The Hard Goodbye
Posted at 6:35pm on Feb. 7, 2008 Mitt, We Hardly Knew Thee
We love you Mittens Kthxbai
By Ben Domenech
We can all agree on this at least: we are sad to see how things turned out for Mitt Romney, but respect his speech today at CPAC, which serves as a sign of what might have been, in some alternate American universe. Josh Trevino's take, though, is acidic and accurate:
In the run-up to, and aftermath of, the shocking Huckabee victory in Iowa, the Romney-aligned media responded to the overreaction within the Romney campaign itself by going nuclear against the Arkansan. This was a critical error, especially as there was some chance that Romney could have made signifiant inroads into the Huckabee base — see, for example, the Florida exits breakdown I analyzed, in which Romney actually won social conservatives in meaningful numbers.
Instead of paying respect to Huckabee and his message, Romney’s media surrogates delivered a contemptuous broadside, in effect saying: “You support an ignorant cretin, and you are yourselves rubes who like God too much — and we suspect many of you are bigots — but Mitt Romney is on your side!” Political scientists will doubtless labor for years to come trying to figure out why this didn’t work.
I know I speak for all the RS Directors when I say that we wish Mitt all the best in his future endeavors.
