Dispatch #8

Candidate Romney won Illinois handily, and more important for him than the delegates, the antagonistic, ideological elements of his party have begun to see the proverbial writing on the wall: Romney will win the nomination. Neither Santorum nor Gingrich have conceded—yet.  Both have pledged to remain until the convention and drag this contest out to the utmost, until June. However, if I were to hazard a prediction, I would guess that Gingrich will eventually bow out beforehand, having earlier in the campaign reconciled himself—at that time—to a Romney candidacy. The attack ads run by Romney have personalized the campaign unduly and provoked harder feelings between the candidates than necessary, but Gingrich strikes me as canny and expedient enough to suspend his campaign. If he drops out, in the best interests of the party, of course, and the convention, by some act of God, does deadlock somehow, he can present as the tested, selfless candidate on the second ballot. Santorum, having come to understand himself as the champion of true conservatism, enjoying the attention as such, and despising Romney’s lack of political conviction and his referring to Santorum as, among other things, an “economic lightweight,” will find it much more difficult to concede. He might even be reading the biblical writing on the wall: the Republicans will lose in November anyway. So, why not fight the good fight for principles and values? Jesus did.

The complaint of the punditry, including the Republican Party punditry, has been that the slate of candidates has been weak. I don’t think that that’s quite true. Mitt Romney is, pound for pound, as serious a candidate as George W. Bush was. The problem isn’t with the candidates; it’s with a profoundly divided party. The representative of the more restive, vociferous, and imprudent “base” of the party would be simply unelectable; the uncharismatic representative of the rest of the party only might not be electable. No candidate could bridge that fundamental divide. Sadly, the miracle the Republicans have to pray for in November is a stalled American economy.