Jack Lessenberry: Miles to go in this election

Jack Lessenberry

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Lessenberry

October 2, 2011

By Jack Lessenberry, Columnist ---- The Record Eagle Wed Feb 22, 2012, 03:14 PM EST

Last weekend, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry both attempted to wow Michigan Republicans at the party's fall meeting on Mackinac Island.

Romney, who was born in Detroit, faced a friendly crowd who plainly regarded him as a favorite son, though he hasn't lived in the state since 1965.

He sprinkled his remarks with Michigan references. About the best his rival could do was offer a somewhat lame comment that his father once came to Fenton to buy a truck.

Not surprisingly, a straw poll showed the activists on the island favored Romney by 51 percent to 17 percent for the Texas governor. This means exactly nothing at this stage, of course.

Had the meeting taken place in Texas, the results would probably would have been a near-mirror image, with Perry on top.

Nationally, in fact, most polls still show Rick Perry still the front-runner for the GOP nomination nationwide.

But if history is any guide, this race is really already over.

Barring catastrophe, the nominee is bound to be Willard Mitt Romney, thanks to a little-known law of American politics.

You might call it, "The Inevitability of the Second-Place Elephant."

Simply stated, here's how it works: You may not have noticed, but Republicans always nominate the candidate who finished second in the last great nomination struggle.

This has been the case throughout the modern era.

Flash back to 1976, when President Gerald Ford narrowly held off Ronald Reagan in the last time a nomination was decided at a convention.

Four years later, the party turned to Reagan, after he fought off a spirited challenge from former CIA director George H.W. Bush.

Bush served loyally as Mr. Reagan's vice president for eight years, then won the nomination for himself -- after overcoming a challenge from Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.

Eight years later, in 1996, it was Bob Dole's turn. That race was different in that Dole didn't really have a major challenger for that nomination; the other two men in the race, Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes, were not major figures in the Republican Party.

So four years later, the GOP did the next best thing: They turned to a familiar name, if not face: George W. Bush, the son of the former president.

After losing some early primaries, including Michigan's, he managed to overcome John McCain.

Guess who got the nomination eight years later?

And the man who finished second in the battle for the GOP nomination that time was, naturally, Mitt Romney.

Why does the GOP process work this way?

Democrats don't seem at all inclined to choose their runners-up the next time out.

Otherwise they would have nominated Mo Udall, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson, among others.

John F. Kennedy once wisecracked that the way to understand Republicans was "to watch elephants in the circus."

"They all grab the tail of the elephant in front of them with their trunk, and that's how they know which way to go."

Others have said, more seriously, that Republicans are more like a large extended family; it takes a while to warm up to outsiders.

There also may be a simple, practical reason runners-up tend to succeed. Running a national campaign is a difficult, drawn-out process. First-timers always make some mistakes, and are subject to a degree of press scrutiny they've never encountered before.

Mitt Romney has been through all that. If he were a womanizer or had questionable finances, his party and the nation would likely know about it by now. Rick Perry is just beginning to find out what a national campaign is like, as a series of recent gaffes have shown.

Romney, on the other hand, is unlikely to repeat his story about how he tied his terrified dog atop his car while on vacation. That drew howls of angry protest from dog lovers nationwide.

That doesn't mean this precedent won't eventually be broken; sooner or later, they all are. But if history repeats itself, Romney will be the nominee. However, then the odds change.

Incumbent presidents have been beaten -- three of them in the recent past. But other things being equal, the odds favor the man in office. And unless President Obama's support completely collapses, any GOP challenger may have an uphill Electoral College battle.

Suppose Romney is nominated, wins every state John McCain did, and also takes Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina, all of which voted for Mr. Obama.

He would still lose the electoral vote, and the election.

To win, he would have to add Michigan.

But the last time it voted Republican for president, the Berlin Wall was still up, the Soviet Union still existed, the World Wide Web had yet to be invented, and nobody had a cellphone in their pocket.

This campaign has many, many months to go.