Here’s the way I see it. I have no real bias in all of this, I supported Michele Bachmann and I will not be voting in the primaries now that she’s gone. I do not support either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
The Republican establishment decided long, long ago (perhaps before the 2008 election ended) that Mitt Romney was going to be the candidate for President in 2012. Of course there had to be a contest and the establishment was just fine with this. As long as the real race was over by Florida and the rest of the primaries would simply be part of Mitt’s cornotation leading to a glittering three day infomercial at the convention.
The Republican establishment knew that the peasants (that’s those of us who vote and volunteer and donate small amounts) might have other ideas about who should run, but the little pipsqueak peasants would be shouted down by super PACs and good honest conservatives like Michele Bachmann (yes, I’m a bit bitter about her showing in Iowa) would be eliminated early so we could get down to the coronation.
This is not a particularly good time for party elitists to be giving orders to the people. The establishment looked at the Tea Party movement with glee because they thought we were toy robots that would accept whatever the establishment told us to do. They made a serious miscalculation. The Tea Party movement was not willing to let the powers that be make our choices for us. We don’t like it when the government tells us what to do, we also don’t like being told who to vote for. The more the establishment tried to shove Romney down our throats, the more we resisted. Anti-Romneys rose up only to fall again. Bachmann, Perry, Cain even Donald Trump. If the party elites had been listening to the members they would have tried harder to recruit Thune, Rubio or Christie. But the establishment had made their choice and were sticking to Romney.
Newt Gingrich was considered an also-ran just a few months ago. He had no money, no organization and was polling in single digits. But a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. Gingrich started cleaning the floor with Romney in the thousands of debates we’ve seen so far. Gingrich has Washington experience but he’s not an insider. Gingrich can overcome Mitt’s big pile of money. Gingrich has lofty ambitions (at least as far as the space program’s concerned) that can excite voters (Romney is as far from exciting as one can get). Gingrich is not scared of the Republican establishment.
I don’t like Newt Gingrich and I won’t be voting in the primaries. But when I see and hear the pure panic he’s caused the elites in the Republican Party I have to laugh. This contest wasn’t supposed to be a free election, it was supposed to be a sham vote followed by a coronation. It serves the Romney backers right. Now they have to actually tell us why we should support Romney. Here’s a small piece of advice. Give us a better reason to support Mitt Romney than “You must vote for Mitt because we say so and we’re superior to you in every way.”
