Iowa's Opening Skirmish

[Valin]

WSJ:

The Romney coronation will have to wait.
1/4/12

Iowa's corner of the electorate cast the first verdict of the 2012 Presidential campaign Tuesday night, and the results look more like an opening skirmish than the coronation for Mitt Romney that much of the media had prepared.

(Snip)

Many Republicans—especially party elites—have been coalescing around Mr. Romney as the most "electable" candidate, by which they seem to mean the one with the fewest obvious flaws. But electability is a slippery concept, especially 10 months from November. Democrats said the same thing about John Kerry in 2004, while the media were convinced that a right-wing former movie actor was unelectable in 1980. Voters would do better to drop the pundit game theory and choose the best potential President.

(Snip)

Yet Iowa's flirtation with so many "non-Romney" candidates shows that a majority of Republicans still find him less than convincing. The media want to attribute this to anti-Mormon bias. But the polls show that Mr. Romney's Mormonism is a much bigger issue among Democrats than within the GOP.


The real issue is that Mr. Romney is a cautious, conventional politician in a year when many GOP voters want someone willing to fight for bolder change. On the economy in particular, Mr. Romney is offering the least ambitious plan for growth. Mr. Romney unveiled his 59-point jobs plan in September, and if you can remember two of them you'll win most family trivia contests. His refusal to rule out a value-added-tax is also troubling, especially if Democrats ever won the House during his Presidency.

(Snip)