Last night, Mitt Romney glided through another debate with a characteristically smooth performance, contributing to the idea that he’s the “inevitable” Republican nominee. On Intrade, people are now giving Romney a nearly 70 percent chance of wining the GOP nod and President Obama’s political shop seems to be operating under the same assumption, given senior strategist David Axelrod’s decision to attack Romney today. Watching Romney dispatch questions with ease in another debate last night, it’s hard to see him faltering. Yet we’ve seen it happen before.
The most prominent recent example would have to be around this time four years ago, back when Hillary Clinton was seen as the inevitable Democratic nominee. Just like Romney, in debate after debate, Clinton coasted and her rivals weren’t able to lay a glove on her. But things started to change in an Oct. 30 debate, when NBC’s Tim Russert pressed her on her position on allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Clinton infamously took multiple positions within a matter of minutes, and was challenged by rivals Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Obama. (Video here). That was nowhere close to the end of her candidacy, but if you were to point to one moment where she began to lose her iron grip on the nomination, this was it. Though the issue itself wasn’t of much concern to primary voters, the politically calculating nature behind her answers fed into a broader critique, which was more important when it came to her shifting stance on the Iraq War — something she voted for, but was criticizing on the campaign trail. By contrast, Obama was able to say he opposed the war from the beginning.
Could something similar happen to Romney? It’s certainly possible. His history of policy flip flops coupled with his untenable defense of his health care law make him vulnerable. And he’s a much weaker front-runner than Clinton was four years ago. In a Gallup poll taken in Oct. 2007, Clinton was the preferred candidate of 47 percent of Democrats — approaching a majority in a crowded eight-person field. By contrast, Romney is currently at just 20 percent Gallup’s latest poll, virtually tied with Herman Cain.
Of course, vulnerabilities only matter in politics if there’s a rival with the ability to exploit them. In 2008, Obama showed political skill and benefited from adoring media coverage. Thus far, none of Romney’s Republican rivals have demonstrated the same potential — and Perry, who was himself the front-runner for a short period of time, seemed to have all but conceded his ability to challenge Romney last night, by declaring, “Debates are not my strong suit.” Is anybody else up to the task?
