The Best They Have ?

Lats year at this time most political pundits figured Mitt Romney would have a commanding lead for the Republican presidential nomination by now. He was the favorite of the establishment and was opposed mostly by fringe candidates who couldn't appeal to the braod mainstream of America. But it hasn't worked out that way.

While Romney does still have establishment support, he has been unable to make any inroads with the right-wingers who now control the party. In poll after poll he has finished at or near the top, but has been unable to separate himself from the field. It was assumed that this is because he was a mormon (which doesn't appeal to the fundamentalists) and passed a health care program while governor of Massachusetts that looks a whole lot like the program passed by the Democrats last year (which doesn't appeal to the teabaggers).

But I'm starting to think the reasons go deeper than that. After the Republican debate a few days ago, many thought that while he didn't outright win the debate he did well in it. But then he went to New Hampshire and immediately got himself in trouble because of how he was acting with the voters there -- so much so that the state's largest newspaper felt the need to call him out. Romney told one business owner, "I will probably be back in four years. Only this time it will be a larger group and I will probably have Secret Service." Then later he asked a group of voters to vote for him in "November".

This didn't go down to well with many. It was like he thought he had the nomination before even a single delegate had been won -- by him or anyone else. The Manchester Union-Leader wrote, "Mitt Romney did a good job at Monday night's Republican presidential debate. But not that good. Governor, you won a debate, not an election. . .Granite Staters prefer hard-working and humble to high-falutin' and haughty."

I'm not sure he was being haughty. I just think he doesn't have a clue how to relate to ordinary hard-working Americans. He has never been one of them. He was born rich, grew up rich, and became even richer as an adult. He doesn't have any idea what working class Americans have to go through to pay the rent and put food on the table. He may wow all the guys in a corporate boardroom, but he is lost in a crowd of regular folks.

His idea of relating to regular everyday Americans is to take off his coat and tie -- not an impressive feat considering the shirt, pants and shoes he's still wearing cost more than many voters make in a week or month. Like many other politicians (from both parties), he doesn't understand what it's like to live paycheck-to-paycheck, or even how to talk to people that live that way (or how to act around them).

Instead of being haughty, I think Romney may have actually been trying to connect with the voters by making a joke -- something else he doesn't do very well. He may be a real hoot in the boardroom, but his discomfort around regular voters causes his humor to fall flatter than the Kansas prairie. Here is how reporter Dana Milbank described his attempt to connect with voters by joking:

Mitt Romney, the leading contender to become President Obama’s Republican opponent next year, had just finished working the room at Blake’s Creamery here when he paused for a photo with the restaurant’s owner, Ann Mirageas, and decided to tell her a joke.


“I saw the young man over there with eggs Benedict, with hollandaise sauce,” he said. “And I was going to suggest to you that you serve your eggs with hollandaise sauce in hubcaps. Because there’s no plates like chrome for the hollandaise.”


The proprietor laughed weakly. “Good luck to you,” Mirageas said.


He talks about the weak economy with the proprietors of a feed shop, then abruptly pivots: “Okay, so what do you do about mosquito control? . . . This has been a mosquito-infested year with all the moisture. They flew away with my dog.”


At Mary Ann’s, a retro diner in Derry, N.H., the slogan on the owner’s shirt is “A blast from the past” — and the description suits Romney, too. He admires the Texaco “Fire Chief” gas pump and a jukebox (“You guys hear this music? ‘I want a caveman, I want a caveman.’ ”). Posing for a photo with his arms around the waitresses, he suddenly jumps forward, pretending somebody pinched his bottom. “Oh my goodness gracious!” he exclaims, then, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” He later says the gag is “kind of fun to do.”

It's not easy for someone who's been rich all his life to understand and make a connection with those who struggle to make ends meet, and Mitt Romney is smitten with this rich man's disease. He does well on a stage or on TV, but he's just too socially awkward to connect with voters in person.

This may have as much to do with his failure to distance himself from the pack of Republican candidates as his mormonism or his health care plan. Running for a presidential nomination, especially in the early states like New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina, is not like running a campaign in a large populous state where TV is of prime importance. To win these early primaries and caucuses, a candidate must "press the flesh" and meet the voters in person -- and Romney just doesn't seem to be very good at that. And it's hurting him.

I begin to understand why many party officials are trying to find some other candidates to enter the race. They need someone who's not a fringe nut-job but is a good campaigner who can connect with regular people (and that's just not Mitt Romney).

Is Mitt really the best the Republicans have to offer? If so, then the Republicans really might wind up with a fringe right-winger as their nominee (someone like Bachmann, Palin, Cain, Santorum, or even Perry), and that would be a very good thing for Democrats. It would not only see the president get re-elected, but it could help down-ballot also.