Ron Paul. Mitt Romney. Electability.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:55PM Something strange but perhaps not all that surprising is taking shape in the Republican primary. It seems that issues such as foreign policy and the economy are suddenly taking a back seat in importance to candidates’ perceived “electability.” In other words, “Can they defeat President Obama in the general election?”
Conventional wisdom (along side the main stream media) is telling us that if the Republicans have any chance of taking the White House in the general election, they must nominate Mitt Romney. When voters are asked the question of who they think has the best chance of beating Obama, they overwhelmingly say that Romney has the best chance of doing so and that Ron Paul has almost no chance of doing so. This of course comes as no surprise that average voters would believe this given that the majority of the pundits across all major cable news networks are repeating this as if you’d have to be an idiot to believe otherwise.
In telling this story based on what actual polls are saying and the actual landscape of the general election, the media has failed miserably. It is indeed true that Mitt Romney does better in polls that face him off with President Obama than all of the other Republican candidates. However, Ron Paul’s head to head numbers against Obama are actually quite similar to Romney’s and significantly better than the rest of the Republican contenders. The latest poll has Romney beating Obama by two percentage points and Paul losing to Obama by one percentage point.
Now one can’t go as far as to say that these polls are going unreported, but it seems to be indisputable that they are certainly going underreported. Logically, if more people were aware of these polling numbers, more people would naturally agree that Ron Paul is indeed electable.
Interestingly, this isn’t the only major oversight the media is making when it comes to Romney vs. Paul in terms of electability. There is a tendency in the media to ignore the fact that former Republican Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, is seeking the Libertarian nomination and will likely get it. Should Mitt Romney win the Republican Primary, it seems quite likely that Congressman Paul would throw his support behind Governor Johnson. How many of Ron Paul’s current supporters would cross over and vote Libertarian is certainly debatable. That said, based on the amount of support Paul has within the Republican Party right now, logic would suggest that his support for a third party candidate such as Gary Johnson would likely guarantee a loss for Romney in the general election and the media and the pollsters are ignoring this entirely.
On the flip side, if Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination, Gary Johnson would almost definitely give up his Libertarian bid and endorse Ron Paul. Some believe he would be in consideration to be Ron Paul’s running mate. It is true that there would be many Republicans that would be unhappy with Paul as their nominee, but the overwhelming majority is so hell bent on getting Obama out of office that they would probably support Al Gore over Obama so long as he ran as a Republican. And on top of that, Paul does unusually well with independent voters and voters who usually vote Democratic that are fed up with Obama’s adventurous foreign policy.
Ron Paul is perceived as unelectable. Mitt Romney might actually be unelectable. Tell your friends.