He couldn't even come in second.
In Alabama and in Mississippi, states where he had most of the money, most of the establishment endorsements and (we were told) most of the momentum, Romney a weak third behind a resurgent Santorum and a resilient Gingrich.
It was a dismal night for Mitt.
In two of the most Republican states in the union, the man who wants to lead the Republican Party in what is a definitional presidential race this fall was opposed by more than 70 percent of Republicans.
That maintained a pattern of Southern primary finishes where Romney could not break 30 percent. (Yes, Mitt did win two states of the former Confederacy, Virginia and Florida, but in each case he was saved by transplanted Yankees--carrying the most culturally and politically "northern" parts of those Southern states.)
If Romney just had a Southern problem, that would be one thing. But, of course, the one thing that unites Republicans in virtually every region of the country is their disdain for Mitt Romney.
Seventy-five percent of Iowa Republican caucus voters opposed Mitt, and that wasn't the worst of it. In Minnesota, 82 percent of Republican caucus-goers rejected Romney. Even where he won, as in the battleground states of Michigan and Ohio, it was by narrow margins against a divided opposition.
There are Republican strategists who think that "Obama Hate"--a condition characterized by excessive Fox News consumption--will allow any Republican nominee to unite the party for the fall fight with the president.
Perhaps.
But the same authenticity deficit that tripped Mitt up in the very Republican states of Mississippi and Alabama -- and South Carolina, and Georgia and so on -- is going to keep tripping him up Illinois (where polls put Romney and Santorum in a statistical dead heat), Pennsylvania (where Santorum is way ahead) and beyond.
Romney wanted so badly to close the deal in Alabama and Mississippi that he rendered himself ridiculous with all that talk of grits and "y'alls."
But he did not close any deal. He just confirmed his absurdity. And his inability to beat a washed-up former senator from Pennsylvania and the disgraced former speaker of the US House of Representatives means that he will be performing in the theater of the absurd that the Republican primaries have become for weeks, perhaps months, to come.
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