The “Next in Line” model

Posted on March 3, 2010 by David Hume

Alex Knepper argues that Romney’s Nomination No Lock. The evidence he marshals seems respectable, but I have to say that it was less persuasive than I’d expected, so I am actually increasing my confidence in the model, not decreasing it (I started out guardedly skeptical of the model so I expected Knepper to make a clearer case).

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7 Responses to The “Next in Line” model

  1. brandon says:
    March 3, 2010 at 11:54 am

    I think one of the main reasons for the GOP “next in line model” is the fact that so many old people vote in the republican primaries. Therefore the guy with the most recent name recognition always has the biggest advantage. Romney didn’t quite have that recognition last time plus he was mormon, and older people are more likely to be religious and more likely to care about the specifics of someone’s religion.

  2. TrueNorth says:
    March 3, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    I think Romney’s inauthenticity was the real problem, not his being too intellectual. He doesn’t strike me as seeming arrogant and professorial the way Obama does – just smart and competent.

    I think he is probably the best best the Republicans have right now. He should try to get Sarah Palin on his side, instead of alienating her, and he should do the FoxNEWS shows, but as himself, not a Sean Hannity clone. I vote Romney/Gingrich for the ticket.

  3. Polichinello says:
    March 3, 2010 at 3:36 pm

    Knepper’s argument is facile. He picks some pretty weak arguments, like “Why didn’t Pat Buchanan win in ’96?” Well, the guy was an oddball candidate with no record of elective office. Don’t get me wrong. I like Buchanan’s foreign policy generally, but he was an outsider. The rest of the piece is filled with the same sort quibbling and strawman argumentation.

    While being “the next in line” (which can be defined in a number of ways) is not an ironclad guarantee, it certainly gives one a better shot. Really, that’s true even with Buchanan. Would he have done as well as he did in the ’96 primaries if he hadn’t run ’92? Reagan didn’t make it in ’76 after ’68, but, man, was that a close one.

    Given the boost of being 2008’s runner-up and his credibility as a former governor, Romney is well ahead of whoever else comes along.

  4. brandon says:
    March 3, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Polichinello,

    Yeah I agree with you. Buchanan wasn’t next in line in 96′ because Dole, who had lost in 1988 was actually next in line. Not only that, but Buchanan nearly won the primaries in 1996… which is significant given the fact that he was such an outsider to the party establishment.

    I think the only ones who could give Romney a run for his money would be Newt Gingrich and Huckabee since Huckabee could potentially win the entire south.

    I personally don’t like any of them, but his bible thumping aside I would take Huckabee over the other two and Ron Paul will be too old in 2012.

  5. David Hume says:
    March 3, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    an issue i’ve mentioned before: person X may have the highest probability of getting nominated, and we might give this probability a high degree of confidence. but that probability might be rather low. say 20%.

  6. A-Bax says:
    March 3, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Brandon: I’ve wondered about Gingrich too, and on paper he seems as solid a candidate as Romney, if not better in that he doesn’t have the authenticity issue chipping away at him.

    But, doesn’t a Gingrich candidacy seem like it would carry alot of 90s baggage with it? Although one could make the case that Gingrich’s association with Clinton, the Contract, the House takeover, etc. is a plus, on balance I get the sense that Gingrich’s link to that overall period – his ouster, the later Clinton years with impeachment and so on, might work against him.

    I think there’s an overall sense of “90s fatigue”, and that is part of what hurt Hillary. A good chunk of the “freshness” of the Obama candidacy (in the primaries) was the implicit hope that we would be finally getting away from the Bush-Clinton rinse & repeat Presidential pattern. The Democrats could sense that a Hillary nomination would bring all sorts of 90s retread Clintonistas back into the picture, whereas Obama offered the promise of a clean slate. (Hence some of the upsetment with Obama when he brought in old Clinton cronies anyway. That wasn’t change progressive Dems could believe in!)

    I guess what I’m saying is that I think a Gingrich run might elicit the same worry in the GOP, and that would give Romney an advantage.

  7. brandon says:
    March 3, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    A-Bax,

    I agree about Gingrich and 90’s baggage, but Newt has been positioning himself for a comeback for many years now. People love “comebacks” whether it comes to athletes, politicians, or celebs. I think in a sense he also benefits from one aspect of the 90’s baggage, and that is he can be seen as the brilliant architect of the ’94 revolution, and yet he departed long before he could have been associated with the worst years of the republican congress, 2000-2006.

    Newt also has something that very few republican candidates ever have, and that is imagination. Gingrich has actual dreams and ideas. Even better he can articulate them and be persuasive.

    The only reasons I personally am not crazy about him are because of his role in NAFTA, globalization, and his seemingly neocon attitude toward foreign policy. But I am in the minority on those issues.

    Newt appeals to a great many people from all walks of life. Even Howard Stern used to praise Gingrich in his books.

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