Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt RomneyA win is better than a loss, but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s victory in Tuesday’s Illinois primary raises as many questions as it answers about the intensity of his support.
Even in relatively liberal Illinois, the moderate Romney was unable to get past the 50 percent mark. He got 47 percent of the vote. That compares with conservative former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s 35 percent, Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s 9 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 8 percent.
Romney failed again to draw the support of staunch conservatives away from Santorum. That casts fresh doubt on Romney’s ability to motivate the conservative base, without which he cannot defeat President Barack Obama in the general election in November.
The trouble that Romney keeps running into is the strong and unfortunately justified fear that he may not provide the really conservative leadership needed to begin undoing the grievous damage Obama has done not only to the economy but to the very principles of limited government and the rule of law.
Obama has seen bigger government — through disastrous legislation such as the “stimulus” — as the answer to every problem. When such efforts fail, Democrats complain that Republicans prevented Congress from making the programs big enough. Yes, if you can believe it, quite a few Democrat leaders actually believe the only thing wrong with the stimulus is that it wasn’t far larger. They have the temerity to say that even though Obama said the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent. Unemployment has not been under 8 percent even once since soon after Obama took office.