Tuesday night’s debate solidified Mitt Romney’s hold on the Republican nomination as the frontrunner beat back an aggressive challenge from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, keeping his aura of inevitability intact.
Is the GOP destined to head into the 2012 race with the one-term governor of Massachusetts as its “electable” standard-bearer against the battle-tested Democrats?
Maybe not: Mitt’s record of dramatic flip-flops on social issues leaves conservatives mistrustful, and his continued defense of RomneyCare is maddening to the entire GOP base.
Which is why his poll numbers are persistently stuck in the mid-20s as the anybody-but-Romney forces desperately seek a champion.
But who? Various flavors-of-the-month — Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry and most recently Herman Cain — have topped him, then receded.
Luckily, it ain’t over til it’s over. There are least 13 more debates through next March and anything can happen. At this time in the 2008 election cycle, John McCain was buried near the bottom of pack.
So it was good to see Perry finally take a swing at Romney over immigration, if only to prove that he could. True, the grounds — that Romney once (unwittingly) hired illegal aliens to mow his lawn — were stale and easily refuted. But Romney’s angry, reach-out-and-touch-someone reaction showed he doesn’t like getting hit.
If Perry’s still serious about wresting the nomination — and why not, with a $17 million war chest and a strong organization? — he also must stop being AWOL from talk-radio and cable interview shows, where the battle for the party’s hearts and minds is really waged.
His adoption yesterday of the “flat tax” — a flat rate, paid by everybody, to replace today’s Byzantine tax code — is a welcome sign. “I want to make the tax code so simple that even [Treasury Secretary] Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time,” cracked Perry. Maybe he’s finally getting the message that you can’t just show up in cowboy boots and win.
That’s thanks to Cain, whose “9-9-9” plan has come under heavy fire from all sides. But Cain may have reached his high-water mark — unless he can avoid more self-inflicted wounds like his remark that he could see himself freeing all the prisoners at Guantanamo in exchange for a single captured American.
And there’s always the possibly that one of the “out” candidates — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Rep. Paul Ryan, even Sarah Palin — steps back into the ring, electrifying the anti-Mitt crowd.
Barack Obama showed in 2008 that a powerful grass-roots organization, driven by the Internet, could take down even the “inevitable” Hillary Clinton. If the earlier primaries don’t produce a clear groundswell for Romney, expect Ryan or Palin to take another look.
Mitt may be the favorite again, but there’s still time for the right person with the right message. Who knows? If the field stays crowded and split, the fight might go all the way to the convention, after all.