Erick Erickson Actually Has a Point
by David Atkins
Via John Cole, this may be the first time I give Erick Erickson at RedState credit for an intelligent comment:
When you have a candidate few people really like, whose support is a mile wide and an inch deep, whose raison d’etre (a 4am fancy word) is fixing an economy that is fixing itself without him, and who only wins his actual, factual home state by three percentage points against a guy no one took seriously only two months ago, there really is little reason for independent voters in the general election to choose him if the economy keeps improving.
Seriously, putting it bluntly, conservatives may not like Barack Obama, but most other people do. And when faced with a guy you like and a guy you don’t like who says he can fix an economy that no longer needs fixing, you’re going to go with the guy you like.
Of course, Mr. Erickson quickly steps back into idiot mode by begging Bobby Jindal to get into the race. Yeah, right.
But about Romney, he’s spot on. Willard is seriously damaged goods at this point, and he doesn’t have much of a rationale behind his campaign as the economy continues to improve. At least with Santorum the GOP can play a hardline base strategy, which has at least an outside chance of success.
Keep in mind that the Obama team hasn’t even really started to hit Romney yet in a serious way. So far, Romney has had a very weak glass jaw and an inability to close the deal with voters. The only way he’s been able to cling to a lead is by outspending his rivals by massive margins, often while getting help from the rest of the field to attack his nearest rival. The Obama campaign, by contrast, will likely outspend Romney, and he won’t have a lot of help from his flank. Things could get very ugly, very fast for him if he does limp forward into the convention.
Combine that with a House and Senate picture that is looking rosier for Democrats with each passing week, and it could be a very ugly 2012 for the GOP.
And that in turn could lead an already fractured Republican Party and conservative establishment to move to all-out civil war footing.
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