The Romney myth - by Judson Phillips

The Romney myth - by Judson Phillips

The Romney myth

Why would any Republican vote for Mitt Romney?  The answer always comes back the same.  It is not that he is a great conservative or a great visionary or even a great Republican.   The answer always comes back from Romney supporters is that he is the guy that can beat Obama.

This is the myth of Mitt Romney.   But is it true?

One of the essential principles of marketing is repetition.  The line that Romney is the one who can beat Obama has been parroted since the very beginning of this race.  

Why not?

One of the secrets of persuasion is that if you want to get someone to do something, particularly something they are not inclined to do, you must give them a compelling reason to do it.

Republicans in general, and conservatives in particular, are very motivated to get Barack Obama out of office.  Romney needs those conservative voters to get him nominated and elected.  His team knows he is not going to win them over on the basis of his non-conservative record.  They know he is not going to win them over on the basis of his non-existent charisma. 

No, they know the selling point for Romney is ABO: Anyone but Obama.  But then, anyone isn’t a good selling point.   So the selling point must be Romney is the only one who can beat Obama.

Unfortunately, while the other candidates are going after Romney on Romneycare and his other liberal policies, the one thing that is keeping Romney in the race and alive is being ignored.  That is the myth that he is the only candidate who can beat Obama.

The myth of Romney being the only one who can beat Obama is just that, a myth. 

How do we know this?  Facts.

Romney’s campaign offers no facts to support the idea that Romney is the only one who can beat Obama.  However, at Real Clear Politics, an average of polls with a generic republican candidate running against Barack Obama has the generic candidate winning by 2.3 percent.

When you start plugging in specific names, none of the candidates, not even Romney, are beating Obama.  That is not really a shock.   It is too early in the race.

Romney is an amazingly flawed candidate.   If he is the nominee, what is he going to challenge Obama on?   Running as the “I’m not Obama candidate” is going to get him some votes.  Obamacare remains very unpopular.  He cannot run against Obamacare because his main advisor on Romneycare, MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, who was also an Obama advisor on Obamacare just came out and said that Obamacare was based on Romneycare.    Speaking of advisors, Obama’s science advisor, who advocates mass sterilization, forced abortions and the de-development of the United States into a poverty stricken third world country, was also Romney’s advisor.

The other issue the Republicans have to hit Obama on is jobs.  All of the Republicans have that issue, except Romney.  In Romney’s four years as governor, the People’s Republic of Massachusetts was 47^th in job creation.    That means only three states had a worse record for job creation.   That is bad enough, but last week’s debate hit at Romney’s Achilles heel on the job issue.

Mitt Romney worked at Bain Capital for 15 years.  He touts his record in the private sector and his knowledge and ability to create jobs.  True Romney has worked in the private sector much of his life, however if he becomes the nominee, the moment he opens his mouth about this, the Democrats are going to take Bain Capital and shove it down his throat.

Bain Capital purchased, sold and consolidated or merged companies during Romney’s tenure there.  It was not one or two.  It was quite a number of companies.  That is what Bain Capital did.

What Bain Capital also did was close plants, fire and lay off workers.   In business, sometimes downsizing is necessary to save jobs.  Unfortunately that does not make a great sound bite.  What makes a compelling political commercial will be people who lost their jobs saying Mitt Romney’s company bought my company and I got fired.   The Democrats will have no trouble finding dozens, if not hundreds of people to feature in those commercials and you can bet those commercials are already on the drawing board to attack Romney if he is the nominee.  Why aren’t any of the Republican candidates doing that?

Romney does have support.   The moderate GOP establishment supports him.  Everyone else in the race, with the exception of the GOP’s token liberal Jon Huntsman, is too conservative for the GOP country club set.   Of course, this is the same crowd that a generation ago was not upset with the fact that the GOP was a permanent minority in congress.   This is the same crowd that is responsible for Obama, Pelosi and Reid being able to run Washington for two years.

The Tea Party is the new face of the Republican Party.  We are the ones who are carrying the conservative message forward.  We are the ones who brought the GOP back from the edge of political extinction and now are about to sweep the GOP into a position of power it has not seen in almost a century. 

On the Republican side, we do have some good conservative choices.  We have Newt Gingrich, who I have endorsed.  We have Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann.  We even have Rick Perry, who is not that conservative but is much better than Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney is not the one Republican who can beat Barack Obama.  He is the one candidate who can guarantee Obama a second term.   The only proof that Romney can beat Obama comes from the Romney camp and it is not supported by facts.  The fact that Romney is a flawed candidate who could either lose to Obama or if he were elected would be like an Obama second term is supported, by the facts!

We conservatives need to take control of the message.  We need to get the word out.  Romney is not the candidate who can beat Obama.  He is the one candidate who cannot beat Obama and he is the one Republican who would ensure everything that Obama has done would remain in place. 

If Romney wins, America loses and we cannot allow that to happen.