Two Great Articles Debunk the Inevitability and Electability of Mitt Romney

It doesn't hurt that the first name of both authors is Mike!

First, Michael Walsh at National Review (a hangout for "Mittbots"). Walsh repeats the obvious fact that no matter what Romney does he can't break much above 25%. How that problem gets swept under the rug so often I don't know. But if 75% of GOP voters want someone else as the nominee, doesn't it follow that Mitt will have trouble getting that all vote in the fall if nominated?

The Mittbots might want to ask themselves this: if Romney is so great, why did Santorum — a guy who was barely a blip on the radar screen a couple of weeks ago — come out of nowhere to nearly nip him at the wire, while Mitt stayed stuck at . . . 25 percent?

As John Podhoretz put it yesterday:

The results last night make it clear that Romney is unquestionably the weakest party front-runner in contemporary political history, scoring fewer caucus votes in Iowa in 2012 than he received in 2008.

As I said on the most recent NR cruise, if Romney is the nominee, he will lose. He has no idea what Axelrod & Co. are capable of, nor of the depths to which they will stoop to destroy him. They will attack him as a flip-flopper, as a panderer, as a rapacious and heartless one percenter, and, yes, as a Mormon. They will damn him with faint praise as a liberal accomodationist, as the spiritual father of Obamacare. He’s a gentleman in a mug’s game, and this is no time for gentlemen.

Next there is Michael Graham writing at the Boston Herald:

I’m ready to sell out, too. Like you, I’m ready to abandon my conservative principles, ignore Mitt’s big-government legacy and his obvious disdain for the right — if it means a guaranteed winner in November.

But before I lift my conservative skirts for another H.W. Bush/Dole/McCain moderate because I’m supposed to suck it up and “back a winner,” is it asking too much to expect the guy to, you know, win something first?
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No, Mitt did not “win” Iowa. Winning is not getting eight more votes than a guy who, until recently, was best known as the victim of a campaign on Google to turn his last name into a disgusting sexual reference (trust me — you don’t want to know).

Winning is not spending 12 months and $10 million in Iowa in 2008 to get 30,021 votes, then campaigning another four years, spending another $2 million  . . . and getting just 30,015 votes.

Four years ago, Romney could blame his lackluster 25.1 percent on the fact that he’d never run before and faced formidable opposition: a longtime U.S. senator, a successful two-term Southern governor, a Tennessee movie star.

But this year, Romney is running against the cast of a bad TLC network reality show — and he’s still at 25.1 percent!

How do you go from running against McCain, Huckabee, and Thompson to running against Perry, Bachmann and Paul and getting fewer votes? When one foe is an angry former speaker who’s been married three times, took money from Freddie Mac and shares a name with a Star Wars villain, you should be running up the score.

And no, don’t say “it’s just Iowa.” Have you checked the latest polls? Less than 48 hours after Iowa, Rasmussen’s national poll had Mitt at just 29-21 over Rick Santorum. In South Carolina — which has picked every GOP nominee since Reagan — Romney’s stuck at 20 percent and he’s losing in Florida, too.

No doubt newer surveys will reflect rising Romney strength. But the fact is that Mitt vs. The GOP Klown Kar should be a cakewalk.

That is, if Mitt Romney really is a winner.

Republicans have the unfortunate habit of nominating the guy who came in second in a previous contest. That's how we got Bob Dole and John McCain. Neither of which had the stuff it takes to fight it out with the political thuggery that will be headed our way in a few months. Apparently, I am not the only one who worries whether Mitt would be the best nominee just because he came in second last time around! But I'm glad to know that guys named Mike seem to be making a lot of sense!