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January 11, 2012
The Republicans are engaged in using the primaries to sort out who they want to stand against Obama in the 2012 presidential elections. Mitt Romney, their current front runner, isn't liked by the social conservative movement wing at all. Rick (sex cop) Santorium is their man.
However, Mitt Romney will be the nominee against a Democrat president increasingly noted for his cave-ins to regressive Republican brinkmanship, bargaining by obstructionism and normal legislative maneuvering by threats to close down government.
No doubt the Tea Party Republican movement in South Carolina will try to launch an all out assault on Romney with very nasty attack adverts. Romney is potentially vulnerable to the Christian evangelical right as he is a Mormon, a moderate and East Coast establishment. Evangelical Christians are opposed to global warming, evolution and also committed to reducing taxes, reducing the deficit and shrinking the government.
Romney's track record is to jettison previous principles having flip-flopped on healthcare and abortion in order to get votes. The Tea party see this as an example of Romney’s synthetic and calculating persona, the sense that he somehow embodies everything that’s false and impenetrable about the parties in Washington
The Republican political strategy has been to offer red meat to the conservative base (a Southern rural populism that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way) to get into power; and once in power, to allow the financial (Wall Street) ) and corporate elite (big business) to do what they want to do without scrutiny, some tax incentives for the rich 1% and lots of corporate welfare. What is a definite no no is to embrace an economic populism that highlights how free wheeling capitalism is really destructive for huge segments of the population. That's class warfare and it has to be avoided in favour of cultural warfare against liberalism.
The Republican candidates are cheerleaders for financial capitalism of the most brutal sort; they love to bash public institutions, public goods and the public welfare for poor Americans; and they avoid talking about the economic crisis that is hurting so many Americans. There is no doubt that the Republican candidates will probably embrace the nasty side of southern populism to try and defeat Romney. But they are divided, so is the Tea Party Movement in South Carolina. The latter is loose and leaderless, a disjointed collection of local chapters and agendas.
This Republican reality TV show, should be quite a circus. South Carolina will not be the firewall that blocks Romney. Romney will, in all likelihood, steel a victory in South Carolina and cemented his hold on the nomination, because the social conservatives candidates will split the conservative vote.
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Republicans tearing themselves to pieces must have the Democrats feeling pretty good.