Mitt Romney's cruise to the nomination ran afoul of reality yesterday. His inability to capture the anger of the Republican electorate contrasted sharply with Newt Gingrich's pithy sound-bite irascibility in two South Carolina debates.
The MV Romney Inevitable, steered into treacherous waters by its election consultant captains trying to please its establishment cooks and their bottle washer admirers on the beach, breached its hull on South Carolina's rocky reef of conservative voters and foundered. It's highly visible hull, leaking cash and supporters, will continue to foul the prospects for the Republican party for months to come.
It turns out that the water that floats Mitt's boat really is only 25 to 30% of the Republican electorate in any mostly closed primary. The final numbers for South Carolina, county by county in graphic form, are here where you can mouse over each county for individual results.
Eventually it will be about delegates, but we aren't to that point yet. Nevertheless, Gingrich's campaign -- underfunded and understaffed according to a legion of unhired genius consultants -- won the overwhelming majority of South Carolina's 25 delegates to the Republican National Convention. That's because South Carolina's rule awards 2 delegates for winning each of the 7congressional districts and the balance of 11 to the state winner at large. Since Romney won only 2 congressional districts, he won 4 delegates to Newt's 21.
With those 21 Newt will surge to the lead. Don't get too excited about that. The Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina delegates amount to roughly 1% of the total required to secure the nomination.
Romney's problem is not that he is unable to muster a defense of his individual exercise of economic liberty and capitalism. The anger of the conservative electorate with the cosy relationship between the New York financial and Washington political establishments really ought not be directed at companies like Mitt's Bain Capital, which attempted to provide financing for businesses that would otherwise have failed. After all, though many of those failed anyway, many were saved and their jobs likewise. Fortunately for Mitt, that argument was made strongly for him by conservative pundits.
Nor is Romney's problem his inability to mount a defense of either his income tax returns evidencing his personal success, or of his accountant's very competent and professional effort to ensure that he legally paid the least possible tax.
His problem is that he is unable to mount a pithy defense of individual economic liberty. Indeed he seems unable to detail the benefits of that or any other liberty in general.
Facing a general election against an advocate for progressivist central planning and collectivist redistribution of earned assets, the conservative Republican electorate rightly wants a candidate who can articulate the case for individual economic freedom and liberty.
What's more significant, that electorate is justified in believing that anyone who remains so calm and reserved in the face of such a brutal assault on our most basic rights just doesn't understand the significance of this election.
