JACK FROM MANHATTAN: Why “Electability” Is No Reason to Cast a Vote

Jack attends Columbia University. Follow him @talkradio200 -Source: Billy Hathorn at en.wikipedia

We keep hearing about why Governor Mitt Romney is the inevitable Republican presidential nominee because he is the only one who is “electable.” In the minds of some of his supporters, we should roll over, shut up, and accept him because he’s the only one who “can win”.

We have to keep in mind, however, that “electability” is a bit of a rouse because it cannot be defined objectively. The most commonly-cited reason that people give for Romney’s “electability” is that he can appeal to moderates.

My response to this would be, “Why?” What is it about Romney that makes him appeal to moderates better than all the other candidates? Is it that Romney is viewed as a moderate himself and not one of those nasty conservatives who scare moderates? Is it because he got elected in the Northeast? The first implies that conservatives are narrow-minded and unappealing, which is the liberal argument. The second, if true, means that the unelectable Rick Santorum needs a second look (which he is currently getting, but not for that reason).

I’d like to take a few moments to dispel this idea of nominating a candidate on the premise of “electability.” The first thing to keep in mind is that this whole notion of electability is given to us by the Left, which is reason enough to dismiss it.

Mitt Romney by Gage Skidmore

But, let us look at what is meant by “electability.” When liberals say that Romney is electable, what they are saying is that he’s a moderate who doesn’t scare independents and centrists. By the same token, he’s not a real conservative and doesn’t inspire people to run to the polls for him either. The Left knows that Romney turns off Tea Party voters because of his record in Massachusetts, his continued flip flopping, his seeming lack of core convictions, his wishy-washy attacks on Obama (refusing to say he’s a socialist and prefacing criticism by saying “he means well”), and his trying to spin being in the private sector by glossing over losing to Ted Kennedy in the Senate and then not running for re-election in 2006. The reason that Romney didn’t run for re-election is because his approval rating was in the 30’s. The reason he was in the private sector is because he lost elections (which is one of the raps on Rick Santorum and Herman Cain).

The most insulting thing to conservatives about this argument is that it says that conservatism and electability are mutually exclusive. History says otherwise. Ronald Reagan, the standard bearer of modern conservatism, was unelectable. He was too conservative, a reactionary, and a deluded old fool who would bring about a nuclear war.

Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library

Of course he won two back-to-back landslides (44 and 49 states, respectively), and he did it, not by being a moderate, or seizing the center. No, on the contrary, Reagan did what Mark Steyn best describes. As Steyn points out, Reagan did not win by moving to the center. Rather, he moved the center towards him. That, Steyn says, is why Reagan was great. He knew how to speak to independents and centrists without losing his principles in the mix. He was a conservative who could move the center.

Romney has no such record. Candidates who have had success doing this are the unelectable Rick Santorum (in Pennsylvania, every bit as blue as Massachusetts, where he was successful in doing it four times) and the unelectable Michele Bachmann (in Minnesota, also every bit as blue as Massachusetts, where she was successful in doing it three times).

Bachmann and Santorum both have records of winning as conservatives in blue states, while Romney lost after running to the left of Ted Kennedy. He won in 2002, sure enough, but he did not attempt to run for a second term. If he was so electable, why not run again on his record, which he touts as why we should vote for him now?

Bachmann and Santorum, by winning elections in blue states as conservatives, did that time-tested principle of moving the center towards them. Isn’t that what we’re told we need in order to win the White House? Bachmann is out of the race, but Santorum is still in the running, making his case to America, and we should hear him out.

John McCain

Another reason to challenge Romney’s electability is the fact that among his endorsers are John McCain, Bob Dole, and George Bush Sr. These three individuals all have two things in common: 1) they are all moderates, who were nominated to appease GOP establishment-types who are embarrassed by conservatives, and 2) the most important point, they all lost in the general election.

It’s not comforting that Romney is being pushed by Republicans who lost in the general election for the same reason that a lot of people use to defend Romney now. If a moderate is what we need, why did all three of the previous moderate Republicans lose?

On the flip side, the conservatives, Reagan and George Bush 43, won in the general after people worried that they were too conservative to be electable. Conservative voters are not going to be persuaded by previous losers.

What’s more is that conservatives are not going to be persuaded by arguing that Romney should be the nominee because he can win. Aside from Ann Coulter, none of Romney’s supporters are arguing that he is the most conservative candidate. In their minds, it seems based on their arguments; conservatism and electability are mutually exclusive. Reagan, Bush 43, and multiple Tea Party candidates in 2010 shoot that theory to pieces.

In a year that liberalism is on trial for destroying the economy, undermining free enterprise, and nearly bankrupting the nation in one term, we should not have to settle for the “electable” candidate. We have had plenty of conservatives in the race who made their case (Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and now Santorum), only to be told they can’t win.

Pardon me, but that doesn’t sound like something we can measure until they lose the election, which is my other objection to the use of “electability” as a standard by which to judge candidates. We took people whose conservatism is not in question and cast them aside because they are “extreme” and “can’t win”, which is how we ended up with John McCain, who campaigned like a typical moderate, a wuss who went down to defeat. This is why so many conservatives have a big problem with Romney.

As we’ve seen, Romney will fight Newt Gingrich harder than he will fight Obama. When he sends surrogates out to call Newt Gingrich a Marxist while refusing to call Obama a Socialist, it frightens conservatives. The enthusiasm gap that he has should take any air out of the “electability” argument.

There are those candidates who people would run to vote for (Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Ron Paul) and then those whose candidacies cause a collective sigh. Romney causes too many people to sigh. To paint him as the only person who can win when this is his second go around and he can’t inspire more than 30% support, speaks to a huge deficit that doesn’t go away just because some people want a coronation rather than see the democratic process through.

If you want to argue that Romney is the most conservative candidate, I and many others will disagree, but will respect your decision to vote for him. But if you pull the “electable” canard, then I will have to ask you to remember one thing: Every president we’ve elected from Harry Truman to present (with the exceptions of Lyndon Johnson and George Bush, 1988) were unelectable. Howard Dean, Hilary Clinton, Gary Hart, John McCain, Bob Dole, and George Bush Sr. (1992) were electable.

I rest my case.

Jack is currently a graduate student at Columbia University working on his MA in Music and Music Education. In addition to music, he also like reading and commenting on Christianity, American historical and political trends, economics, cultural issues, and Constitutional issues.

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