I've been saying this to my friends and family for almost a year now, but I mentioned it in passing in one of my last posts, so I thought I would try and sew up the issue once and for all.
Romney is not going to win in November. Yes, I know how absolutely obnoxious it sounds to try and predict an election but I'm really willing to take bets at this point. It's not that Obama is going to beat Mitt Romney, it's that Romney is not able to win and has already defeated himself with his record, comments, demeanor and the way Americans perceive him.
Romney will always be perceived, for good reason, as an almost comical exemplar of an out of touch rich person. Despite his efforts to appear relatable, he has always done the opposite, whether it was bragging about forcing Ted Kennedy to mortgage one of his homes, raving about how much he enjoys "cheesy grits" in a move that even his supporters saw as phony pandering, claiming that his speaking fees of over $300,000 were modest, or saying that he didn't follow Nascar but knew several team owners personally. He is also a Mormon (I know this matter has been beaten to death, and there is obviously nothing wrong with being Mormon) and many Christians will not vote for him simply because of this fact. Romney is also incredibly stiff and boring. George Bush was born into money, but he at least had that Texas swagger and was, ironically, great at connecting with voters to the point where people actually voted for him based on the fantasy that they could sit down and have a beer with him. I don't think many voters could imagine or would even want to go to a bar with Romney. It would just feel weird somehow. These things should not matter at all when people decide how to vote but they sadly do. Romney also fell into another perceived exemplar of the rich-Wall-Street-fat-cat-that-fired-your-dad during his time at Bane Capital: a company that basically bought up other dying companies and then gutted them for profit (the popular picture of him making it rain with his colleagues doesn't help either).
Romney has also changed his positions many times and it is way too easy to find long YouTube clips of him supporting a woman's right to choose, supporting availability of contraception, supporting stricter government regulations on corporations, and all other sorts of things Republican voters find disgusting and uncharacteristic of a true conservative. A Republican politician even made a joke recently about how it is easy to like Romney because he has probably been on your side at some point. The fact that he passed universal health care in Massachusetts has also been beaten to death by the media, but is nevertheless valid. No matter how much Romney tries to avoid the topic, the idea and the irony of him passing a bill that exceeded the original aspirations of what people now pejoratively call Obamacare while simultaneously denouncing the health care bill will continue to surface repeatedly during debates and further interviews.
It was very painfully clear that Republicans were never excited about him from the beginning of his campaign and desperately wanted someone else as the nominee. However, whenever someone interesting or consistently conservative did emerge, they were always a disappointment and said just a few too many stupid things whether it was quoting Pokémon, claiming that vaccinations caused mental retardation, saying "oops" on national television, etc. I have to ask: Don't you actually have to like a candidate from the beginning for him to be president? I'll pile it on further by pointing out that Santorum isn't even going to support Romney, adding more insult to the fact that the guy who's last name was predominantly synonymous with leftovers from fudge packing actually managed to compete with Romney.
Now the time has come where Republicans will have to rally behind Mitt Romney: the guy they never wanted in the first place but are willing to settle for since the idea of doing nothing to stop Obama from winning is even more nauseating than voting for Romney. To sum things up, if you really think Romney can win, it might be better to just save your energy and wait another four years.