My Thoughts on the Republican Primary

So far, I have refrained from publicly commenting on the Republican primaries.  It's no secret that I am a Mitt Romney supporter, but by and large, I haven't seen fit to spend the time putting down my thoughts when so much was up in the air.  As this race looks more and more like a sure thing, however, I figure that it's time to unleash my musing on the world, or at least on whatever readers may stumble across this post.

Early on in the race, I bounced between candidates as they came up.  I flirted with the idea of John McCain, thought Jim Gilmore (anyone remember him?) had promise, was excited by and ensuingly disappointed with Fred Thompson, and ultimately decided on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  There are several reasons that I decided to support Gov. Romney, which I of course will pass on to you. 

Governor Romney has displayed an executive ability rivaled by no other candidate in this race.  Romney has shown numerous times over his distinguished career that he has the ability to take an organization that is not operating at maximum efficiency and improve it.  He spent several decades doing this as a private businessman and was so skilled that he was able to amass a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions.  Some have held Governor Romney’s wealth against him, but while he may have come from a more privileged background than some of the other candidates, no one can argue that his fortune and his reputation as a skilled executive are unearned. 

After several decades as a businessman, he then volunteered, without pay, to head up the foundering Salt Lake Olympic Committee and turn a looming debacle into one of the most successful Olympic Games in history.  Having accomplished this, Mitt then moved on to elected office in Massachusetts, where he had a similar string of success stories.  Despite what some may say about him, he governed as a conservative in a state where that would be anathema to his reelection.  He balanced the budget without raising taxes, worked against the forces attempting to legalize homosexual marriage in his state, and, despite his previous positions, made the right decision when it came to pro-life measures.  His admitted turn-around on life issues has caused him problems, but none can say that his record as a governor resulted in pro-abortion policies.  He may have changed his mind, but the change should be a welcome one for pro-life Republicans.

Looking beyond his executive abilities, Mitt has campaigned as a conservative looking to reform Washington.  Mitt is also probably one of the very few who could actually accomplish such a goal.  Mitt has displayed a family life that speaks volumes towards his integrity as a man and a father, and although his faith differs from mine, has shown an understanding of the role that one's faith should play in politics- that of informing one's own philosophy, but not of dictating one's government. 

Despite his many positive qualities, Mitt admittedly has had some drawbacks.  Mitt does have a lot of money.  While this speaks to his ability as a manager and a businessman, it also gives him the perception of being too distant from the electorate to really connect with them.  Mitt also has changed several of his positions over the years, especially when it comes to social issues.  When running in Massachusetts for Senate in 1994, Mitt pledged not to try to overturn the status quo regarding abortion and claimed that he would be better for gay rights than his opponent.  Mitt does not hold these positions anymore, but the fact that he was publicly on record in support of them in the past has been a drawback.  Mitt has also shown willingness to publicly, and sometimes rather bluntly, contrast himself with his primary opponents, and too often in a way that has not endeared him to his opponents or their supporters.  Accordingly, his personal relationship with his primary opponents is not as amicable as some, myself included, would like.

In recent weeks, and especially after the Florida primary of this past Tuesday, the muddied waters of this race have somewhat cleared.  Governor Romney and Senator McCain each have three wins, Governor Huckabee has one, and most of the other candidates have since left the race.  While the race isn't over yet, the future primaries appear to favor Senator McCain.  He holds leads in many of the large states scheduled to vote in next week's "Super Tuesday" primary, and while the national polls had narrowed significantly following the South Carolina primary, the effects of Rudy Giuliani's exit and the Florida primary have not yet been seen.  While it is far from impossible for Mitt to win, it would be a very uphill battle and I am saddened to say that I don't anticipate it happening.

This begs the question of why?  What is it that has prevented Governor Romney from pulling ahead?  Truthfully, with a few percentage points difference in a couple of key states, this race would be entirely different.  Five percent of Huckabee's support in Iowa going to Romney, three percent of McCain's support in New Hampshire, and three percent of McCain's support in Florida would have put this election away for Governor Romney.  But for some reason, despite his three wins, he has also failed to win three very important primaries.  I think the one key to why Governor Romney has come up short in these races has been that he has been trying to campaign as the traditional conservative rather than playing to his strengths.  He tried to emphasize his support for conservative social issues when his positions had changed in recent years and to emphasize his support for a strong military when he did not have a military background.  That is not to say that he should not have supported these issues, but rather, that he should not have campaigned in a way which focused on them.  Mitt should have done from the start what he has finally started doing in the past two weeks: focus on his strengths as an executive and on the economy.  Mitt's experiences in business and state government make him by far the best candidate to deal with the economy.  No other candidate can boast of the experience and expertise that Governor Romney possesses.  But Mitt has not made this the focal point of his campaign.  Had he done so, this would likely be a very different race.  However, it is not, so I will now turn to the future.

            With the Republican nominee likely to be clear somewhere within the next month, it is time to start looking at the remaining candidates.  I still support Governor Romney and hope for his victory, but reality tells me that we are likely to have a Republican nominee of John McCain.  This isn't all bad.

John McCain, for all his faults, has been unfairly maligned as a Democrat in Republican's clothing; a liberal Republican existing only to foil conservative's plans; the man standing at the border with a "Free Jobs" sign waiving illegal immigrants in.  In reality, these are drastic and ultimately harmful exaggerations by the Senator's political enemies.  That is not to say that McCain is not a moderate, because on a lot of issues, he is, or that he has not voted against some key conservative positions, because he has.  However, on the majority of issues, Senator McCain is right.  Just as Governor Romney is by far the best candidate on the economy, Senator McCain is by far the best candidate on anything military.  With our country in such a precarious position internationally, Senator McCain's experiences could be very valuable in the White House. 

Secondly, Senator McCain is the Republican Party’s best hope for cutting down on earmarks and reducing federal spending.  The Republican Party lost a lot of seats last election by drifting away from our principles, especially on spending issues.  Senator McCain has no such problem.  On both spending and our military, he has proven to be an excellent advocate. 

Illegal immigration is the one area where Senator McCain has received an especially undue amount of criticism.  This is one of the rare areas where I myself may differ from the prevailing position within my party, and I tend to fall close to Senator McCain's position.  In essence, I believe that there are two types of people in the Republican Party when it comes to illegal immigration.   There are those, like myself, who believe that our borders should be secured for security purposes, but that immigration should continue.  There are differences of opinion as to how the existing immigrants should be dealt with, but it is acknowledged that America should continue to welcome immigrants.  After all, our country was built on immigrants and we should not now eschew such a foundational part of our national culture.  On the other hand, there are those who are virulently against illegal immigration not because of any security purposes, but because, and they will never admit this, they really don't care much for "brown" people.  The thought of their communities being populated by those of a different ethnicity or language makes them so uncomfortable that they want to deport all illegal immigrants and seal the borders in hopes that they don’t have to deal with those outside of their own demographic.  It is my view that these people are the single most dangerous people for the future of our party.  The Tom Tancredo’s of the world risk excluding one of our party's most natural population bases due to their own thinly veiled xenophobia.  The Republican Party has made the mistake of alienating large population blocks before, and while I hope that we do not make the same mistake again, these people are pushing our party in that direction.  Senator McCain is these people's most hated Republican, and that wins the Senator points in my eyes.

Senator McCain is far from perfect either.  He has shown a long-standing willingness to go against his own party.  As he now runs for the titular head of that party, it concerns me that one who is uncommitted to several of the party's important principles should be vested with its leadership.  Furthermore, his views on campaign finance are dubious and he has shown a tendency to lose his temper that may be to the country's detriment. However, given the choice of voting for Senator McCain versus Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, there is no real choice: McCain will have my vote every time.

Let us now turn to Mike Huckabee, the other candidate with a shot at winning a significant number of votes, although few would give him any real chance of victory.  Governor Huckabee has for a long time been my least favorite Republican.  He has only one strength, and that is the social issues near and dear to evangelical Christian hearts.  On every other issue, Huckabee tends to fall short.  Most significantly, Huckabee has displayed an unexplainable and inexcusable weakness on simple law and order principles, an economic policy willing to raise taxes, and most troubling of all, an unwillingness to admit and address his shortcomings and mistakes.  The social issues that Huckabee champions are subsets of conservative philosophy; on the substantive areas, he is lacking.  He has masked this with an affable smile and a likeable personality, but has not addressed his shortcomings in a way that has reached out to the general population.

In short, Governor Huckabee is a candidate who appeals to one, and only one, subset of Republican voters: the self-described Evangelical Christian.  He has been characterized as "the Republican Jesse Jackson" and I think that the analogy is valid: he speaks very well to the voters in his target demographic, but gets almost no support outside of that demographic.  To illustrate, in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Nevada, Huckabee lost the non-evangelical vote (over 75% of the Republican electorate) to long-shot candidate Ron Paul.  In Florida, he tied Ron Paul.  Even in Iowa, he only beat Ron Paul by 3% among non-Evangelicals, with a non-Evangelical vote of 14%-11%.  His contribution to this race has been to play identity politics and hope for a spot on the nominee's ticket.  My hope is that, whoever the winner is, they will not be forced to offer Huckabee a ticket spot to secure the nomination.

This brings me to my last subject, that of the running mate.  Both of the two remaining viable candidates, Romney and McCain, have portions of the Republican base with which they will need to make amends once the primary is over.  Romney will need to assuage the fears of those who see him as unprincipled while improving the ticket's foreign policy or military credentials.  Someone like Senator Jim DeMint or General Peter Pace would fit this bill perfectly.  For Senator McCain, he will need to bring traditional conservatives into the fold while emphasizing his strong spending positions, and a Southerner wouldn't hurt either.  The one man who fits this bill perfectly is Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.  He is a strong conservative, Southerner, and his spending policy would fit very well with a McCain administration. 

Any of the Romney/Pace, Romney/DeMint, or McCain/Sanford tickets would be very formidable in the general election and would be deserving of our votes, and it is my hope that once this primary is over, that our party can unite behind the nominee.  The next four years are simply too important not to.