By Selwyn Duke

With campaign 2008 in full swing, pundits are wondering why Republicans aren’t coalescing around the candidate who has assumed the most conservative posture, Mitt Romney.   They’re trying to explain why John McCain has become the front-runner despite an embrace of leftist measures ranging from the scamnesty bill to the McCain-Feingold violation of the First Amendment.  And they generally get it all wrong.

First, while analyzing the Florida results, Dick Morris said that it wasn’t that Romney didn’t capture conservatives, but that there just weren’t enough of them.  He pointed out that many Sunshine State Republicans describe themselves as only somewhat conservative or moderate.  He then said, registering surprise, that the Republican electorate has moved left and that "We didn’t know that."

No, Dick, you didn’t know that.  I’ve known the country was drifting left since I was a very young man.

I won’t say much more about that, however, as I intend to treat it in a full-length piece soon.

Another mistake pundits make is assuming that everyone else lives in their little political bubble.  Case in point: Some of them posit the idea that Republican voters must not be too concerned about McCain’s liberalism and weakness on immigration because they still support him, despite the fact that talk radio has scored him over those issues. 

Are they kidding? 

Talk radio is popular, but the truth is that the majority of the country doesn’t listen to it, just as most don’t deeply imbibe political news and commentary.  Most people have other concerns and really aren’t all that engaged, and when they vote, they tend to make decisions on emotional bases.  They’re not politics wonks.

Now let’s get to the hapless Mr. Romney.   Yes, as many have said, Huckabee (who gives the illusion of being conservative) has drawn traditionalist votes from him.  Yet even this is probably exaggerated, as some go so far as to say that most of Huckabee’s votes would go to Romney if the former left the race.  But this is based on a simplistic analysis that divides the Republican electorate into two basic groups: Conservatives and moderates.  It’s more nuanced than that.

Huckabee’s voters tend to be religious, southern, and often evangelical; Romney’s are the more secular, fiscally conservative folks; and McCain’s are probably a combination of the two, although it should be noted that he does score particularly well among those who cite terrorism as their primary concern.  (Admittedly, even this is a simplistic breakdown, but it does offer a bit more detail.)

Thus, there’s no saying that any great majority of Huckabee’s support would translate into votes for Romney.  And only election data concerning who voters cite as their second choice could illuminate this issue more thoroughly.

So what is Romney’s real problem? 

Credibility.

Despite the politicians’ continual dropping of Reagan’s name, when voters view the political landscape, they see no mainstream candidate who can rationally be regarded as an inheritor of the Gipper’s mantle. 

And Romney is no exception. 

Sure, some voters may not know many of the particulars, but, nevertheless, many of them are aware of the candidates’ checkered ideological pasts.  They’re presented with a handful of weak sisters who have all been on both sides of certain issues, so that seems to be a wash.  So what is a voter to do?

Answer: They break the tie by voting for the candidate who seems to have the most integrity and is the most electable.

That man is John McCain.  Granted, the integrity may be an illusion, as is so much in politics.  But he’s seemingly down-to-earth and a war hero, and Romney can’t lay claim to either of those attributes.   Moreover, he undeniably has appeal among independents.

Oh, just so people know, I prefer Romney to McCain or Huckabee (although I’m not taken with any of them), so I’m not shilling for the Arizona senator.  But facts are stubborn things.

I should mention one last matter.  If the mainstream media actually did their job, the majority — who don’t listen to talk radio or frequent political blogs — would be better informed and the political landscape would be markedly different. 

For instance, contrary to what some may believe, McCain still supports the amnesty bill he co-authored with Ted Kennedy.  Thus, since immigration is a very important issue to Republicans, any reporter worth his salt would press McCain on this in an interview; he would demand to know whether or not the old soldier was willing to disavow this culture-rending legislation.

Of course, if I were naive enough to think the mainstream media might become conscientious, I’d be as bad as those who occupy it.

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