Mitt, Ron, Rick, And Newt: The Pockmarked GOP Class Of 2012

Mitt Romney overlearned his 2008 defeat. He toned down the Mormonism and played up the private sector chops. Mitt Romney would be America’s CEO-In-Chief, he promised. He brought Staples and Sports Authority to a strip-mall near you. Only he understood the nation’s economic woes and how to turn them around.

But the stump speeches fell flat in occupied metropolises across the country. They were merely the over rehearsed boasts from an overly scripted rich man. Romney’s credentials were no longer qualifications but liabilities in the age of the 99%. His $250 million net-worth and 13% tax rate were not a testament to the wonders of capitalism, but a cringing reminder of what ailed it. The bounty of a vulture capitalist who feasted off the road-kill of creative destruction.

In 2008, Romney was vilified for his faith. The base could never elect a Mormon. Romney had the economic chops and in spades. But they wanted someone more traditional. More established. They wanted John McCain.

In 2012, Romney is vilified for his wealth. The Romneycare jabs hurt him, but they didn’t stick. His faith is left alone. Sneered at in smoky backrooms, perhaps, but not publicly. The base wants Romney. He is the only “electable” option. He bided his time. Paid his dues. He alone has the economic credentials and private sector acumen to oust President Obama. But the Tea Party could never elect such a multimillionaire.

Instead, the Tea Party scoops up a new Republican candidate flavor of the month. An anti-Mitt Romney. First Donald Trump, then Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, then Newt Gingrich. Each enjoyed their time in the Fox News-powered sun before melting away to reality TV aspirations, false mental retardation claims, debate tongue-twisting/racist-named geological formations, sexual harassment allegations, and “loose cannon” fears, respectively.

And now there’s Rick Santorum. Not the Tea Party’s first choice. Or third. Or fifth. But it is getting late, a week away from Super Tuesday, and he is still there. Rick Santorum is not a suave debater. Nor is he a prolific fundraiser. But he is a sweater-vested, God-fearing man from a battleground state. He is Newt Gingrich without all the baggage. More importantly, he is not Mitt Romney.

And so long as nightly news broadcasts lead with birth control instead of jobless claims, the Santorum Surge will continue. As the unemployment rate ebbs and the Dow dances around 13,000, The Right’s Cultural Warrior will gain ground on the CEO-In-Chief.

Rick Santorum may not be the Tea Party’s Mr. Right, but he’s Mr. Right Now. And the more the Tea Party looked, the more they found they could like. Rick Santorum doesn’t believe in the “absolute” separation of church state. He disdains man-made global warming as “junk science.” He shares their disdain for intellectualism. He blasted President Obama as a “snob” for encouraging all Americans to go to college. Rick Santorum, in short, was someone Tea Partiers could bring home to the parents.

The election should have been a gimme: 8% unemployment, Obamneycare, A stimulus that didn’t really stimulate. The blood was in the water, but the Republicans devoured themselves.

Jeb Bush can’t watch anymore. John McCain wishes the debates would just stop. Party elders listen for Mitch Daniels or Chris Christie to gallop in in the eleventh hour. But all they hear is Newt Gingrich ramble on about moon colonies. Mitt Romney’s riff on his wife’s two Cadillacs. And they don’t clap their hands but their foreheads: Is this really the best we have?

The 2008 Democratic debates vetted President Obama. They shortened the professor’s lectures, outed the Reverend Wrights from his closet. By the time Hillary Clinton was done with him, Obama was a battle-tested warrior ready to deflect whatever barbs Republicans heaved his way.

But the 2012 Republican debates haven’t hardened the candidates; they have just fossilized them. They’ve turned the party back to a Jurassic age of American isolationism and anti-intellectualism. To an era where international experience and belief in man-made global warming are blasphemy (See: Huntsman, Jon). Where knowing a foreign language is not a sign of sophistication but fatalistic elitism (See: Romney, Mitt).

And so the Republican soul-search continues, tugged between the passion of the Tea Party and the order of the base. Still lost in the wilderness of White Appalachia. The party of Ronald Reagan of yester-year that would not elect Ronald Reagan today. The party still paled from President George W. Bush’s shadow. And now a party, as much as they may resist, that is resigned to Mitt Romney: a man of the private sector with no public skill. A man who will bring not Change but $5 dollar bills to a diner near you.