So, a knockdown but no knockout for Romney - which means I guess, given my previous statements, he's toast and the GOP with him - well, maybe not toast yet, but they're nested in the toaster - possibly Romney has enough of a delegate lead now that he can ignore Santorum [and with him the base] and focus on Obama, which could help him. Yes, by winning Ohio it's very hard to see how Romney now doesn't eventually win the nomination - but with Santorum winning three evangelical/rural states and Gingrich winning hometown Georgia the potential remains high that Romney is going to stay stuck having to engage these marginal yet interminable clowns of the uber right which, as Lear found out with his own malicious jester, can do nothing but diminish one's stature throughout the realm as a whole. I'm amused how some still want to compare this drawn out race to Obama vs Clinton without acknowledging the key difference - both Obama and Clinton were legitimate presidential candidates with great narratives to ride on [first black, first woman president] - Gingrich and Santorum have little appeal outside of the republican base and very definitely have no exciting narratives to bear them aloft - exact opposite actually. Sure, Obama pulled Clinton too far to the left which would have hurt had she been the nominee - but not nearly as much as Romney is being hurt by the same dynamic. Not even close.
Now, people are gonna criticize Romney again as being a weak candidate - and there is some validity to that - but I believe Daniels and probably Christie too would have had the same problem - the base - the signal vulnerability of democracy has always been that people get to vote - but the real problem, when one considers things that can actually be amended, is how we go about nominating our leaders - for each party the extremes of each have way too much of a say in what the rest of country is going to be stuck with as a choice of candidates - and we're seeing this dysfunction play out in a very uncomfortable way in the GOP primary because the most telling aspect of this race from the very beginning has been the obvious fact [to an unbiased observer] that there has only ever been one credible candidate running. I still find it confounding that so many people actually left their homes yesterday and lined up to vote for Santorum - why? what on earth are you thinking? - these people either must have severe psychological issues or suffer from some kind of learning disability - or they're taking their instructions from god. It's frightening.
It is clear though that the republican establishment, if such a thing exists [which it must in some way for this sentence to make any sense] seems to have come to the understanding of how bad what's happening is - most of these people I'm guessing would in a heartbeat just install Romney as the candidate if they could do it - which makes me wonder if my prediction of a civil war in the GOP is going to start bubbling to the surface - tempers publicly flare - and then Gingrich and Santorum go even more populist with their 'the little guy against the elite' bull shit - yeah, things could start to get nasty here. I still say if I'm Romney I get out and run as an independent and leave the irremediable base to suck on it - again, I have absolutely no idea how feasible such a thing is - but if I'm a rich guy running for president for the second time and watching my chances of winning in November slowly being corrupted into nothing by two guys who have very little chance of getting the nomination but even if they do absolutely no chance of beating Obama - well, I just couldn't tolerate such a thing.
