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Why conventional wisdom is wrong

smb

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Conventional wisdom states that a quick nomination win by Romney is good for both the Republicans and Romney and bad for the Democrats and Obama. This could not be further from the truth. If recent elections have told us anything it is that hard primary fights for a non-encumbant are good for the resulting party and candidate. Hard fought primaries for an incumbent candidate are usually fatal. I believe there are several reasons for this.

1. Hard fought primaries air all the dirty laundry for a candidate.

The examples of this are many but I will just name a few. W's service in a champagne squadron during Vietnam. Obama's conection to Bill Ayers. Reagan's abortion reversal.

The opposite is equally true for candidates that win quick nominations, Al Gore being the prime example.

2. Hard fought primaries prepare proper innoculations against a candidates weak spots. Most notably being Reagans intelligence (or lack thereof) and Obama's inexperience.

3. Hard fought primaries make a better candidate overall. This is simply because practice makes perfect. Think of the primaries as the minor leagues. The better the competition the better your skills have to become to move onto the next level. The worse your competetion is the less you have to hone your skills and if you do get called up you do not have the proper skills to compete.

4. The reported disadvantages of party disunity are way over blown. Case and point Obama and the fictitious PUMA's. People stay at home with parties by and large unless a candidate with a particular charisma comes along. This is almost never the case.

So with all this being said...I think Republicans should be cheering for a long drawn out primary and Democrats should wish for a quick finish for Romney in South Carolina.
 
It makes sense in some ways, but in this case it's hardly like Romney is untested, or an unkown commodity. He ran four years ago. He's run for other big offices. He's been campaigning seemingly forever.
 
It makes sense in some ways, but in this case it's hardly like Romney is untested, or an unkown commodity. He ran four years ago. He's run for other big offices. He's been campaigning seemingly forever.

I understand that this is the way it seems but the intense daily pressure of a hotly contested national election is different. I would say that his run four years ago helped immeasurably this time. While he seems to be known commodity there are a lot of things that come out while under pressure or intense scrutiny. If that intense scrutiny isn't during the primary it will be during the general election and by then the cracks are usually too big to cover up.
 
I understand that this is the way it seems but the intense daily pressure of a hotly contested national election is different. I would say that his run four years ago helped immeasurably this time. While he seems to be known commodity there are a lot of things that come out while under pressure or intense scrutiny. If that intense scrutiny isn't during the primary it will be during the general election and by then the cracks are usually too big to cover up.

Yeah, I do think there's something in it. The bigger aspect, to me, is that people will just get bored with the flaws and not care so much about them. Sort of like Cain's affair was a huge deal breaker because people just learned about it, while Gingrich's multiple affairs are old news.
 
The fact that he has come out so clearly as the front runner so early can only mean that all of the others will combine to focus more on him than each other.
 
The fact that he has come out so clearly as the front runner so early can only mean that all of the others will combine to focus more on him than each other.

And that comes out as a bonus to him. While he can successully start campaigning against Obama, the other GOP candidates are forced to campaign against Romney. This does two things against the GOP. Number one, it makes all the other GOP candidates look like the bad guys for not campaigning on what they can do only smearing Romney. Number two, The attacks against Romney gives the Dems fuel to use against Romney.

Romney will be the pick of the GOP IMO and it will be the GOP demise of the election giving Obama 4 more years.
 
Conventional wisdom states that a quick nomination win by Romney is good for both the Republicans and Romney and bad for the Democrats and Obama. This could not be further from the truth. If recent elections have told us anything it is that hard primary fights for a non-encumbant are good for the resulting party and candidate. Hard fought primaries for an incumbent candidate are usually fatal. I believe there are several reasons for this.

1. Hard fought primaries air all the dirty laundry for a candidate.

The examples of this are many but I will just name a few. W's service in a champagne squadron during Vietnam. Obama's conection to Bill Ayers. Reagan's abortion reversal.

The opposite is equally true for candidates that win quick nominations, Al Gore being the prime example.

2. Hard fought primaries prepare proper innoculations against a candidates weak spots. Most notably being Reagans intelligence (or lack thereof) and Obama's inexperience.

3. Hard fought primaries make a better candidate overall. This is simply because practice makes perfect. Think of the primaries as the minor leagues. The better the competition the better your skills have to become to move onto the next level. The worse your competetion is the less you have to hone your skills and if you do get called up you do not have the proper skills to compete.

4. The reported disadvantages of party disunity are way over blown. Case and point Obama and the fictitious PUMA's. People stay at home with parties by and large unless a candidate with a particular charisma comes along. This is almost never the case.

So with all this being said...I think Republicans should be cheering for a long drawn out primary and Democrats should wish for a quick finish for Romney in South Carolina.

Very well put!
 
"Smb's" assertions were probably more relevant for the 2008 Presidential Campaign, when there is no incumbent from either party - that way the political negativity directed against the 2 survivors of the nomination process tends to cancel itself out.

When there is already an incumbent president, media attention shifts to the opposing party, and the political fallout from negative campaigning between rivals tends to become the focus of national attention.

There is also a significant difference between high-spirited, hard fought campaigns, and ones that become truly nasty. Such was the case during the 2000 South Carolina Republican Primary between Bush and McCain, which could be referred to as the "mother" of all smears.

Recently, Romney's PAC media campaign in Iowa certainly did a "hatchet job" on Gingrich, who now appears bound and determined to return the favor!

At this stage with it becoming Romney's campaign to lose, a "bar-room brawl" between him and any other GOP candidate doesn't do Mitch, or the Republican Party, any favors.
 
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The libs in the media are pushing for Romney, thus it's a mistake on the part of the republican party to make him their guy.
 
The Republican party has made him their guy twice now. Are they being tricked by the librul media which they know is librul, Or do they think he's the most likely candidate to win for them?
 
Conventional wisdom states that a quick nomination win by Romney is good for both the Republicans and Romney and bad for the Democrats and Obama. This could not be further from the truth. If recent elections have told us anything it is that hard primary fights for a non-encumbant are good for the resulting party and candidate. Hard fought primaries for an incumbent candidate are usually fatal. I believe there are several reasons for this.

1. Hard fought primaries air all the dirty laundry for a candidate.

The examples of this are many but I will just name a few. W's service in a champagne squadron during Vietnam. Obama's conection to Bill Ayers. Reagan's abortion reversal.

The opposite is equally true for candidates that win quick nominations, Al Gore being the prime example.

2. Hard fought primaries prepare proper innoculations against a candidates weak spots. Most notably being Reagans intelligence (or lack thereof) and Obama's inexperience.

3. Hard fought primaries make a better candidate overall. This is simply because practice makes perfect. Think of the primaries as the minor leagues. The better the competition the better your skills have to become to move onto the next level. The worse your competetion is the less you have to hone your skills and if you do get called up you do not have the proper skills to compete.

4. The reported disadvantages of party disunity are way over blown. Case and point Obama and the fictitious PUMA's. People stay at home with parties by and large unless a candidate with a particular charisma comes along. This is almost never the case.

So with all this being said...I think Republicans should be cheering for a long drawn out primary and Democrats should wish for a quick finish for Romney in South Carolina.

Excellent points. However, there is much to be said getting Republicans on tape making the charges. It is far more powerful in swaying the independent for Obama to show a tape of a Republican making a searing point against Romney than an anonymous surrogate. For that reason, let this play on.
 
Every time election season comes around, it makes me think less of the American people. Americans are TERRIBLE at picking candidates these days.

We're going to end up with a choice of Romney vs Obama.

I personally will not be voting. I refuse to be part of the reason this country is going down the tubes.
 
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