Donald Trump & Mitt Romney -- Electable or Not, He’s Angry, and His Supporters Like That

Mitt Romney campaigns in Ohio, October 2012. (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

In 2012, Mitt Romney won the GOP primaries largely because Republican voters believed that he had the best chance of beating Barack Obama. Yes, there were conservatives who were convinced that nominating either of Romney’s competitors would motivate the base enough to cover for the loss of potential swing voters, but they failed to make their case. Romney won in January, February, and March because Republicans believed he would win in November.

Don’t believe me? The exit polls don’t lie:

Throughout the campaign, Republican primary voters made it clear that they were looking for a candidate who could defeat President Obama in November; it was the top candidate quality in all states where exit polls were conducted. Voters who picked this quality backed Romney in every state except South Carolina and Georgia, where those electability voters supported Newt Gingrich, who won both states. [Emphasis added.]

By now, everyone knows the rest of the story. Over the course of one brutal summer, the Democrats transformed Mitt Romney — a generous, successful businessman with a long record of good works — into a greedy plutocrat so depraved that basically he killed a woman. He was worse than Gordon Gekko. They took one of his core strengths, an extraordinary business career, and turned it into his chief liability. His résumé, which helped him win the GOP nomination, became his indictment.

The “electable” candidate lost. And even worse, GOP voters didn’t perceive that he truly fought back. Somewhat unfairly, millions of Republicans believe that Mitt “let” Obama slander him and that a far more aggressive approach would have worked. They point to his high-water mark, the first presidential debate, and wonder where that version of Mitt was the rest of the race. In the end, according to this narrative, electability is meaningless without aggression.

So where are we now? If Republicans still cared about electability, Marco Rubio would be running away with the nomination. In Iowa and South Carolina, for example, he won voters who put “can win in November” as the “top quality” in a candidate by 20 and 26 points, respectively. In New Hampshire, only 12 percent of voters listed “win in November” as their top candidate priority, well behind “tells it like it is,” “brings needed change,” and “shares my values.” In Nevada, 60 percent of GOP voters said they were looking for someone from “outside politics.”

Writing in the Washington Post, Philip Bump put it well:

This is an electorate that does not care about what it is supposed to do. Voters who decided later, those who took their time and considered the candidates, one would assume, went more heavily for Marco Rubio than Trump. It’s one of the few groups he [Trump] lost. But the people who’ve been mad at politics for a long time and decided weeks ago who they were going to back? More than half backed Trump. [Emphasis in original.]

In Mitt Romney, the Democrats created a fake Gordon Gekko. Now, the GOP looks set to nominate the real thing. It’s all about the battle.

#share#If there is a common thread to the 2016 nomination fight, it’s that all too many Republican voters have responded to their understandable and justified anger (in this case, the apparent ease with which the Democrats slandered a good man) by channeling that anger in the most destructive way possible.

This could have been the election in which the GOP circled its wagons around a combination of character and conviction. In other words, rather than engaging in futile guesses about electability, choose the person with the core political and personal values you most respect and then fight like hell against the inevitable Democratic onslaught. This is the Ted Cruz argument — this time, don’t compromise one inch on conservatism. Instead, fight for your principles and win through inspiration and motivation. Rubio makes a version of this argument as well (for example, when he states that he’d rather lose an election that compromise on his pro-life principles), though he also is making the classic GOP electability play — the argument that a combination of biography, manner, and message will expand the GOP tent.

#related#Yet increasing numbers of GOP voters are rejecting character and conviction for sheer aggression. No one doubts that aggression can be satisfying, but aggression isn’t a governing principle. It’s a tactic. While Trump’s aggression serves some policies that conservatives support (like border security), it also serves Planned Parenthood, the individual mandate, and Vladimir Putin. Ultimately, Trump’s aggression serves Trump. Self-aggrandizement may be the spirit of our age, but it should never be the spirit of our movement. It is time to fight, but for the sake of conviction, not for the sake of the fight itself.