Mitt Romney has been picking up a lot of major endorsements from key Tea Party figures like South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Christine O’Donnell, prompting some to question whether its’ inevitable that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for President in 2012.
In considering the question, there are two factors that voters and political pundits need to consider. First, there’s the complex nature of political endorsements and the wide ranging month by month flirtation that has occurred within the Republican primary field.
Endorsements may help candidates garner votes, but they are not votes themselves. My personal calculus when voting has nothing to do with who each candidate has been endorsed by. Rather, I look at my situation and which candidate I believe will be most beneficial to my interests. If people are voting for candidate x because they were endorsed by figure y, than there is something wrong with this country.
Getting to my second point, if Mitt Romney is going to be the presidential candidate for the Republican party, then why hve there been all these flirtations with anyone but Mitt Romney? Everyone except Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum have had their moments in the sun during the candidate stages of this race.
This says to me that Republican voters don’t have a candidate yet, and no spate of endorsements is going to make it so. There are clearly a large swath of Republicans that belong to the anybody but Romney crowd. So I think anyone crowning Mitt Romney the Republican nominee, needs to take a chill pill.
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