He may have expected it, and his last minute robo calls on Santorum’s earmarks suggested that his team saw something bad about to happen. Somebody needs to tell the Romney guys that Santorum is not Gingrich…they won’t be able to do to Rick what they did the Newt because Rick’s oppo file isn’t near as big or juicy. And earmarks are not enough to derail Santorum.
Romney’s real problem is what Bush 41 called the vision thing. A recent Wall Street Journal column by Robert Reillysaid it differently but it means the same thing…
…About that “vision thing” … said Reilly…”(Reagan) understood that Washington is not a management problem; it is a political problem. Everything the government does is necessarily political, because governments decide not only who gets what, but why. These choices define a candidate's politics, but they must be conceived and expressed in terms of moral priorities.”
“Political language is inherently moral, not managerial. It must convey visions, not just plans. It must explain why some things are good and others bad.”
And this, his key point…”If you cannot articulate the cause for which you are fighting in moral terms, you will lose.”
I watched Rick Santorum lose a Senate race, but it was not because he failed to articulate his vision in moral terms. In 1994, I watched Romney lose a Senate race, and I could not tell then, nor can I tell now what his “moral terms” are, any more than I can tell what makes him tick, or makes him cry, or makes him mad (other than negative ads directed at him) or what an America under his leadership will be after a couple terms. If I can’t figure that out after spending hours daily watching the Presidential race unfold, then nobody else knows either.
Romney drove Gingrich into the ditch with negative ads. He won’t be able to dispatch Santorum the same way. He’d best be articulating his vision thing, and if he gets that right he’ll not need to run any more negative ads in his quest for the republican nomination. And if negative ads are the only way for Mitt to win, the nomination is not going to be worth having.
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