About Mitt Romney's Record....

...no, I'm not talking about his governing record, or his record at Bain Capital.  I'm talking more basic here - election wins versus election losses.  Elections of all stripes...

The man who claims to be the "most electable" Republican is now 1-2 in the 2012 primaries, his one win pretty much coming before a very partisan "home crowd" in New Hampshire.  Unfortunately, in the general election, you only play one game at home, two tops, and the remaining 48-49 are all played on the road, in front of indifferent, if not openly hostile, "fans", who want to see something first before they start cheering you on...

Add that 1-2  primary record to his lifetime won/loss stats, and you come up with a horrific...6-20 record in elections.

Think about that. 6-20.  How bad do you have to be to lose like that?  Are we going to allow "the party establishment", and the media, to coronate Romney as the Republican presidential candidate, when a player of his ilk would have been rejected by the 1962 New York Mets?

Any reader of this blog knows that I believe nominating Newt Gingrich  would be a disaster. But our adversary, Barack Obama, is one mean, miserable, tough SOB, and both he and the media will take a "nice" Republican candidate, chew him up, and spit out his bones.

Here's the crux of the problem:

“Why is Mitt ashamed of having a lot of money?...how come Mitt can’t explain coherently why it’s OK to pay a 15 percent capital gains rate on money you’ve already paid the top 35 percent income tax rate on when you first earned it?

If he can't defend himself on this issue (where a smart, explanatory answer would open America's eyes to some of the warped reality of the tax code), then he will be unable to articulate any defense of conservative principles.  Which will make him dead meat.

In which case, we might as well drag Rick Perry back into the race and nominate him. Sure, he can't get more than a few dozen coherent sentences out in a row, but at least he knows in his gut what is right and what is left, and will always act with conservative instincts, should he be elected president.  And any man that would shoot a coyote dead for looking the wrong way at his dog is nasty enough to take on the reigning champ.  And for all of his (many, many) faults, at least Newt can do nasty.

But Rick ain't coming back.  Which puts me almost in the same position as Jennifer Rubin: On my knees, begging one of the guys who claimed they couldn't play at this level to gather up their cojones and step up to the plate...
I used worry that Mitt, after a few weeks in the Oval Office, would be fretting over negative New York Times editorials.    I don't worry about that any more.  Because he has about as much chance of getting elected as any 6-20 pitcher has of winning a big game against the other team's best and most ruthless players...