidate to take on a sitting president, the result was defeat[--Tom Dewey (1948), Adlai Stevenson (1956), Walter Mondale (1984), Bob Dole (1996), John Kerry (2004). Safe] choices have been zero-for-five at unseating incumbents.

--Lawrence B. Lindsey, Weekly Standard

Comment: I made the same point here.

"Romney’s establishment Republicans, . . . like the Bourbons of France, forget nothing, and learn nothing. Since 1896, only Republicans who have campaigned on a pro-growth platform have been elected. Mitt Romney, instead of being the most electable, is firmly in the tradition of Thomas Dewey, Jerry Ford, Bob Dole, and John McCain."

--Peter Ferrara, Forbes

"What may unite Republicans more than anything else is their desire to oust President Obama from the White House, and that may be enough to propel Romney or another Republican to a general election victory. But banking on that strategy is risky business."

--Brian Calle, Orange Country Register

"Romney’s biggest challenge, [said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California:] 'He just doesn’t ring authentic. Charisma is good, but better is authenticity or a perception of authenticity by the voters. And I think that is where Romney fails and that is part of what the Obama campaign is going to focus on.'”

--George E. Condon Jr., National Journal