That's the question that has long been floating in my mind. Part of me thinks, the loathing of Obama will do the trick. But part of me also thinks that an Etch-A-Sketch is not the perfect vehicle for base mobilization. Tom Edsall notes that evangelicals now represent a majority (50.53 percent) of Republican primary voters so far, the "highest percentage recorded in a presidential nominating process," according to Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition:
There are signs that base Republican voters won’t turn out for Romney. Gallup found that only 35% of such voters would "enthusiastically" back Romney in the election, far fewer than the 47% percent who said they enthusiastically supported McCain at this time in 2008. These lukewarm Republican primary voters are, in effect, threatening to abandon the nominee after forcing him to pass ruthless ideological litmus tests.
The core of the party, then, the men and women who cast primary ballots and attend caucuses, has become a liability in much the same way that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party pushed presidential candidates off the deep end from the late 1960s through the 1980s.
The problem with this argument is that Santorum generates the same relatively low level of enthusiasm as well – and that the Gallup number is of all Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, so doesn't demonstrate the evangelical factor. But since evangelicals are now a slim majority of the GOP – making it even more a religious rather than a political party – the drop in enthusiasm from last time around, when they lost decisively, must be worrying for some in the Romney camp.
Maybe a truly charismatic candidate could turn that around. Palin could do it, at the expense of all moderates. Romney almost certainly can't.
(Chart from Pollster, sans Rasmussen.)
The Dish 