A lot of In Boxers hate it when I drift into discussions of horse-racey stuff.\u00a0 Who’s up, who’s down, who’s got the most money or the biggest organization.<\/p>\n
I understand why.\u00a0 In politics, things are most interesting when we’re talking about ideas, policies, the underlying currents of a society that are translated into visible form by a political campaign.<\/p>\n
So why do I circle back so often to the tactical, strategic, “politics-as-strategy-game” stuff?\u00a0 Because it matters.<\/p>\n
If American politics show us anything, it’s that ideas aren’t enough.\u00a0 Often, the most nuanced and sophisticated thinkers are marginalized because they can’t work within the vast, byzantine, weird system that is our democracy.<\/p>\n
It can also be fascinating stuff.\u00a0 Take, for example, Mitt Romney, the on-again-off-again frontrunner in the GOP primary.<\/p>\n
Here’s a guy who, on first blush, seems to have it all.\u00a0 He looks good on TV, and he has a photogenic family.\u00a0 He’s scandal-free.\u00a0 He has a nearly limitless supply of campaign cash, and a brilliant national political team.<\/p>\n
He also has a platform that is a good, general fit for the modern Republican Party.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s very conservative, but not whacky conservative.<\/p>\n
But so far, the missing link has been a horse-racey element:\u00a0 Romney himself is a clunky campaigner.\u00a0 He hasn’t been able to find the rhythm and comfort-zone that builds into the energy that a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton projects.<\/p>\n
And generally speaking you need that kind of intangible spark to topple a sitting president.<\/p>\n
Consider Romney’s performance at the CPAC conference this week.\u00a0 You could feel him reaching for that elevating moment, that I’m-one-of-you-in-my-heart connection.<\/p>\n
And then he dropped in one awkward tone-deaf word — “severely” — that reminded everyone in the room that whatever his politics, Mitt Romney just isn’t a natural.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a severely conservative Republican governor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It sounds innocent enough, but conservatives don’t like to think of themselves as “severe.”\u00a0 In their playbook, they’re the normal ones, the Americans who cleave to tradition and core values.<\/p>\n
All politicians make gaffes.\u00a0 But great campaigners don’t commit so many of them that they keep tripping up their own energy, defusing the focus of their message.<\/p>\n
This may be one reason Rick Santorum is surging.\u00a0 Whatever his politics, whatever the state of his fundraising and his organization, he looks comfortable up there.\u00a0 He looks like he’s having fun.\u00a0 He looks like he means it.<\/p>\n
He might not have the pedigree.\u00a0 But right now, Santorum simply looks like a stronger, faster horse than Romney.\u00a0 And this is a race that once again looks very, very competitive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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