Matt Lewis thinks that he knows the answer: it’s because McCain gave access to the blogosphere and the rest of the New Media, and Romney largely does not.
I think that Matt has a point, here. I will give McCain this: his campaign was always ready to talk with us. They never listened to a damn thing that we told them – to their sorrow – but they at least returned our calls. And why is this important? Matt explains further:
Smart campaigns try to win you over. Smart campaigns realize their job is messy — that it’s not just about garnering positive press — that it’s also to minimizing bad press. Smart campaigns get it. Political operatives aren’t magicians, of course. They can’t talk ethical reporters into burying stories that might hurt their candidate. What they can sometimes do, however, is this: Take a story that might normally be a level 9 (in terms of its damage) and turn it into a level 6.
This never happens for Mitt Romney.
And he’ll regret that, methinks.
(Via @sissywillis over on Twitter)
It’s definitely going to make things closer than they need to be.
Methinks it’s partly because we know how measley a campaign a RHINO is apt to run given the Gawd awful crap about ‘don’t attack zero’ that Mac and now, so far, Romney seems to be espousing!
Time to go for the jugular!
I think another reason is that we conservatives won’t give a moderate Republican yet another pass.
Not after McCain. If you start out to lose your better off not running.
I just don’t find him convincing on….well, anything, really. He’s trying to be so non-offensive to everyone he comes over as….amorphous?
And after the drubbing McCain took, well, let’s just say I want nice, clear distinctions between the two sides. Nuance ain’t gonna cut it.
He’s got eight month’s to figure it out (assuming he is the nominee) and get on-message with what makes him better. He needs to put away his pale pastel colored pencils and forget the subtle shadings, then grab a pack of Sharpie* Broad Tip Markers and start outlining the difference in thick, bold lines. IMHO, FWIW
*http://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Permanent-Markers-Colored-38254PP/dp/B000BQNBW2
Shorter my last; We don’t want another trouncing like the one McCain more or less accepted. I’d rather go third party than vote for someone who didn’t FIGHT.
I more or less agree with qixiqatl, but I’ll take a slightly different angle: In 2008, we were in a down cycle for our side politically, and I think the general feeling was that McCain was our best shot. (I didn’t agree with that, but that was the prevailing wisdom.) Obama was a strong candidate based on the fact that he could be completely empty and people would swoon to him.
Today, however, with Obama having to defend a dreadful Presidency, the rise of the Tea Party, and the strong conservative showing in the 2010 elections, there is absolutely no reason we should feel the need to settle for a moderate this time. That’s why it is so frustrating that we don’t have a good across-the-board conservative in this race.
Personally, I don’t think Romney is the guy to win an election. But he’s perfectly capable of “not losing” it, and given the current direction of things, I think that’s all he needs to do. Obama has to go; it’s as simple as that.
If Romney won’t fight to get the office, how can I have any confidence he will fight while he’s in office? Me fear is that he will fold like a cheap suit in the face of any serious opposition; to say, SCOTUS nominees? If he won’t fight against a struggling administration, how will he react to a threatened filibuster by senate democrats with little to nothing to lose? He won’t be able to bury them in negative advertising, and just avoiding serious mistakes won’t accomplish diddly in the oval office.
My gut says, if Mitt Romney possesses a spine, he needs to put it on display right now. The base will not, in my opinion, turn out for a jellyfish or another punching clown like McCain.
Why is Romney being treted harder? Because he’s spent more time and energyduring the Primaries trying to placate DEMOCRATS than he has trying to convince his own party base to support him. He himself has said that he knows we’ll just fall in line for him, like it or not.
Aside from the personal-insult basis of this, we understand that a candidate who takes his own party’s upport totally for granted is going to run to the left as fast as his legs will carry him and that- if he manages to win, which is doubtful because he can’t conjure any enthusiasm- as President he’s going to continue to act as if his own party is somehow a tool to be used at best and a hated encumberance at worst.