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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Every 4 years there's a fascination with some New England/Acela Corridor Republican's campaign for the White House, and every 4 years it falls flat because these people have basically zero appeal to Republicans in places like Texas and Oklahoma.

Don't Trump and Mitt Romney both fit that description? Yeah, you can push Trump aside because he wasn't a politician before his presidential campaign, but when he first started getting traction there was concern about whether a thrice-married New York socialite would be able to win votes in the Bible Belt.

Romney was effectively a sacrificial lamb. Dole 2.0

His mormonism killed him. The right wanted someone who would be mean back to the left. Trump provided that and tapped into the desire of the right to have their own goon to fight back after they realized the left would just make fun of them for being backwards.

But Romney was always the conservative who was a real conservative and lived the conservative life.

See others saying Romney was the blue blood but he on the flip side that’s the old noblesse oblige where the upper class felt a duty to society.

He also was the establishment choice and had all the money. He faced a crowded, but largely unappealing (because Republicans that thought they had a real chance were keeping their powder dry for 2016) crowd of candidates: Rick Santorum (PA, a less likeable Pence type), Ron Paul (TX), Newt Gingrich (GA, also with DC taint), Buddy Roemer (LA, nothingburger), Rick Perry (TX, weak debater), Michele Bachman (MI, boring), and John Huntsman (UT, Obama Ambassador). Not exactly murderer's row, particularly after Perry's repeated mental mistakes.

Perry was and still is actually extremely popular with the base, he just kept making gaffes. Santorum lacked his same overwhelming popularity but could bridge religious voters to the rednecks who don’t go to church very often that have come to make up a big chunk of the GOP base. Gingrich similarly was a fairly solid candidate(or would have been in ‘04, at least), he was just past his prime and made bizarre campaign decisions that sunk him. These people are still important players in the GOP and are major factors in setting the base’s opinions.

He was successful precisely because he's a new money/guido type not a blue blood type like Romney. He also was willing to say whatever benefited him most, contradicting his previous stated beliefs quite regularly.

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