One of the reasons most of us find politics so fascinating is that it's dynamic. There's always another election around the corner, the personalities are always shifting, and every new event is different in many ways than the one before it. Nevertheless, whenever someone says, "Everything is different now," they're probably wrong. Case in point:
It's hard to say who's going to have a tougher 2012, Republican pollster Bill McInturff says. With the rise of the tea party Tuesday night, the man who should be in the best position for for the Republican nomination -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- is probably now on the outside looking in. Meanwhile, President Obama, who has failed to appease the left, according to McInturff, is in prime position for an embarrassing and weakening primary challenge from his own party.
Tuesday's results blew up the classic GOP nomination model, McInturff told reporters this morning at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. A partner in the well-respected Public Opinion Strategies firm, which conducts polls for numerous Republican candidates as well as national media outlets like NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, McInturff said the numbers he's been crunching show that Republican primary voters are less interested in throwing their support behind "the next guy in line," as they may have been in the past.
I'm not even going to bother refuting the idea of Obama getting a primary challenge -- ain't gonna happen, period. But the idea that 2012 is going to be radically different from every other primary in recent history is wrong, too.
This primary fight between the GOP's establishment and its more populist, more conservative grass roots goes way, way back. It just happens that now they're calling themselves the Tea Party, whereas they used to be the religious right, and before that they were Goldwaterites. The people involved change, but the dynamic stays pretty much the same. While "the establishment" is more diffuse now than it once was, it still exists, and it's still much better to have them on your side than not.
It isn't that the Tea Party won't exist in a year when the primaries start, but it's a lot harder to nominate a presidential candidate than a senator here and a congressman there. Remember how Mike Huckabee used his support among the religious right to ride his win in the Iowa caucus all the way to the 2008 nomination?
I'm not saying Romney doesn't have his problems -- he's got plenty of them. But the race is going to split the Tea Party into pieces. There will not be one "Tea Party candidate." Some will back Sarah Palin. Some will back Rick Santorum. Some will back John Thune (who, if he's smart, will enter the race on the assumption that he'll lose the primary, and become the front-runner for 2016 after the nominee loses to Obama). Some will even back Romney -- lord knows he'll be pandering to them hard. And in the end, it will probably come down to a contest between Romney and one other person, who might or might not have started off as a Tea Party favorite.
This might not be the way things go, but it probably will be. For all the talk of how terrible it is to be part of the establishment, in the long slog of the nomination fight, gaining the support of the establishment gives one a lot of advantages. This is particularly true when we remember that the establishment is many things. Yes, it's Washington fat cats, but it's also that Iowa county chairperson who can deliver a bunch of volunteers and precinct captains. It means money, attention from the press, and the ability to mobilize resources. And I'll bet there will be a lengthy discussion in Republican circles high and low about electability, the same discussion Democrats had in 2004 and 2008 -- and that's a tough argument for someone like Palin to win.
The really successful Republicans are the ones who can unite the establishment and the far right base. Ronald Reagan did this, and so did George W. Bush. John McCain didn't, nor did Bob Dole, nor did George H.W. Bush. I don't know that there's anyone currently thinking about running with the ability to do it. But in the end, being a Tea Party favorite might help you get the nomination, but it won't be absolutely necessary.
-- Paul Waldman
