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Jewish World Review
March 12, 2012/ 18 Adar, 5772
It's time to believe: Romney's a winner
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The reviews of Mitt Romney’s Super Tuesday performance were murderous.
The Wall Street Journal judged that “voters failed to deliver a decisive victory” to Romney. Fox News reported that the “Super Tuesday results ensure the protracted and unpredictable GOP primary contest will press onward.” Romney “missed his opportunity to put to rest doubts about his strength as a candidate,” reported Politico’s Alexander Burns.
The Atlantic’s Molly Ball reported that Rick Santorum “had clearly given Romney a bad scare, and it was enough for him to claim a moral victory.” The obituaries evidently had an impact. In a Washingtonpost.com survey, readers were asked who “had the best Super Tuesday,” and fully 50 percent said it hadn’t been Romney. But the question of who had the best Super Tuesday is a matter of fact, not opinion: Romney did. He won six of 10 states, including Ohio, the night’s marquee contest. His win rate was higher than John McCain’s in 2008 on a night that all but clinched the GOP nomination. He has won about 40 percent of the delegates he needs to win the nomination and has more than twice as many as Santorum, his nearest competitor. And the party’s new system requiring the proportional awarding of delegates, though it has slowed Romney’s coronation, now makes it essentially impossible for anybody to catch him. The fact that Romney is still viewed to be in danger of losing the nomination says less about him than it does about the media. We have turned him into Candidate Sisyphus, providing him with a plentiful supply of boulders to push uphill. First it was make-or-break New Hampshire, then must-win Florida, then do-or-die Michigan and game-changing Ohio. Each time Romney prevails, we assign him a new test. Part of this is our bias in favor of conflict. I’ve been as guilty as the rest in attempting to extend this primary season, even pleading with Newt Gingrich to fight on, strictly for my personal enjoyment. But the reluctance to acknowledge Romney’s inevitability also reflects media antipathy toward this boring candidate — the flip side of 2008, when journalists brayed for Hillary Clinton to abandon her fight against Barack Obama, the media’s preferred candidate. Chuck Todd and his NBC colleagues blogged this week that Romney is “certainly losing style points by barely beating Santorum in states like Michigan and Ohio,” akin to a “top-ranked college football team winning a squeaker against an unranked opponent.” Only in American politics is a win not a win — a phenomenon that is puzzling the rest of the world. “Mitt Romney wins six on Super Tuesday but gets labeled a loser,” observed Britain’s Daily Mail. Discussing the phenomenon over lunch on Thursday, Gregor Schmitz of Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine told me that the U.S. media’s propping up of Romney’s opponents is “intellectually insulting” to viewers and readers. He’s right. On Intrade, the online market where people put money behind their opinions, Romney as of Friday night was given an 86 percent chance of winning the nomination; Santorum, in second place, had a 3.2 percent likelihood. That sounds about right to me. It’s theoretically possible for Romney to lose, but we owe our audiences more than hype about theoretical possibilities and juiced-up storylines. “Some are calling New Hampshire a must-win race for Team Romney,” Fox’s Mark Steyn reported in late December. Romney won that must-win. “I do not like making dramatic statements, but Florida is make it or break it for Mitt Romney,” National Journal’s Charlie Cook said in January. Romney made it. “Michigan may be Romney’s last stand,” CBS News reported. Romney stood. ABC News included Arizona in its “make-or-break week” for Romney, who won Arizona handily. “Ohio could be make or break for Romney,” the Washington Examiner reported after those wins. “Romney could easily have a really bad Super Tuesday,” Charles Krauthammer opined on Fox News. Romney won Ohio and had a really good Super Tuesday — but polling stations hadn’t even closed when the media got to work on erecting new hurdles for Romney. “Graham says Romney must win in South to end primary,” the Hill reported Tuesday afternoon atop its account of an interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “Romney’s Super Tuesday wins ‘maybe not enough,’ ” the New York Daily News reported Thursday, atop an article quoting McCain’s skepticism. Indeed. I’m hearing if Romney doesn’t win Tuesday’s primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, he may be toast.
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Previously:
• 03/07/12 Settling in to Washington's ways
• 03/06/12 AIPAC beats the drums of war
• 03/05/12 Did Republicans forget the women's vote?
• 02/29/12 Mitt Romney's acceptance speech, in (mostly) his own words
• 02/28/12 Common ground becomes a great divide
• 02/27/12 An expert witness for the GOP gender gap
• 02/21/12 Where Romney shines
• 02/15/12 A Republican death wish?
• 02/14/12Obama's budget games
• 02/13/12 Are GOPers playing right into Obama's hands?
• 02/08/12 Obama pumps the compressor of Joe Hudy's Extreme Marshmallow Cannon
• 02/07/12 Abramoff's atonement
• 02/01/12 Why we in the media just love Newt
• 01/31/12 The end of the road for Newt Gingrich?
• 01/25/12 Gingrich is Obama's best surrogate
• 01/24/12 Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
• 01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
• 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina
• 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed
• 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem
• 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism
• 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control
• 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP
• 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument
• 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/20/11 Strange brews and views?
• 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction
• 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet
• 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012
• 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him
• 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement?
• 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington
• 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy
• 11/23/11 Jon Kyl's search-and-destroy mission
• 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington
• 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee?
• 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last
• 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier
• 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama
• 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up
• 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive
• 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
• 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe
• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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