Mitt's Problem?

Carol Platt Liebau has always been one of my favorite writers in the TownHall.com stable of writers.  Her post South Carolina analysis today though, almost (but not quite) hits the real lesson of South Carolina.

There's no doubt that South Carolina was a setback for Mitt Romney.  But setbacks can be opportunities, too, and if his campaign is smart, the clear South Carolina defeat will serve as a learning opportunity that will make Romney better able to move forward and engender support among all parts of the Republican Party.
This piece in the Washington Post is revealing.  It's clear that some members of the GOP are struggling with Romney's style -- they want someone "meaner" to take on Barack Obama.

There is no doubt, the 2012 campaign is going to be scorched earth.  The Obama Campaign has already promised it.  A "nice guy" is going to end up getting his a$$ handed to him really fast.

Romney IS mild-mannered when the country is angry, and that's a problem.  It makes a lot of people think he either cannot understand their problems, or else doesn't care about them.  It makes them wonder if his relatively privileged life has left him too soft to do what it takes to oust Barack Obama.  And it makes him seem too eager to be liked -- as if he's running for student body president instead of President of the United States in a time of crisis -- and that makes him seem weak (although I suspect that's hardly the case).

In contrast, Gingrich seems angry (even when he's actually  not), and it helps him.  It gives voters something to cheer for, and provides him with the aura of a "fighter" at a time when people want a fight. It leads them to believe he is tough enough to make tough, even unpopular, decisions at a time when they're going to be necessary to get the country back on track.  And it makes him come across as more of a conservative (even though he has about as many conservative apostasies as Romney) because, people figure, the angrier one is at Obama's America, the more conservative one must be.

Here is where Ms. Liebau misses the point.  The voters don't want angry - they want a fighter - someone who will stand up and FIGHT for conservatism.  Jay Cost, writing at the Weekly Standard gets it...

Conservatives are very frustrated, and rightfully so. Their feeling is that they play by the rules – they work hard, pay their taxes, raise their kids right – but what do they get for it? Their values are mocked on television and the movies, the media castigates them as a bunch of extremists, they pay taxes while half of the country does not, and the Obama administration took to demagoguing them virtually from day one of his tenure. I know of what I speak – a few months back I was driving down the road and saw a sign in front of a business lamenting, “Where is the America I grew up in?” ...This explains why they are excited about the prospect of an Obama-Gingrich debate. They love the thought of someone finally standing in front of Obama and saying, “How dare you, sir!”

They want someone who is going to fight back against the attacks from the media, the left (pardon the redundancy) and the left wing super PAC's like MoveOn.org.  The voters want someone to stand up and say "that is not what we proposed and you know it" when the ads showing a Paul Ryan look-alike pushing granny off of a cliff are shown.  They want someone who, when the talking point meme du jour is spouted can respond "there you go again" and roll right into what he really said.

If Romney wants to win hearts as well as minds in the Republican Party, he may need to tap into his angry side -- not with the kind of "I don't appreciate your challenging my integrity" (to paraphrase his comments at Thursday's debate) -- but with real force, both against Gingrich (who has done little for the conservative cause since 1995 but plenty to aggrandize himself) and against Barack Obama for effectively trying to turn the USA into a second-rate country.

Playing by the Marquis of Queensbury rules won't work running against the Obama Machine.  Just ask John McCain.

And it seems counterintuitive, but he may need to embrace an image of himself as a tough guy who cut companies when they needed it -- and will cut waste in the US government the same kind of way.  Some of Romney's "niceness" may have been a preemptive response to the forthcoming attacks from the Obama campaign about how he doesn't care for "regular books."  But what he needs to do is channel a little less of George H.W. Bush's patrician manners, and channel a whole lot more of Chris Christie's "hell, yes, I made the tough calls and it was the right thing to do" persona . . . if he can.

And this IS ultimately where Ms. Liebau has it right.  The GOP electorate wants someone who will not be cowed by the lies and the slander from the left and the media (pardon the redundancy).  They want someone who will stand up for their beliefs and not back away from the challenges to those beliefs.

Presidential campaigns are not for the timid - we were reminded of that in 2008.  We are faced with two stark ideological choices and the clearer those lines are drawn, the better things will be for the candidates.  If you can't do that, the voters will walk away from you.

Draw a clear, coherent conservative message and the voters in this center right nation WILL flock to you.  It's that simple.