Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., is almost certain to win the Republican nomination, say GOP strategists and insiders in a new survey, while the Democratic strategists indicate Romney as the most electable general election candidate in the Republican field.
Romney had a rating of 98 in the National Journal survey, meaning that he received 98% of the points available if every GOP strategist surveyed had predicted he would win. “Through none of his own doing, he has become the heir apparent,” said one of the people surveyed, while another added that “Mitt Romney looks more and more like the last man standing by failing to self-immolate.”
In addition to the incompetence of his opponents, Romney benefits from the fact that 70 percent of Republican primary voters in a recent poll said they don’t know enough to have an opinion about the Romneycare legislation that he passed as governor of Massachusetts.
Romneycare was expected to be an albatross around Romney’s campaign because it provided the model for President Obama’s deeply unpopular Obamacare legislation — right down to the individual mandate and the government-provided health insurance.
Republican primary rivals haven’t landed a solid blow on Romney yet during the debates, in part because of his skills and their relative lack thereof. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., almost took the first best shot at Romney when he coined the term “Obamneycare” to talk about the Massachusetts and national health care laws, but he ran away from that term in the ensuing debate with Romney.
After Pawlenty lost the Ames Straw Poll, he dropped out of the race and endorsed Romney. Should he have done so, given the current field? As one respondent to the National Survey said bluntly, “Bottom line is, Tim Pawlenty got out too soon.” The strategist added that “there is an opening for an anti-Romney, and neither Cain nor Perry is going to fit the bill at the end of the day.”
