The dream is dying. There will be no dynamic, charismatic, Reaganesque Republican presidential nominee this cycle. There won’t even be a consistent conservative. There will only be Mitt Romney. ...
...According to an ABC/Washington Post poll released last week:
Mitt Romney trails Barack Obama by 19 points in basic popularity as the 2012 presidential contest inches closer to the main event, with a record 50 percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll now rating Romney unfavorably over all.
Perhaps more ominously, USA Today reported this week that:President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.
That sound you hear is the sound of despair — the hard swallowing and deep breathing by reluctant Republicans crossing their fingers and praying for the best.
Maybe Romney will pick a game-changing running mate. Remember how well that worked last time? ...Charles Blow
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As [Mitt Romney] contemplates a less fanatical general-election audience, he is beginning to talk about the interests of women (not mentioning his plan to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood), conceding that the occasional regulation might be useful (though he wants to eliminate many of the most important), even admitting that President Obama didn’t cause the recession.
His problem, of course, is that wherever he goes, he will be followed by those extreme positions and careless statements, and others he made to get to the front of the pack. No shake of the Etch A Sketch can erase them. ...
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Voters expect government to take an active role in helping rebuild the economy, not to sit back and do nothing. Mr. Romney opposed the immensely successful rescue of the auto industry and the regulations to prevent another economic meltdown.
His party has rewarded him for advocating government passivity in the face of economic struggle. A larger electorate is likely to be far more skeptical. ...NYT
