Huntsman and the Prom Queen

A pretty dumb moment from Jon Huntsman. Yesterday, Huntsman claimed that the media only paid attention to Michele Bachmann because she was pretty.

In a long story running in this week's New York, Huntsman -- who recently abandoned his lackluster Mr. Nice Guy campaign in favor of taking direct swipes at his opponents -- suggested Bachmann, the only woman officially running for president, gets the attention she gets in part because she's good-looking. "She makes for good copy--and good photography," Huntsman told New York's John Heilemann. The quote came in the context of talk about Bachmann being "more an object of media fascination than a plausible nominee," as Heilemann put it.

Actually, I follow commentary on Bachmann's campaign fairly closely and there's none of the "librarian porn" fascination surrounding Bachmann that was the case with Sarah Palin. Actually, this is the first discussion I've seen of her standard-issue, politician look. I remember somebody commenting that politicians all look like class presidents or prom queens and Bachmann looks like she could have been queen at a home schooling prom.

But who besides Jon Huntsman, who really cares?

The main things about Bachmann's candidacy is that she has a constituency in the religious right and Tea Party factions, works very hard, has a potential path to the Republican nomination, and would lose the general election to Obama by about 25 points.

But why exactly is Jon Huntsman running?

About all I can see is that he has a career-killing resume as a moderate Republican, good hair, and an interesting story about growing up as a rock n' roll Mormon.

Not exactly presidential material there.

Mitt Romney is Doomed! Doomed!

There never was much reason to think that Mitt Romney had a fighting chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2012. Sure, Romney has all the right stuff on paper. He's a former Wall Street honcho and he saved the LA Olympics, served two terms as governor of Massachusetts, and looks great in a suit. Romney also projects oodles of alpha male leadership qualities and is going to win all of the fundraising battles because of his own personal fortune and his access to big business and Mormon cash.

But none of that means much in the Republican primaries.

Romney is what's going to be known as the classic "Mike Castle" candidate. The now former senator from Delaware, Mike Castle was experienced, popular, had lots of money and would have won a general election against a Democrat hands-down.

And I'm sure that Castle was supremely confident of election in 2010.

Nevertheless, Castle's re-election campaign folded up like origami paper after a few well-placed Tea Party attack ads on his moderation and Castle ended up with the most humiliating loss possible. He was beaten by the unemployed, dysfunctional neophyte Christine O'Donnell who promptly became a national embarrassment.

In the same way, Mitt Romney has little chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination even though he's leading in the polls. As soon as aggressive conservatives like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, or Rick Perry begin running attack ads, Romney's numbers are going to sink and his campaign's going to run aground.

And if the other GOP candidates aren't going to go after Romney, Tea Party organizations were determined to see that he didn't win.

But it turned out that none of that was necessary.

Even without a barrage of attack ads, the current polling indicates that Romney is a long-shot. A PPP poll released today has Romney 20%, Bachmann 16%, Palin 12%, Perry 11%, and the GOP riff raff corralling another 32% among them. Romney's ahead, but these are disastrous numbers for him because Bachmann, Palin, and Perry are the same woman or "guy." They're Tea Party affiliated, aggressive, religious, suspicious of government, and alienated from the multi-cultural America that's going to line up behind Obama's re-election. Bachmann, Palin, and Perry get 39% of the vote between them and that's the case even though neither Palin nor Perry have started campaigning yet. Bachman was around 5% before she announced. One positive debate performance and some hard campaigning later, Bachmann's nipping at Romney's heels in a field of ten. When Perry and Palin announce (and I'm convinced Palin will run), their numbers can be expected to go up as well.

Bachmann's actually slipping ahead of Romney on other measures, edging Romney by 1 point (21-20) with Sarah Palin not being considered and edging Romney again (44-41) in a head to head measure. Bachmann's even or slightly ahead despite not having Romney's name recognition, not having Romney's money, and not running any RINO crushing attack ads. Right now, Romney's a second choice for almost as many Palin, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Ron Paul, Pawlenty, and Huntsman supporters as Bachmann.

Romney also seems to be the second choice of that guy in Idaho who supports Rick Santorum.

But support will eventually drift away from Romney as the super-charged emotions of the Republican primaries start building in earnest and the number of candidates drops down from the current 10 after the South Carolina caucuses.

Who becomes Romney's strongest opponent is anybody's guess. Right now, I would give slightly better odds to Michele Bachmann because she's proven to be more energetic, more determined, and more systematic than either Sarah Palin or Rick Perry.

But that could change.

Given all her charisma, Sarah Palin still has an opportunity to reignite among conservatives. Likewise, it could be the case that Perry has untapped national appeal.

Who knows?

But the battle to win the Republican nomination is likely to be determined by who's the strongest between Bachman, Palin, and Perry.

Bachmann Disappoints

Elite political commentators are pretty much unanimous in agreeing that Michele Bachmann helped herself last night.

To the extent that any candidate stood out as a potential anti-Romney, it was . . . Rep. Michele Bachmann, who started the debate with the surprise announcement that she had filed to run for president of the United States. The TV-friendly conservative, beloved by the tea party, introduced herself to a national audience as a “former federal tax litigation attorney” and “businesswoman,” repeatedly mentioning the 23 foster children that she and her husband have raised. And unlike the other candidates, who are largely former officeholders, Bachmann was able to point to her voting record as a sitting congresswoman to show she’s in the midst of pitched fights over health care reform, financial regulation and federal spending.

That was Politico. Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post goes on.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann came into Monday night’s presidential debate in the Queen City as an unknown commodity. She left it as the most talked-about candidate in the 2012 GOP field.

That translates to me as Bachmann "beat expectations" by sounding better than Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich, and thus stood out.

That's true.

But Michele Bachmann isn't running against those guys. She's running against Sarah Palin to be the candidate of the religious right and Tea Party against Mitt Romney.

If Palin decides to run, Bachmann will have to go toe to toe with her. But even if Palin doesn't run, Bachmann's has to show that she can catch fire like Palin did in 2008 if she wants to be beat Romney.

And Bachmann didn't do anything to indicate that she could catch fire.

As a result, I rate Bachmann's night pretty much as a failure. If she really wants to compete for the Republican nomination, she'll have to raise her game.

Maybe It Would Be Better to Pair Turner with Bachmann

Washington insider Ed Rogers is floating the idea of a Jon Huntsman/Michele Bachmann presidential ticket. Here's the fluff Rogers wrote about Huntsman.

Former governor and ambassador Jon Huntsman is an articulate, attractive, cerebral, urbane internationalist. He’s a proven conservative with a reassuring, moderate tone and a model family. His vast experience in state and federal government, including service as a diplomat, clearly makes him qualified to be president.

I have a hard time understanding anybody in the Republican elite would push Jon Huntsman. A moderate Republican who served as Obama's ambassador to China, Huntsman isn't any more likely to be win the GOP nomination than a socialist/atheist like me.

Michele Bachmann is another matter. Somewhere between rising star on the right and joke candidate with terminal foot-in-mouth disease, Bachmann is flirting with a long-shot presidential run and would be an attractive VP candidate because of her ability to fire up the GOP base.

The GOP would be better off nominating Paul Ryan for pres and pairing him with Bachmann. Ryan would represent the economic wing, Bachmann the religious conservative wing. It would be a balanced ticket and probably a lot more honest than what the Republicans will actually do.