Romney Claims Victory: Thoughts/Perspective

So I tuned in last night to watch Mitt Romney claim victory after sweeping all five of the primaries that were held last night. His victory of course had been all but certain after Rick Santorum dropped out a couple of weeks ago. But this pretty much marked the start of the general election campaign.

Overall, I thought the speech was decent. Romney is definitely not going to blow anyone away with his delivery. He is not as wooden as Al Gore or as bumbling as G.W.B., but he is definitely not the most exciting man on stage. I was pleased with the content of the speech (My wife sneered at the "A Better America Begins Tonight" theme/title. She felt it was a little too presumptive and pie in the sky. I informed her that is what a Presidential campaign is all about!), and thought that he hit on the right notes by sticking to the economy. Personally I feel that if Romney continues to pound away on the economy and resists getting sucked into pettiness and social issues then he has an excellent chance at becoming our 45th President.

Obama has to run against Romney and has to paint the Republicans as ghouls and Romney as some kind of blue blood richie-rich who wants to rob from the poor and give to the rich. The President cannot really focus on the issues, the tepid recovery, runaway debt, a wildly unpopular health care mandate which he wasted all his political capital on and may or may not be struck down by the Supreme Court. In short Obama has been the President for 3 1/2 years and has nothing to show for, except for failed promises and disappointment (As was duly noted by the former Massachusetts Governor.).

In short I thought Romney hit Obama where he needed too and that is why, out of the extremely weak Republican field, he is absolutely the best candidate to face off with Obama. He can appeal to moderates and stick to an economic message. Something that Rick Santorum proved that he cannot do. The economy is on every ones minds and the vast majority of voters really do not give a shit about abortion or other divisive social issues this time around. And lets face it, most people who are in deep on either side of the abortion issue are not going to going to be switching parties regardless. The important thing is that a moderate to liberal independent who leans conservative on fiscal issues can feel comfortable that a vote for Romney is not going to lead to a massive attack on a woman's right to choose (One of these days I will post about how the culture wars are pretty much over and the Christians lost, but that is for another day.).

Where do we go from here? Well Romney is pretty much going to keep on doing what he has been doing, campaigning, raising money, and hitting hard on economic issues and the President's record. For his part Obama is going to start kicking into campaign gear as we have seen this week with his appearances on Jimmy Fallon (WTF, seriously Jimmy Fallon?! Why would he waste his time on a show that no one watches? Does Jimmy F. have some dirt on the President and he is threatening to go public if Obama doesn't appear on his show? But hey, bully for Fallon, he tripled his audience to 15!). He has also been going around the country this week pandering...errr...pushing to keep interest rates low on student loans. Its probably just a coincidence that recent polls of young people show a devil may care attitude toward the President. A far cry from the hysteria he touched off among that demographic back in 2008. If enthusiasm continues to flag on our nations college campuses look for the President to start promising more giveaways even including, but not limited too, free beer and prostitutes for all students with a 3.5 GPA or higher (At no time in history will there be more serious academic study among jocks and frat boys!).

On the serious side however, we do have a long horse race ahead of us and at this point there is really no telling where this will go. In general the leader at this point in the game wins about half of the time. So we really can't draw much from Obama's average lead of about 3%. I could see Obama eeking out a narrow victory and I could easily see the same thing happening for Romney. There could also be unseen events/factors that turn the race into a blowout on either side, only time will tell. It will be an exciting race and there is no doubt I will post frequently on it during the next six months or so up until election day.

I leave you with this gem...

There are so many things that popped into my mind when I saw this picture. I probably shouldn't write any of them. Feel free to write your own caption in the comments section!