Republicans Unite Around Mitt Romney

The Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida winds up soon as the party rallies around Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, Republican nominees for the US Presidency.

Ironically, the Republicans seem obsessed with convincing America that Mitt Romney is a really good guy. That won't be hard since Romney is one of the most hard working, friendly, and sincere folks you'll find in the political spectrum.   From a strategic point of view it seems to me they'd do better to focus on his political abilities.    Obama's got the clear edge both in polling and in the advantages inherent with incumbency, so one would think the strategists would be looking for harder hitting, more powerful talking points.

That said, personalizing Romney may be important to his campaign as Obama's also got the clear edge as an appealing personality.

... more soon as Romney is about to speak ...

Romney or Bachman or ? for the Republican Nomination

As the debt ceiling / US budget theatrics continue in Washington (prediction - compromises coming in a few days to avert an S&P downgrade) , the race for the Republican presidential nomination continues in a somewhat lackluster fashion with several potential candidates on the sidelines waiting to see if they can muster enough support to throw their hat into the ring.

However Republicans must be concerned that none of the current crop appear likely to defeat Obama unless the economy suffers significantly greater setbacks in the next year. It's alarming to think that some radical Republicans may have this scenario in mind as they continue to stall on budget compromises and raising the debt ceiling, hoping to harm the economy enough to defeat Obama but not enough to send us into a tailspin. That calculation would not only be unpatriotic, it would be potentially disastrous for the country.

The current best bet appears to be that Mitt Romney will sort of plod into the Republican nomination with Michelle Bachmann pulling in the Tea Party folks, leaving moderate Republicans a choice between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney who are polling about equally in scenarios where Perry's in the ring (he has not announced yet but is very likely to do so if his numbers stay as high as now. RealClearPolitics has Romney at 18%, Perry at 17% in a race where all the strong potential candidates are placed in the ring. With only *announced* candidates, Romney's in a strong lead at 27% with Bachmann second with 18% , Ron Paul third with 11%.

Look for Palin to stay out of the race and hope for a VP spot on the likely Romney or Perry ticket. Look for Bachmann to *get* the VP spot on the Romney or Perry ticket, giving the Republicans a similar strategy to McCain / Palin but with much stronger candidates on the ticket.

In our view Obama's still in the driver's seat with respect to the 2012 election. Barring a serious economic setback, Americans are unlikely to want yet another major "change" in the White House so soon. Obama's kept his core constituency happy with only modest levels of alienation of those on the far left who naively felt Obama as President would act very consistently with Obama as young Chicago organizer. We're likely to see more liberal "progressive" politics from Obama in a second term, but it's clear that President Obama will continue to keep moderate democrats fairly happy while he continues to alienate the far left and right. It's a great political strategy and it won't change for the 2012 election.

Republican Convention Plans Change

On the Eve of Hurricane Gustav's landfall near New Orleans the Republicans have changed Convention plans though the details appear to remain fluid. President Bush and VP Cheney will not appear tomorrow in Minneapolis as planned, and other major speakers like the Governor of Louisiana will not be in attendance either.

The latest reports suggest the convention may only last one day, Presumably to nominate John McCain, and then be postponed to another date. Strategically this may actually have the advantage of giving the Republicans a monster event with monster media coverage much closer to the election than is usual.

Gustav is about to bring flooding and high wind to the Mississipi and Louisiana coastlines and the convention would have been both interrupted for Hurricane news and have been a conspicuous "celebration" in the midst of potentially another major storm tragedy for the Gulf Coast.