Romney Won Florida, But The Damage Is Done

Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts’s governor, won Florida by almost 15 points over his next closest opponent, Newt Gingrich. Although it remains to be seen whether this will be the beginning of the end for Gingrich and Romney’s other opponents, or whether there will be another unexpected surge in this entirely unpredictable primary race, the damage to the Republican Party is already done (and will probably continue to be done). I say this for two reasons: the tone of the primary race, and the evidence of the breakup of the conservative base.

The GOP primary race has been a tale of false starts, epic falls, and polarization. I’m not talking about the polarization between the liberal and conservative ideologues, that’s been done to death. I’m talking about the polarization within the conservative base. On one hand the Tea Party proved to be a very convenient popular movement for the Republican party in 2010. However, as the Tea Party’s influence began to wane (and one might argue, be replaced by the Occupy Wall Street movement), the Party returned to its basic principles. However, the Tea party remains a vocal and influential movement within their base, and they still want the things that they wanted in 2010: limited government, justice for the big banks that sank the economy, spending cuts and an accountable congress.

Mitt Romney stands for none of those things. In fact, Romney is attached to Obamacare through his own healthcare plan as governor, which is seen by Tea party activists as one of the greatest expansions of government power ever (even though it’s really just an expansion of the private sector). Romney’s also seen as a 1%’er, a guy that is closely tied to, even in bed with, those very financial institutions that Tea party activists and Occupiers alike despise. Gingrich attempted to harness some of that discontent, and managed to ride it through South Carolina, but it floundered in Florida, and is likely played out for him altogether. The only true Libertarian that the Tea Party votership could legitimately get behind would be Ron Paul, even the Tea Party isn’t that Libertarian.

However, in slogging it out over the airwaves and on tv screens around Florida for the last two weeks, Gingrich and Romney have so poisoned the GOP primary that many conservatives may start to feel some voter fatigue before they even get to the nomination. The question for the Republican party will be whether they can pull these various factions together in order to bring a plausible challenge against Obama in the general election. However, they do have one thing on which all conservatives seem to agree, and that’s their hatred for the Obama administration. It’s likely that as the general election gets rolling, or de facto Romney takes the nomination early, we’ll see one defining thread through the Republican candidacy: Get Obama Out. Is that really enough on which to elect a President? I don’t think so.