The Rehabilitation of the Retreads redstate/2014/08/03/rehabilitation-retreads/ I am in favor, generally speaking, of a larger primary field that sorts itself out on the relative merits of the candidates. This time, though, there are persuasive reasons why neither candidate would be an ideal fit for 2016. In the first place, the slate of available Republican candidates in 2016 is much stronger than it was in 2012. Romney ultimately became the candidate everyone settled on only after a number of other frankly nonserious candidates (like Herman Cain and Rick Santorum, to name but a couple) definitively flamed out. Without the presence of an incumbent on the ballot, there isn’t as persuasive of a need for a “ham sandwich” candidate. Second, and more importantly (especially in the case of Romney), the opponent in 2016 will not be Obama but presumably will be Hillary Clinton (or, in the event of a truly shocking turn of events, perhaps Elizabeth Warren). The bottom line reason that Mitt Romney lost in 2012 is that his campaign flopped with women. Romney faced the largest gender gap in modern history – he won men in the United States by 10% and still lost the election. One would presume that his campaign would fare equally poorly or worse running against one of the two Democrat women who is likely to get the nomination. And indeed a recent CNN poll that showed Romney handily winning a hypothetical rematch with Obama likewise showed him getting his clock cleaned in a hypothetical matchup with Hillary Clinton.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 21:45:22 +0000
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