I am spring-boarding from the observation of one of our better thinkers on this board and am starting with the quotation segment below sans attribution. This is to remove the personality hot button trigger factor from the topic. Let's try to discuss the issue for once rather than get into fire-fights over personality issues.
Okay, since I am certain that the DNC selected Barack Obama to become the Democratic party's nominee back in 2008 and used everything at its disposal -- including slime ball tactics coordinated with the mainstream media -- to make it happen I can hardly proclaim that the RNC wouldn't do the same thing where their obvious and strong preference for Mitt Romney is concerned including cutting behind the scenes deals with Fox News and at least some conservative talk radio hosts. So let's assume that the RNC also went as far as subtly sabotaging the campaign efforts of Romney's challengers to ensure that the 'correct' nominee would advance against Barack Obama.
But why does the RNC think that Romeny -- rather than say Newt Gingrich -- has the right stuff to defeat Obama? I think that they are adhering to the principle that 'it takes a thief to catch a thief.'
What is Mitt Romney but the nearest thing they have to a Party moderate with just enough ties to the Republican Party leadership to know that if he deviates too far from generic conservatism as president then the GOP leadership will make his life a living hell? Granted Obama is not remotely a moderate but he plays one on television.
That's eerily similar to why the DNC selected Obama over Hillary Clinton. They knew that they could control and steer Obama in the direction they thought they wanted whereas they knew that they could not control and steer Hillary Clinton -- not with Bill Clinton serving as her back stop. Similarly the RNC knows that Romney can be controlled whereas Newt Gingrich would almost certainly not only go his way but go hard Right. The GOP leadership pretends to be conservative but most of them really are not. They are CINOs [Conservative In Name Only].
But still, why do they believe that Mitt can beat Obama? Like against like. Mitt comes across as being reasonably mellow in personality with just enough of a hard edge to let it surface when necessary, and it is the ideological Center of the nation that usually votes a candidate into the Oval Office. Centrists like moderates, which is why Obama has pretended to be a moderate.
Newt on the other hand is nothing but hard edges and he tends to talk before he thinks [there he, rather than Mitt, is similar to Obama]. Like Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich tends to make similar statements amounting to the rightwing version of "Bitter over their guns and religion." Perhaps something like, "Liberals want to tax producers to give to slackers." Something like that. Romney wouldn't make such tactical speaking errors . . . or at least not nearly as often.
In politics, the truth doesn't matter. It's all in how you package your lies and for Centrists, Mitt packages better than Newt. At least in the opinion of the RNC.
So why should it matter if the candidate is controlled enough? It matters for two primary reasons, because the GOP leadership is very much aware that the mainstream media is again supporting Barack Obama for this election cycle and that whereas Obama is given what essentially amounts to a free press pass for all of his and Joe Biden's brain to mouth errors the GOP nominee and his eventual vice presidential pick will not be given any such press pass.
Every error that issues from his lips or from the lips of his vp selection will be used by the in-the-tank-for-Obama mainstream media to pound him and the GOP leadership to their knees and impress upon independents and swing voters that he's too emotionally or intellectually unstable to be president and that they really do not want to trust the control of the legislative branch to republicans.
This isn't just about winning back the presidency, but gaining complete control of the legislative branch as well. The RNC figures that Gingrich -- or any of the other contestants -- would alienate those critical independents and Centrists and swing voters because [lets return to Newt] Gingrich IS NOT RONALD REAGAN. He doesn't have the Charisma of a Reagan nor the mastery of communications necessary to MAKE voters overlook either his past or the inevitable and major political gaffs that are going to trip from his mouth and which the MSM is going to pounce upon in order to help out Obama.
So aside from figuring that they can more easily control Romney after he wins the election, the RNC figures that Romney is far less likely to make the sort of campaign mistakes that will GIVE Obama the win.
So is the RNC correct? Well considering that prior to the final collapse of the economy McCain and Sarah Palin were actually polling better than Obama and Biden . . . it damn well worked in 2008 to go with what essentially was a middle of the road moderate; because for all that McCain self-identifies as a conservative he really is a moderate.
The GOP leadership is cynically playing the odds. They may be right and they may be wrong. But what about the ethical or moral considerations of Right and Wrong themselves? While having the party leadership pre-select THEIR candidate and then manipulate what media outlets they can influence to damage the campaigns of his opponents is anything but an adherence to democratic principles, it is political tradition in this nation on both the Left and the Right.
Time and again the Powers the Be try doing precisely this and all too often manage it. Sometimes it turns out okay and sometimes you end up with a [to flip to some glaring Leftwing examples] Jimmy Carter or a Barack Obama in office rather then the qualified candidate with a bloody damn clue.
So there you have it. Doubtless I left out some important things and got some things wrong, but it's my current best effort to analyze what's happening before our eyes . . . and that's good enough for me.