Don Roach: With Santorum Out, Nothing Left to Stop Romney

Don Roach: With Santorum Out, Nothing Left to Stop Romney

It’s a sad day for Mr. Roach. Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race to become our next President. He suspended his campaign saying, “We will suspend our campaign effective today (but) we are not done fighting.” Santorum made an improbable run over the last several months and like Romney before him, could position himself for future runs. He’s only 53 so a run over the next decade doesn’t seem out of the question.

As I’ve made clear, my candidate of choice has always been Newt Gingrich. I’ve taken quite a bit of heat from family, friends, and acquaintances for supporting a ‘racist’, ‘misogynist’, and plain old fashioned meanie. Granted, Gingrich isn’t someone you’d love to hang out with on the weekends, but a President doesn’t need to be that person. I mean, Obama would probably be someone I’d love to watch basketball with or discuss issues of the day. He seems engaged in all of the above but doesn’t seem to be competent enough to handle the country’s problems.

But I digress; Santorum’s exit makes the inevitable coronation of Willard Mitt Romney a mere formality. I don’t see enough conservatives pivoting away from Santorum over to Gingrich. Sure, a significant number of Santorum voters will switch to Gingrich but I suspect over the next few primaries those voters will just stay home versus voting for Gingrich or Paul.

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In essence, it’s over. The nomination is Romney’s and unless he has some sort of Frank Caprio gaffe (unlikely) in him, it should be smooth sailing from here on out. Romney will now, as he has done over the last few weeks, turn towards the showdown with Obama.

I’m not going to do it today, but I plan to give an assessment of each candidate and their position on issues that matter to voters. We’ll see some separation, but we’ll also see similarities. What’s going to determine the outcome of this race is Obama’s ability to categorize Romney as a traditional Republican out of touch with average America.

This is going to be difficult from a policy perspective but easy from a personality one. Romney’s policies are very centrist, in my opinion, while he comes off as a spoiled rich guy. It’s going to be very interesting to see if Obama can pigeon hole Romney such that moderates swing to Obama. I’m not sure he’ll be able to do it and I think Romney has a very good opportunity to paint Obama as a liberal who’s policy decisions over the last few years have made America worse, not better. If you look at bread and butter issues for Americans such as jobs, gasoline, food, etc. I’m not sure how much better we are today than we were in early 2009.

Yes, the economy isn’t in meltdown so I guess that’s a plus. Still, it seems like we’re stuck in neutral and Obama doesn’t seem capable of leading us into that next gear. Romney’s team will surely discuss this and other issues to weaken Obama.

It will definitely be exciting, but for now, we can stick a fork in the GOP nomination. Congratulations Mitt Romney.

 

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