On Wednesday we wrapped up our midseason look at the GOP primary competitors.
What’d we learn?
Well, probably not much, but it was fun.
Anyway, here now, a handy complete scorecard for future reference. Also suitable for framing.
1. Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney may be a Red Sox fan, but his campaign probably most resembles the New York Yankees: a big-spending perennial contender packed with accomplished veterans. With these assets, however, come sky high expectations that make anything less than total victory a disaster — and a source of incalculable schadenfreude for his rivals.
So far, however, Romney has mostly proven as solid as advertised on offense and defense alike. In the early going, his consistent economy-focused message put him into a promising two-person race with the much less polished Michele Bachmann. And while many thought his days were numbered after a surging Rick Perry leapt into the fray, he connected hard with hits to the Texas governor’s left (Social Security) and right (immigration) that confirmed once again that he’s still the most seasoned player out there.
Romney may be a solid .300 hitter, but he doesn’t put up the gaudy polling numbers one would expect from a superstar and his weaknesses on health care, immigration, and any number of evolving positions, are all extremely dangerous. There’s still plenty to fear from the various wild cards in the race.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: June 2, 2011
Best moment: Every debate.
Worst Moment: Every poll with Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, or Donald Trump in first place.
Best Quote: “Corporations are people, my friend.”
Endorsed by God?: Governor Perry should repudiate that question.
TPM Grade: Given his cash and experience, Romney has nothing to crow about until he wins the nomination. But there’s no question he’s stepped up his game since 2008 and established himself as the man to beat. That’s worth a strong B+.
2. Rick Perry
On paper, Rick Perry should already be the Republican nominee. He showed up late to the race as the great conservative hope who was supposed to finally do what none of the other candidates could: unite tea partiers, evangelicals, and big business under one banner. He even had a math-minded political guru who drew comparisons to Billy Beane in Moneyball — and everyone likes that movie, right?
Some prominent commentators predicted that all Perry had to do to win was not screw up. We’ll never know the truth of that theory, however, because he started screwing up almost immediately: showing up half-awake to debates, calling anti-immigration Republicans heartless, quintupling down on his most radioactive Social Security rhetoric, and more. Somehow he’s managed to convince Republican voters he’s a closet bleeding-heart liberal while completely alienating independent voters at the same time.
Perry’s got plenty of cash and the most executive experience in the field, so you can’t count him out until the very end. But his latest tactic of loudly appealing to birthers feels like the kind of move only a desperate candidate would pull.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: August 13, 2011
Best moment: The part before he officially announced his campaign.
Worst Moment: The part after he officially announced his campaign.
Best Quote: “Adios…mofo.”
Endorsed by God?: 100%, according to his wife.
TPM Grade:. You can’t fail him while he has $15 million to spend on a comeback, so we’ll be generous and give him a “D.” We’re not mad, Rick, we’re just disappointed.
3. Herman Cain
Yes, the current frontrunner for the GOP nomination is on the top of the list of candidates we think are really playing at the back of the pack. Why? Well, beyond the fact that Cain has no real campaign to speak of, he’s also swung and missed at everything that’s come his way since he took over the top spot in polling.
So far, there’s been the terrible mess Cain’s signature 9-9-9 tax plan has become since it got national attention, the total freaking out of the social conservative right Cain’s neatly pulled off over the last week and his continued utter lack of interest in foreign policy.
Karl Rove says Cain is done. But then again Rove said the same thing about Christine O’Donnell and we know how that turned out.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: May 21, 2011
Best moment: “9-9-9”
Worst Moment: “9-9-9”
Best Quote: “9-9-9”
Endorsed by God?: “God’s been in this from the beginning.”
TPM Grade: A+. Among the people who most likely will not get the Republican nomination, Cain is showing the rest how it’s done.
4. Michele Bachmann
Bachmann, the tea party superstar from Minnesota, came into the race with a bang. She then saw her campaign collapse shortly thereafter.
Bachmann has failed to grab the support of either of her natural bases. Tea party types seem to be flocking to Cain, while the religious conservatives who she’s been close to since before there was a tea party don’t seem too interested anymore.
On that rickety foundation, Bachmann built a campaign that is much more soap opera script (or SNL sketch) than halfway credible political organization.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: June 13, 2011
Best moment: Winning the Ames Straw Poll
Worst Moment: Every other moment
Best Quote: “Before we get started, let’s all say ‘Happy Birthday’ to Elvis Presley today.”
Endorsed by God?: “I can tell you, yes, I’ve had that calling and that tugging on my heart that this is the right thing to do.”
TPM Grade: D. Honestly, no one expected Bachmann to get the nomination, but no one expected she’d lose tea partiers.
5. Newt Gingrich
Hey remember when the guy who had to resign from Congress after he took the Republican majority down an unpopular rabbit hole of impeachment cut an ad with Nancy Pelosi about the dangers of global warming a few years later and then decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination?
Gingrich is living that dream right now.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: May 11, 2011
Best moment: “If you want to put people in jail, you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.”
Worst Moment: “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.”
Best Quote: “You should really go home and think about why you would even ask that today.”
Endorsed by God?: “There is now a convention in scientific publications to replace Anno Domini (AD) with common era (CE). This is an entirely artificial and intellectually incoherent dating system. There is no common era.”
TPM Grade: C+. Polls show Gingrich is starting to turn things around a bit, and it seems likely that he’ll emerge from the primary race without alienating the entire GOP which was not something you could say a few months ago.
6. Ron Paul
Not this year, Mr. Paul. Though he still commands an army of libertarian minions ready to win him straw poll after straw poll, Paul has failed to connect in most polling because he’s become a little too popular. The issues that defined him — destroying The Fed, eliminating government agencies wholesale, etc — entered the GOP mainstream thanks to the tea party and now Paul is on the sidelines watching the rest of the candidates fight about positions that used to be his alone.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: May 13, 2011
Best moment: Yelling “heroin” in a crowded theater
Worst Moment: Having to wait for the crowd to finish calling for the uninsured to be left to die before getting to answer a question
Best Quote: Would you have voted against the Civil Rights Act? “Yeah.”
Endorsed by God?: Does God drink raw milk?
TPM Grade: In a pass/fail system, Paul gets a pass. It’s hard to give him a letter grade when everyone else has stolen his homework.
7. Jon Huntsman
You’ve got to feel for Jon Huntsman – a least a little.
Once a successful governor of a deep red state, a former ambassador to the country the Tea Party most fears, foreign policy bona fides unrivaled by anyone else in the race, as well as, you know, holding a few policy positions that might actually appeal to voters in a general election (at time of writing Huntsman had not yet recanted his belief in the science of global warming).
By all accounts Jon Huntsman would be a formidable contender for the GOP nomination – in 1996.
In 2012, it’s clear GOP voters are after something quite different. A fact that Huntsman himself is fond of reminding them of.
But since letting voters know just how nuts they are for not giving him a look isn’t working, what’s the man from Utah got left?
Lay it all on the line in New Hampshire — where Mitt Romney is ahead by something like 30 points.
It just ain’t your year, Jon.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: June 21, 2011
Left the race: TBD
Best moment: Day one.
Worst Moment: Thinking a GOP debate audience would get a Kurt Cobain reference.
Best Quote: ‘She makes for good copy — and photography‘ (on Michele Bachmann)
Endorsed by God?: Doubtful
TPM Grade: D, at risk of failing.
8. Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum is angry.
You can hear in his voice every time he gets a word in at one of the debates — which, as he’s fond of reminding us, isn’t often. You can almost hear him saying, ‘Screw you guys, I was GOP crazy before GOP crazy was cool. This is supposed to be my game.’
But unfortunately for Rick Santorum there aren’t any points for originality in this competition. If there were, Rick’s retro ’92 I-was-conservative-before-you campaign might be kicking some serious ass. Just the other day, he was trying on some old lines that have only had something like two decades to marinate — single moms are the ‘political base’ of the Democratic party. We’re half expecting Santorum to next suggest that violent video games like Mortal Kombat are irretrievably corrupting our children.
We get it Rick — you’re the conservative’s conservative. We know these guys stole your game.
Life just ain’t fair.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: June 6, 2011
Left the race: TBD
Best moment: Giving out free jelly at the Ames Straw Poll.
Worst Moment: Publicly taking on his ‘Google’ problem, and thus reminding everyone about his ‘Google’ problem.
Best Quote: Too many to choose from, so we’ll simply go with this classic bit of revisionist history from his campaign launch: “Almost 60,000 average Americans had the courage to go out and charge those beaches on Normandy, to drop out of airplanes who knows where, and take on the battle for freedom. The very Americans that our government now, and this president, does not trust a to make decision on your health care plan. Those Americans risked everything so they could make that decision on their health care plan.”
Endorsed by God?: Yes.
TPM Grade: D+
9. Tim Pawlenty
We’ll say this about Tim Pawlenty: You can’t help but respect a man who knows that losing to the likes of Michele Bachmann — even in an event as ridiculous as the Ames Straw Poll — does not a winning presidential campaign make.
Pawlenty, he of ‘Minnesota-Nice’ fame, was a largely unknown figure on the national stage before being briefly mentioned as a potential running mate for John McCain back in 2008. Sadly, his own presidential campaign four years later didn’t really do much to solve that fundamental problem.
The plan was to be the reasonable man waiting in the wings when the GOP electorate finally grew tired of flirting with the firebrands, and also came around to remembering that Mitt Romney signed state-level universal health care, used to be pro-choice, and has generally abandoned one way or the other most every political position he’s ever held.
But when given the chance to take on Romney, Pawlenty promptly crawled into a hole, never to return.
Then he lost to Bachmann in Iowa.
Every man has his limits — despite what his Michael Bay-like campaign ads might otherwise suggest about his powers.
Player Vitals
Entered the race: May 23, 2011
Left the race: August 14, 2011
Best moment: This ad. We were looking forward to the trilogy.
Worst Moment: The great ‘ObamneyCare’ whiff at the New Hampshire debate.
Best Quote: ‘I could have balloons.”
Endorsed by God?: Unclear
TPM Grade: Incomplete