Is Romney the anti-Santorum Candidate?

UPDATE:  Much thanks to Libertarian Neocon who looked up the underlying data on the YouGov/Econ poll. 

In the words of Emily Latella, “never mind.”

The poll detail (PDF) actually shows Santorum beating Romney in a head to head match up.  This fits with what we have seen all primary season, that Romney is unacceptable to the majority of GOP voters so far.  Here is the current poll for all candidates:

And here is the head to head with Santorum and Romney in a 2 way race (completely contradicting the YouGov chart and editorial below)

However – there is MUCH more interesting data on social issues and voters that we will cover in another upcoming post.  Suffice it to say – Santorum is still on a roll with GOP voters.

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Much has been made of Willard Mitt Romney’s inability to crack the nationwide 25% GOP nomination ceiling that seemed to indicate the entire primary was the race to select the “anti-Romney.”  These voters are also known as the “Non-Roms,”  “DitchMitts,” or “WillardWont’s.”

This makes obvious sense, since those of us who remember the movie “Willard” have enough anxiety about psychotic Presidents in real life without one named “Willard in the White House.  That is not fair, of course, to the former Massachusetts Governor, and if my parents had branded me with such a given name I’d be more than willing to revert to a first name of a baseball glove but also.  At least his middle name wasn’t “Wilson” or “Spaulding.” 

A new poll out by YouGov confirms that Santorum is now the clear front runner for the GOP nomination and has a very interesting additional tidbit. 

A majority of the GOP will not vote for Rick Santorum.

Now many had a consistent narrative (including yours truly) that the party simply wouldn’t abide by a fake conservative like Willard Mitt. Especially not one that would lie about manipulating a state into accepting gay marriage by executive order or one who couldn’t achieve anything higher than a 47th place ranking among Governors in a time of low unemployment and decent national economic growth.

What the heck did we know?

I mean, did any of us envision a sweater wearing, anti-culture Senator who as a Senate leader lost the Congress to the Democrats just a few years ago?  (Yeah – that’s my excuse too.  It would be like projecting the geriatric Madonna would be the star of the Super Bowl halftime show.)

I’ve been screaming the past few weeks for conservatives to realize two things:

1. Rick Santorum is neither a “true” conservative, nor “principled.”
2. Rick Santorum is the nightmare candidate for the GOP.

Wall Street Journal’s Dorthy Rabinowitz (yesterday) observes:

It's not only that a certain body of Santorum pronouncements on social issues exists, and that they're of a sort that large sectors of the American electorate find unpalatable, to put it mildly. Or that he continues to add to them.

By the time Democratic researchers apply themselves to this compendium of Mr. Santorum's views—in the unlikely event that he becomes the Republican nominee—it's size will have doubled, at the least. The Republicans have already provided President Obama with high-value gifts this election year, but none nearly as delectable as the prospect of a run against Mr. Santorum.

She goes on to quote just a few quotes from the Pennsylvania pseudo-priest including his comments on JFK, contraception, women and the very disturbing defense of gay priests.  Santorum supporters will be quick with a counter argument to rationalize each of these.  Santorum himself is now quicker to explain his gaffes.  The explanation normally begins with “what I meant was…”  But like fake box office winners or fake Iowa straw poll results – you can’t get back the impact of the first perceived impression.

I am unsure of how to reach my fellow fundamentalist friends who have been stupefied by the (supposed) saintly Senator.  They don’t seem to understand that religious conservatives make up less than 22% of the population and less than 50% of the Republican party.  They don’t seem to understand the lessons of Goldwater Republicans that “being right” has nothing to do with persuading other Americans to join them or winning elections.  They also don’t seem to understand how to reasonably project how a Santorum CANDIDACY would play out.  (I just argued in the second part of a 2 part series that based on ACTUAL past track record the scenario’s which are most likely.)

There certainly are circumstances where “popular opinion” is wrong.  The Democrats always held that a Hollywood actor couldn’t get elected (both in California and nationally.)  Even the GOP leaders laughed at a single term Georgia congressman with too much fat and sideburns that he could orchestrate a usurpation of liberal control of the House of Representatives.

But Reagan had intelligence and charm that outweighed the “lightweight” political presupposition of his opponents.  Gingrich understood the mechanics of popular opinion on 10 issues ALREADY massively popular with the American people and organized them as a lead blocker for an entire freshman class of GOP conservative players (including a little known lawyer named Richard J. Santorum).  But Wally Cleaver has none of Regan’s warmth and grand fatherliness and his very visible religious convictions (many that I also share) are not just unpopular – they are divisive to a vast majority of Americans and those that persuade them.  And unlike Gingrich, he isn’t inspiring them to his viewpoint to be better, he is chiding them like little Catholic schoolchildren.

There is evidence that this “anti-Rick” sentiment is being proven out as Michigan voters are being introduced to Rick by his campaign, the antagonistic media and his opponents negative ads.  Romney has jumped back to a 6 point lead.  Unfortunately as rational voters realize that Rick is a rhetorical ricochet away from giving the Democrats their dream campaign disputant, it may fall to conservatives to rally around Paul, Gingrich or Romney to stop an endless campaign about contraceptives and Christian canon instead of jobs and judicial reform.

Those who truly care about not giving Obama a second term, and radically reforming government, had better buy a clue that they are putting their personal insecurity of needing their religious values reaffirmed over the best options for the party.  Or the country.

Posted in: 2012,election,Mitt Romney,politics,Rick Santorum,rsfiles