Romney made a lot of mistakes, from his rhetoric—a plutocratic message geared to “job creators”—to the actual structure of his campaign. But if “bad candidate” means he underperformed relative to the fundamentals, then he wasn’t a bad candidate. He was average. Given 1.8 percent gross domestic product growth in the first seven months of 2012, President Obama was projected to win 51.2 percent of the two-party vote. He won 52 percent, to Romney’s 48 percent.
It’s possible that a stronger, more charismatic Republican could have moved the needle and beat the fundamentals. But I doubt it. A growing economy is like a Power Star for an incumbent president, and barring some other disaster—like a bungled war or serious terrorist attack—there’s little you can do to stop the momentum. And even then, it’s difficult. John Kerry outperformed the fundamentals and still lost the 2004 election. It’s not that he was a bad candidate, it’s that beating an incumbent president is hard.
There won’t be an incumbent in 2016, and there’s a good chance Americans will want a different party at the helm. If Romney were the nominee, there’s no doubt that he could win the presidency. Indeed, it would fit the pattern of his political career—after losing his race for Senate in 1994, he came back to win a gubernatorial race in 2002.
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