ROMNEY'S AUTHENTICITY DEFICIT

By H. N. Burdett

In a presidential campaign, a month is a lifetime, a year an era. With little less than 13 months remaining before the 2012 election, we now know perhaps more than anyone ever wanted to know about the Republican candidates. But which one will be anointed is still anything but a sure thing.

First it was Bachman. Then it was Romney. Then it was Perry. Then it was Romney again. Now it is Herman Cain. Tomorrow, who knows? Paul? Santorum? Huntsman? Gingrich? Republican voters have an apparent equal opportunity policy when it comes to selecting their nominee in this flavor-of-the-moment farcical sitcom that the party's presidential debates have become.

The one constant is Mitt Romney. The good news for him is that he is solidly entrenched. Well, sort of. He is either at the very top or near the very top of the post-debate polling. The not-so-good news is that he has been unable to rise above 23% in these ratings.

Former Godfather pizza CEO Herman Cain, until recently mired in a single-digit rut and expected to be headed for the nearest exit, is now a full five points in front of second-place Romney.

But during this Cinderella phase of the primary season, the smart money is on the slipper not fitting the purveyor of the 9-9-9 tax policy. It is a reasonable assumption considering that Cain frankly admits he knows nothing of the nitty-gritty, the small print beneath the tax plan that has elevated him into the magnet of the moment for the GOP tried-and-true. And one can hardly wait to learn the pizza guy's thoughts on foreign policy.

The volatile trajectory of the Republican primary at this juncture still favors Romney. With the perpetual yo-yoing of his opponents, consistent support from nearly one quarter of his party's voters is a position to be envied rather than scorned. It is sufficient to bring into his camp a few of the hesitant high rollers who have been persuaded that an eleventh hour entry of a perhaps more acceptable alternative such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush or current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is about as likely as a snowball fight in Key West. To say nothing of Romney's winning the coveted endorsements of such astute practitioners of the political arts as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, himself fresh from spurning fervent invitations to the Big Dance, and Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran. (Favorite sons of the Magnolia State keep popping up in this narrative with frightening regulatory.)

But really now, it is not over until it is over. And Texas Governor Rick Perry's sudden long and loud energy policy pitch is crudely crafted to bar the door and prevent his arsenal of oil industry cash cows from stampeding off and into Mitt's corral.

More evidence of precarious fissures in the solid ground under the boots of the pride of the Lone Star state became even more obvious when his wife was moved to deliver her soul-stirring confession that hubby wanted no part of going to Washington until she got a personal message from You-Know-Who that the presidency was his destiny.

The rift between the Bushes and the Perrys has not prevented the latter from pilfering a few pages from the former's well-worn playbook. When the Word comes from Upstairs, one simply doesn't mess with Texas - not with all those bible thumpers spread throughout the South and beyond. So far not much cowboy shows under the Perry 10-gallon hat, but in this wacky campaign season don't be too hasty to kick in with long odds that he's strictly yesterday's news.

Indeed the smart money is sharply divided in what may well boil down to an apocalyptic showdown for the heart and soul of the Republican party. There are still untold numbers of Republicans preferring to identify with their only two standard-bearers enshrined on Mt. Rushmore, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, neither of whom might find himself entirely comfortable in today's incarnation of the GOP. There are many more Republicans who view Romney as a pseudo-conservative.

Romney earned the distrust of the right as the pro-gun control, pro-gay marriage, pro-choice governor of the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Intractable right-wingers can be excused for their skepticism regarding Romney having seen so much light that he has been moved to reverse all three of these positions and for good measure even backtracked a mite on his 'socialized medicine' state health plan.

Romney now finds himself in a position not unlike that occupied by the once moderate George H. W. Bush in 1980 after he was clobbered by Ronald Reagan in the GOP primary. To mollify remnants of Republican centrism, Reagan chose the elder Bush to be his vice president. Eight years later, Bush 41, previously a dedicated advocate of government-supported family planning and opponent of "voodoo economics," as he labeled Reagan's supply side agenda, rolled over and embraced conservative philosophy in a manner that would have embarrassed the fiercest of grizzlies.

But during the four years of his own presidency, Bush the Elder first taunted the electorate and the press to "read my lips: no new taxes," and later raised taxes. Furthermore, after soaring in popularity with his Desert Storm operation to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi onslaught, he pulled up short of the gates of Baghdad allowing Saddam Hussein to continue his madness. Consequently, H. W. justified his conservative doubters and for him it was four years and out.

Presidential candidates are all about convincing voters that they will transform their stump rhetoric into Oval Office action. To paraphrase that sage for the ages, George Burns, authenticity is the key and a candidate who can fake that has it made.

Therein lies the rub for Citizen Romney. His most challenging task is to mesmerize Republican voters into believing that when they peel back his layers of liberalism - his previous stands on gun control, gay marriage, abortion and state-sponsored health care - at the core he actually is one of them.

It is not an easy sell. Maybe right-wingers could give Romney a Mulligan for going off course on an issue or two, reasoning that a couple of compromises were a fair trade-off for getting himself elected governor of a hardcore blue state. But opposition to an entire package of Republican anathema begged the question of whether he, as Bush 41 did earlier, would at some point during his presidency revert to his old lefty ways.

Romney is doing his doggonedest to show that his chameleon tactics are over and done with, that he will toe the line and do their bidding. He is at very least a far different candidate today than he was when he sought his party's nomination four years ago.

Maeve Reston of the Tribune Newspapers recently caught up with the erstwhile Bay State governor in New Hampshire, where he has a commanding lead in state polls, 38% to 20%, over Herman Cain. Reston recalled that in 2007, Romney was not only defensive about his switches on all of those aforementioned conservative issues but that he had "irritated voters by spending lavishly on television commercials long before anyone cast ballots" and that "some dismissed him as scripted and robotic."

By contrast, the reporter described him as "loose and confident" and "rather than rush out the door after events, he now often mingles with voters until just a few stragglers remain." Reston concluded that Romney is running a more financially prudent campaign with a smaller entourage, even boasting of flying budget airlines.

This time around Romney has apparently taken seriously Coco Chanel's observation that "hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity."

The extent and validity of his transformation may be problematic, but his heretofore inability to push his poll numbers northward and the difficulty in determining the true strength of moderate Republicans make it all but impossible to judge how well he might do as his party's candidate to upend President Obama, whose favorability rating has slipped below 45% - a position from which no incumbent president has been re-elected.

In the end, Republicans, who are getting a whiff of the enticing aroma of victory, might just be in a mood to cast their ballots for a feline carcass if it were the party nominee.

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