Left Leaning Website Daily Kos Predicts Romney Will Be The Republican Nominee

While its fun to see conservatives debate one another over who they think will be the Republican nominee, its always important to get a look at what liberals think about the Republican primaries. The far left leaning website Daily Kos has predicted that the nominee will be Mitt Romney:

Mitt Romney is inevitable.  The only person with any chance of stopping him was Rick Perry, but the Texas governor has managed to futz and fumble and oops his way out of that possibility.  Once the number one contender, he is now reduced to a funny footnote in presidential history tomes like The Glorious Burden (an outstanding volume of presidential election history, by the way, if you're into that sort of thing).  At least Gingrich, Cain, Paul, and Bachmann will be there to keep him company.  Jon Huntsman won't even have that.

Why Mitt Romney?  For lots of reasons.  For one thing, he is the next white guy in line in the party that always nominates the next white guy in line.  Seriously.  You want to know the real difference between the Republican and Democratic parties when it comes to nominating presidents?  Predictability.  The Republican party almost always nominates the guy who everyone thinks it will nominate a year before the election.  The Democrats never do (just ask Gary Hart, Mario Cuomo, Howard Dean, and Hillary Clinton).  This year it's Mitt's turn.

Romney has spent the last four years prostrating himself before the dark lords of the Republican party, convincing him that he is their man.  That he happens to be Wall Street's guy doesn't hurt, either.  He has even kissed the ring of James Dobson, kingmaker and de facto high priest of the Christian conservative movement, and gotten the nod of approval.  Romney's made the rounds, and he's got the nod.

He has more money and more organization than the rest of the field combined.  He's maintained a steady position at or near the front of the polls throughout the rises and falls of many a competitor, his numbers barely flickering.  More importantly, he is ahead or statistically tied in all of the first four contest states, two (New Hampshire and Florida) by comfortable margins last I checked.  From there, the calendar is incredibly Romney-friendly: Nevada (lots of Mormons), Maine (same near-home New England advantage as in New Hampshire), Colorado (more Mormons), Minnesota, Arizona (Mormons again, plus lots of people who appreciate a man who looks good in a golf shirt), Michigan (where he was raised and his father was a popular governor), and Washington.  In fact, looking at that list it's not hard to conclude that it was specifically written to favor Mitt Romney.  There may be something to that.  But either way, it's very possible that we will go into Super Tuesday in early March with Romney having won every primary and caucus to that point.  How many of his opponents will even remain by that point?

And finally there is what I call the plausibility factor.  As entertaining as people like Michelle Bachmann and Donald Trump and Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich can be, few people really see them as realistic possibilities to be president.  Call it instinct.  Call it a vibe.  Call it bullshit if you want.  But when I look at the current Republican field, I see only three men who I could reasonably imagine as president: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman.  And even Perry is now off the list, having become a punchline.  That leaves Huntsman, whose single-digit (that digit being usually 1 or sometimes even merely "-") showing in the polls just goes to prove that there is no room for moderates in the Republican party any more.  I guess he thought there would be a niche in the race for a blandly handsome Mormon ex-governor.  And he was right, there was.  But somebody else got it first.  And seriously, who wants to see Livingston Taylor if James Taylor's in town?

Barring some completely out of the blue, deus ex machina revelation (like he's secretly the meth kingpin of Albuquerque; yeah, I've been watching a lot of Breaking Bad lately), Mitt Romney is a shoe-in for the nomination.  Given how closely scrutinized and well-publicized Romney's life has been, that seems unlikely in the extreme.  Otherwise the deal is done.  It's gonna be Mitt.

The White House knows this.  That's why they're already running against him.  The media knows it too, but they have papers to sell (figuratively of course -- does anyone actually read physical newspapers any more?), and crazy sells better than inevitable.

The Daily Kos is right. The Obama Administration has been setting its sight on Mitt Romney for a while now. The only problem is that while they're getting prepared to take on Mitt in the general election, they've got no message to take to the American people. 

 “He has not said one thing about what he’d do in his second term,” Matthews continued. “He never tells us what he’s going to do with reforming our health care systems, Medicare, Medicaid. How he’s going to reform Social Security? Is he going to deal with long-term debt? How? Is he going to reform the tax system? How?”

In contrast, Mitt Romney's message to the American people is quite simple. Fixing the economy which will resolve other financial problems like unemployment, trade, taxes, national debt and entitlement reforms.

As a result, not only will Mitt Romney win the Republican nomination but he'll be the next President in 2012.