Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore tells Red Alert Politics that it is becoming more unlikely that Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum or Ron Paul have any chance to capture the nomination.
Romney won 6 of the 10 Super Tuesday states yesterday, including Virginia, putting him up to 415 committed delegates to Santorum’s 176, Gingrich’s 105 and Paul’s 47.
The former Virginia governor, who briefly ran against Gov. Romney himself for the GOP nomination in 2008, says he endorsed Romney early on because he has the “right message put together with the right organization to put him in a position to win.”
According to Gilmore, Romney has the right combination of issue to succeed against Obama at a time when Americans are concerned with their long-term economic futures.
“Gov. Romney has selected the issues that working people care about more than any of the other candidates,” Gilmore says. “I do not dislike any of the four candidates who are now running, but at the end of the day only one message matters — and that is how to get people employed in this country.”
This year’s election contrasts from 2008 when President Obama was able to win the White House on an anti-Bush message when people wanted a change. But this year, voters are restless because unemployment hovers around 8.5 percent – higher than the 7.1 percent unemployment rate Jimmy Carter faced in 1980 and the 7.5 percent unemployment rate faced by George H.W. Bush in 1992.
No president has won re-election with unemployment above 8 percent since 1940.
“The modern Democratic Party does not understand the economy,” Gilmore says. “They don’t understand the economy operating under some antiquated 20th century economic theory [that Keynesianism works].”
Instead, the Democrats operate under the incorrect assumption that the redistribution of wealth helps the economy when all it does is to hinder the creation of wealth and economic growth,according to Gilmore.
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” Gilmore says.
Gilmore is sure that voters will compare 2012 with 2008 and will check the box for the Republican nominee in November.
“There is no real need to convince every conservative that Romney is everyone’s kind of conservative,” Gilmore says. “But we all have to be on the same team [in November].
“Gov. Romney is more conservative than Barack Obama, and he is the Republicans’ best opportunity to address the concerns of the American people and is the best qualified,” Gilmore continues. “The president’s approach is more class warfare, and class warfare is silly. The idea of having one class against another has nothing to do with the history of America.”
