At White House political meetings, strategists worry most about facing Mitt Romney in next year’s presidential election and most of the planning is going into ways to blunt the former Massachusetts governor’s march to the GOP nomination.
“We had hoped Rick Perry could derail the Romney express,” says one White House insider, who asked not to be identified. “So much for that plan.”
Despite former Godfather CEO Herman Cain‘s rise to the top tier of Republican presidential contenders, Obama‘s political pros don’t consider him a serious threat to either Romney or the president.
“Cain will fade,” says political strategist Allen Schumer. ” He can’t stand the glare of national scrutiny.”
So the Obama political machine continues to concentrate on Romney. Some hope Perry will hurt Romney in a long and protracted primary season. Others are urging Obama to abandon his drift to the left and want him to return to the political center to blunt Romney’s moderate appeal to voters.
Still, polls show Obama in trouble with a number of key constituencies, including independents, moderates, Hispanics and even blacks.
“Obama’s one consistency has been his ability to alienate key areas of his base,” says GOP political consultant Gerald Banks. “That is his biggest problem.”
Unless Romney self-destructs, White House insiders see him as the GOP nominee and that’s the scenario Obama’s team did not want to face.
“If Romney is the Republican nominee, it’s a nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue,” says one worried White House strategist. “It is not what we need to give the president a second term.”
10 thoughts on “Obama’s nightmare: Romney as the GOP nominee”
Obama called anti-business by CEO’s of Intel, GE, and 3M. 4 more years of him strangling the economy will destroy what is left of this country. What we need is a business guy. Romney has my vote.
If Romney gets the nod, all Obama has to do is thank him in every speech, whistle stop, baby kissing event, etc., for leading the way to a national health insurance plan.
And then offer him a sixpack of Polygamy Porter: Take one home for the wives.
I love this one. Romney flip flops so much, he may trade the White House to another country. It will be hard for him to get the GOP nomination since even the GOP does not know where he stands on platform issues.
I don’t think you’ll hear any pundits say this, and you certainly won’t hear any of Obama’s people say it. I think the White House is confident that Obama can beat any Republican, and that includes Romney for the reasons stated above.
Incumbents never act overly confident about their re-election chances no matter he’ll be no exception even if the polls say he’s got it locked the weekend before election day.
Obama in particular knows that if there’s any perception worse than his being an uppity n-word to prompt lazy racists to come out of their holes to vote against him on election day, it would be to come across as a overly confident (read as “cocky”)and uppity n-word.
He will win because the only GOP candidate that might beat him is John Huntsman, and unless everyone else self-destructs he won’t make it through the primaries.
Romney is an unethical shape-shifter who will say and do anything he thinks will win him the nomination. That is why he is so disliked by so many Republicans because they know quite well that he has no core of values. His disavowals of almost everything he has supported in the past provide ammunition for even GOP rivals for the party’s nomination, not to mention the general election.
Republicans are having nightmares about Romney too. That is why Perry zoomed to the lead when he entered the Republican primary, before anyone outside of Texas knew anything about him, and Herman Cain is now leading Romney in national polls. The point is not that Herman Cain is a credible alternative to Romney, but that Republicans are desperately searching for an alternative to Romney.
Romney makes Obama look principled.
I think this story is planted.
Romney is a flip flopper extraordinaire, is not a “true Christian” who will get the evangelical vote out, and is the originator of Obamacare. Not to mention the fact that he’s a former private equity manager — you know he IS Wall Street (via Boston).
If I’m on Obama’s team, I’m HOPING he gets nominated. I can just replay the tape of Romney saying “Corporations are people” time after time, interspersed with videos of his flip flops on abortion and the health care mandate and a discussion of his ties to all the Wall Street firms who were saved by taxpayer bail outs.
Great analysis brian along with how you’ve gamed out a Romney vs. Obama campaign.
Romney will be the perfect duopolist fall guy to ensure that Obama gets another term regardless of Obama’s shufflebutt performance to date.
No matter, if either one of thse corporate shills ends up in the White House in January 2013, America is still doomed. Both parties report to the same corporate overseers through their lobbyist fronts.
Carl Nemo **==
Obama is afraid of running against the only GOP nominee most like himself?
It at least ensures Americans will have no choice other than racial identity. That’s probably the way “they” want it. The race card is always an easy to divide and conquer us.
America’s nightmare…
Comments are closed.