I’ll have more to say about Romney’s choice not to run for president (and why it is a loss) later on, but right now, I would like to take on the idea that Romney’s running would have resulted in either Romney getting the nomination as a weakened candidate, or a Romney candidacy weakening whoever else emerged as the Republican nominee.
Implicit in that argument is the suggestion that Romney lost in 2012 partly as a result of the tough primary season. This is nonsense. Obama in 2008 faced a far more formidable primary opponent than anyone Romney faced in the 2012 cycle. That didn’t stop Obama from decisively winning the general election. Republicans lost twenty-five out of thirty-three Senate races in 2012. Was that because of the Republican presidential primary contest, or was that because Republicans (Romney as well as the senatorial candidates) had an agenda and message problem?
Let’s stop the whining about the tough 2012 primary season. Romney lost for two major reasons. The most important reason was that circumstances outside of Romney’s control were modestly unfavorable. During the 2012 general election season, Obama’s Real Clear Politics job approval ratings almost perfectly mirrored those of George W. Bush in 2004. Both presidents were reelected to second terms. The second reason (which was less important but also under Romney control) was Romney’s lack of a middle-class agenda and Romney’s failure (which was also the institutional Republican party’s failure) to imagine that an agenda and a rhetorical strategy built around the “job creators” who “built that” had too little appeal under the circumstances of 2012. Those problems would have been there even if nobody had opposed Romney for the Republican nomination.