In the first clip Brit Hume breaks down Romney’s problems with the conservative base. While Romney has proven to be a more aggressive debater than in 2008, but the fact the he often comes across as indecisive and flip flops on issues is discouraging to many conservatives.
In this second clip Brit explains it in simple terms the two views within the Republican party heading in to the 2012 election cycle.
The Republicans are basically of two minds in this election:
In one camp there are people who thing that this president is so vulnerable and so likely to lose that they can nominate just about anybody they want and they’ll win the election. So why not go for the most conservative candidate you can find.
The other camp believes that getting Barack Obama out of office is so far and away job one, that no chance should be taken with anybody that could possible be painted as an extremist by the Obama camp and that is the case really for Mitt Romney.
It’s hard to argue with his analysis because it makes a lot of sense. The one thing I’m finding hard to digest is his argument that those who want Romney are doing so simply because they want Obama out and believe Romney is the best candidate to do so.
This would suggest that the people in this camp do not really prefer Romney and given the chance they would not support him. If that would be the case and they are confident enough that they can convince Conservatives to go with a moderate simple to assure beating Obama, why not go with Huntsman? He has much less baggage than Romney, has a much more impressive record and it would be much harder for Obama to go after Huntsman. Obama after all selected him to be the US ambassador to China, currently the worlds largest economy, practically endorsing him as qualified to be president.
Either the establishment hasn’t really thought it through or they believe that Romney would be easier to manipulate than Huntsman.
Personally I think the establishment is well aware that they’ll be unable to convince the base to go with either of the two. That is way the push-back to blame conservatives for the Obama victory in 2012 has already begun.
