You know who Perry’s campaign benefits?

posted at 5:00 am on August 18, 2011 by Karl

Many of you know the punchline to the joke is: Mitt Romney.

Justin Hart, who worked for Romney in the 2008 campaign and stll lists himself as Co-Chair of Romey’s Faith and Values Committee, ostensibly wants to make that case, when his real argument is that TX Gov. Rick Perry has yet to be vetted on the national stage and Perry’s inevitable errors, gaffes, and foibles will leave Mitt triumphant.

At the outset, I want to stress that his point about vetting is important. There is a reason why the GOP tends to nominate the person who is “next in line.” Running for president is not an easy thing. Having done it before means you have built a network of grassroots contacts, donors, consultants, and so on. Presumably, the candidate may have learned lessons about not only strategy and tactics, but about our complex country and the people whose votes must be won. And yes, having already run a gauntlet of vetting from opponents and the media is valuable to a candidate.

However, Hart’s specific points are less convincing. According to Hart, vetting is about “clubs,” “skeletons” and “time”. Hart defines “clubs” as mistakes candidates make on their own accord – bad policy statements or simple moments of misspeaking. However, those two subcategories are meaningfully different. Hart compares Romney’s stance on global warming with Perry’s comments about the Fed chairman. Voters are unlikely to care about the latter in a bad economy, unless Perry develops a track record of far more extreme statements. On the other hand, voters may not care a great deal about global warming, either. But to the extent that they do, the bad economy does not incline them to agree with Romney.

Hart’s “skeletons” are serious misjudgments you’ve made in your life or associations that can lead to something headline worthy, e.g., prostitutes, DUIs, Rezko, Gennifer Flowers, and so on. The last two examples are curious, insofar as Obama and Clinton both won, again demonstrating the weak influence of skeletons in a bad economy. However, it is certainly possible that such skeletons matter more to the GOP primary electorate than to the Dems or the voter pool in total. Perry has been the governor of a major state and faced major opposition, both from Democrats and Republicans. Thus, it seems unlikely that some major skeleton lurks for Perry, but cannot be ruled out entirely (see, e.g., G.W. Bush’s last-minute DUI story in 2000).

“Time” is Hart’s final, and possibly weakest, factor. Hart seems to believe that the biggest issue that Romney faced in 2008 was abortion, but four years later the issue is essentially water under the bridge. If I were on Team Mitt, I would not bet on that. Moreover, I don’t think Team Romney really believes this, either. There’s a reason why Romney’s campaign in Iowa has been largely covert, i.e., home-schooling pro-lifers are not his target demographic. Moreover, time has not washed away the antipathy that conservatives have toward RomneyCare and Romney’s continued defense of it. Indeed, any number of Romney’s critics would suggest he continues to defend RomneyCare because to disavow it now would be to play into his existing reputation as a flip-flopper (a reputation that similarly has not vanished over time).

Hart goes on to spin that Romney is now the “challenger” to Perry, relieving him of the burden of having to play “King of the Hill” for the next eight months. Um, no. First, a one-day flash poll from Rasmussen does not make Perry the front-runner. Second, Ronald Reagan carried the burden of front-runner in the ’80 campaign after Ford decided not to run; I doubt he considered it a hindrance. That’s the point of the whole “next in line” thing; John McCain’s riches-to-rags-to-riches campaign is the exception, not the rule.

Nevertheless, there is a case to be made that Perry’s entry into the GOP nomination process may help Romney. The basic dynamic of the race remains, under my analysis, Romney vs. Not Romney. Perry’s entry divides the Not Romney vote, which may be divided further still by other late entrants. As RCP’s Sean Trende pointed out this week, a protracted campaign like the Dems had in 2008 has advantages for Romney. The early primaries and caucuses must award delegates proportionately; later states are free to adopt a winner-take-all system, and some have. The early states also tilt more conservative and evangelical than the later states. Thus, if Perry (or Bachmann for that matter) is unable to unify the Not Romney vote — either because of their own failings or other late entrants — Romney’s odds of securing the nomination may increase in a war of attrition. That’s the more important “time” factor this cycle.

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