In a word, Mitt will lose in November because history trumps ideology. It trumps competence. It even trumps a bulging campaign war chest. For throughout history, only an uncommonly charismatic candidate can deny an incumbent president his second term.
Thus, FDR clobbered Herbert Hoover, Bill Clinton did in George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan handily ended Jimmy Carter’s presidency. All three defeated incumbents were, in my (and history’s) view quite capable chief executives. Herbert Hoover had come to the White House with a well deserved reputation for economic and organizational genius, a tireless, selfless dedication for service, and an uncommon skill at creating practical solutions to a series of elephantine humanitarian crises. He certainly played no part in precipitating the worldwide Great Depression and there was nothing he could do to roll it back. But all that mattered little when the electorate was confronted with the ebullient life force that was FDR.
George H. W. Bush did the impossible – he cobbled together a host of Middle Eastern countries that had been at each other’s throats for centuries, wove them into a military coalition with the United States and its European allies, and then together defeated the forces of Saddam Hussein in less than a week – with the Saudis footing the bill. A grateful public thanked him by replacing him with a politically canny ladies’ man.
Jimmy Carter’s post-presidential accomplishments have obscured what an intelligent, thoughtful and creative president he actually was, but his towering I.Q. counted for little when pitted against the telegenesis of an aging but still luminous matinee idol.
(We could go further back: the charisma of FDR’s cousin, Theodore, upended William Howard Taft and (ironically) put Professor Woodrow Wilson in the White House.)
Regrettably, Mitt Romney is neither an FDR, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, or Teddy Roosevelt. Rather, he belongs to that large group of earlier would-be presidents who took it upon themselves the task of unseating an incumbent when they themselves lacked the one and only ingredient essential to success in presidential politics – a unique ability to connect at an emotional level with the American public. Instead, Romney is more in the mold of those other dozen or so worthy, able men in our history, all eminently electable to the senate or a statehouse, but who were not larger than life five star personalities.
Like these others, Romney is largely a synthetic candidate, painstakingly constructed to appear superbly qualified to be president. Indeed, he may well be. I really don’t know. There are so many different Romneys, who’s to say which one would take the oath of office. And yes, on Obama’s watch the economy has slipped back to the edge of recession, our deficit threatens to devour the entirety of our gross national product, and unemployment appears stuck at 8.5%. But no matter. Without that personal magic, that “common man” touch, Romney’s candidacy is doomed.