Just when you (maybe) were adjusting to the idea that Newt Gingrich is the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, Public Policy Polling announces that Newt’s frontrunner status is being challenged by … Ron Paul.
I keep thinking that Tim Pawlenty must be kicking himself 24/7 these days. But Steve Kornacki says the biggest reason Romney can’t close the deal is that southerners think he is a space alien. Romney is so not southern he makes Barack Obama look like Foghorn Leghorn.
I personally don’t think the Mormonism is the whole story. Speaking as a hillbilly myself, I think most of my people could handle a Mormon candidate if he seemed human and could push the right cultural buttons. Mittens strikes me as someone who would show up at a backyard barbeque wearing a suit and then eating his ribs and chicken with a knife and fork. Like I said, a space alien. Plus, he speaks French.
The rise of Paul is supposed to help Mittens in Iowa, but it’s the South that’s going to really matter.
“Romney is so not southern he makes Barack Obama look like Foghorn Leghorn.”
maha,
Out of all the great lines you’ve written, that one has to be the best – or damn close to it.
And poor Mitt 3.0 isn’t selling to us North Easterners, either. Or to the Mid West. Both of which he can sort of claim as his home turf.
The outlier here was Mitt 2.0, who somehow or other won the MA Governor’s race. Mitt 1.0 lost, and Mitt 3.0 has been a bust, playing NOT to lose.
Maybe Mitt would have done better if he hadn’t changed positions more often than Debbie when she did Dallas?
Well, I speak French, too. But Mitt does seem to lack the common touch.
Maybe Mitt should run in France. They like Jerry Lewis, after all.
I agree, I LOLed real hard at the Foghorn Leghorn line.
But, sacre bleu, the Redstaters will not accept a Francophone. That much I know.
This morning on NPR I heard a young evangelical-Christian hausfrau (a language they do accept) from Sioux City, IA, say she wasn’t sure she could support Michele Bachman, because she, hausfrau, doesn’t think women are capable of leading the country.
Ever been to Sioux City, IA? I have. It’s always been the stinky armpit of the Great Plains, and now apparently it’s also the nexus of Teh Stupid.
I’m encouraged by this – Gingrich and Paul are the only ones in the GOP with ideas worth debating (in my book); many of their ideas I don’t care for, but they should at least get a hearing. Paul’s iconoclasticism within the GOP could give that party a breath of fresh air it sorely needs, and like our Dennis Kucinich, it’s grossly unfair that these two guys (Paul and Kucinich) no one would ever mistake for centrists don’t get a hearing. I don’t see Romney as a space alien, just an animatronic candidate. Who would vote for an intelligent mannequin?
For Floridians…The analogy would be like Mitt fittin’ in as one of the boys in Polk County.