“It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program- on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off- than on any positive task.”- F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
The first act of The Fight for the Presidency is all but over. With Sen. Rick Santorum’s gracious exit from the Republican presidential field, Governor Mitt Romney has all but officially sealed the deal. Although no less than twenty minutes after Santorum’s announcement Newt Gingrich announced he would be the “conservative candidate” to take the fight down to Florida, Mr. Romney will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. It has been a tough slog for Mr. Romney since the summer. He was the frontrunner from the beginning and had to fend off a wide array of challengers to reach this point in the campaign. And the frontrunner doesn’t always win- one can ask Secretary of State Hilary Clinton about that statement. Instead of sharing in Rush Limbaugh’s lament over the “establishment” victory, let all conservatives tip our hats to Mr. Romney for a hard fought victory; the first of what will be a three act play in the race for President.
Stave I: In a year where conservatives came out of the woodwork to the right of Mr. Romney, who we all forget was considered the most conservative candidate in 2008, the governor was able to temper his own conservatism with practical policy arguments. He executed a country-wide strategy allowing him to seriously contend for delegates in every state primary. This, coupled with his challengers self-destructive campaigns, allowed him to prove to an extensive majority of voters so far in the process he was the man for the job. Despite the far right’s claims that the primary battle was far from over after Wisconsin, the comparisons to halftime of a football game failed to acknowledge that entering the locker room Messrs. Santorum and Gingrich were down by five touchdowns. Now with Mr. Santorum suspending his campaign, the path is clear for the former Massachusetts Governor to reach the 1144 delegates needed before Tampa.
Last week President Obama attacks Paul Ryan's efforts to restore fiscal sanity in the United States. It is so far the most venomous of what will be a series of negative campaign attacks by the President.
Stave II: This is the period of the campaign between now and the conventions. We know Mr. Romney will be the nominee and the remaining votes cast may just be a formality, but these trials will serve as an important exercise in Presidential politics for the former governor. Here, Mr. Romney will need to continue to campaign in these states, but instead of spending money on TV ads to battle his challengers, he needs to deliver a clear message of his own vision in contrast to that of President Obama’s, while simultaneously disparaging the President’s record of governance. In order to win the Presidency Mr. Romney must gain ground with independents in the high valued swing states. Votes are still to be cast in primaries in Indiana, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Mr. Romney will spend a significant amount of time in these states to lay the tracks for his national campaign in the fall. His team, as well as congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan, will begin the campaign push by outlining a plan to combat the President’s seeming insistence that the United States function as a “government-centered society”, a label Mr. Romney skillfully employed in Wisconsin in what will serve as a campaign charge all the way to November.
In turn, the President began his campaign in the fall with the Obama bus tour across the Midwest, kicking off his crusade to achieve “fairness” in the United States. In hopes of hammering this theme home, the formerly hopeful Obama and his administration will devote their time to campaigning in the negative. In his recent speeches attacking the Paul Ryan budget and Supreme Court, we have seen Mr. Obama err on the side of viciousness. This anger will be directed at Mr. Romney, and the “rich folks” who President Obama views as an excellent scapegoat for the woes of the country. The strategy has been formulated as a three step attack by the Obama camp: demonize the rich, paint Romney as one of them, divide and conquer.
Stave III: The final act will include Mr. Romney’s VP selection (Christie, Haley, Jindal, Portman, Rice, Rubio, West ect.), both conventions, debates and then the final stretch on the stump through November 6th. All citizens should brace themselves, for this will be an ugly ugly campaign. The “Chicago-way” the President has employed in office will come off like a Disney World theme ride in comparison to his team’s strategy for the months before the election. He will continue to seek victory by trying to divide the country into the classes of have and have nots, as opposed to Governor Mitch Daniels’ positively crafted outlook for our citizens as the “haves and soon to haves.” Hope and change will not play on the liberal side of the debate. It will use terms like rich and poor or Wall St and Main St, doing everything in their power to construct an argument pitting our own citizens against each other. Mr. Romney will have two choices to fight that strategy: dive down into the depth of depravity the Obama campaign team will be operating at, sending attack add after attack add against a sitting president. Or he can elevate the argument, as Mr. Obama seemingly did in 2008, and work to restore the American experiment that places the emphasis of importance on the individual, and letting society coalesce behind its own future.
We now know how Act I will end in The Race for the Presidency. The second and third acts are predictable in how our major players will perform. For the final scene it is too early, and close, to call.
– John P. Burns
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