OP-ED | Which Republican Presidential Candidate Could Win Connecticut?
by Heath W. Fahle | Aug 19, 2011 12:42pm
(9) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
Connecticut doesn’t get much attention when it comes to Presidential politics, so its no surprise that the candidates vying for the Republican Presidential nomination haven’t spent much time or money in the state. As the focus on that contest intensifies, however, considering which GOP contender could win Connecticut is one way to identify who should be the party’s nominee.
Republican Presidential candidates used to find receptive crowds in Connecticut. President Richard Nixon won the state’s eight electoral votes, posting a convincing 19 percent margin of victory over George McGovern in 1972. Four years later and just two years beyond Watergate, Gerald Ford still won 52 percent of the vote in 1976, and conservative hero Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent President Carter in 1980 with a 10 percent margin of victory. Not only did Reagan expand his margin to 22 percent in 1984, the Reagan Landslide also carried state Republicans to their first majority in the CT House of Representatives since 1974. The GOP winning streak continued in 1988 as the state voted for George H.W. Bush.
All that seems like ancient history though. The Democratic margin of victory has grown since 1992, culminating with President Obama’s 22 percent trouncing of John McCain in 2008. Equally disheartening for Republicans is the state’s continuing support of the President even though much of the rest of the country has given up on him. According to recent polling data by Gallup, Connecticut is the most Pro-Obama state in the union with a 60 percent approval rating. That’s 6 percent better than Mr. Obama’s home state of Illinois and a whopping 33 percent better than Idaho, Obama’s worst, where the President is supported by just 27 percent of Idahoans.
Minnesota Congresswoman and winner of the recent Iowa Straw Poll Michelle Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, and Texas Governor Rick Perry all hold socially conservative views that seem unlikely to play well in a state that legalized gay marriage without a court ruling and was the origination point for the U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, which laid the groundwork for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that effectively legalized abortion in the U.S.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s staunch libertarian views have helped him generate a small but ardent following around the country. But Mr. Paul mustered just 4 percent in the 2008 CTGOP primary and doesn’t seem likely to have broader appeal in a general election. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich has carved out a niche as an ideas man and policy wonk but his rocky years as Speaker of the House may make it difficult for him to attract support from independents and crossover Democrats.
That leaves former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Huntsman is fresh off an assignment as President Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to China and favors civil unions for gay couples (though opposes gay marriage), which are both problematic in the GOP primary but potential pluses in the general election. His campaign has been lackluster to date however and has been beset by internal chaos.
Despite having been Governor in next-door Massachusetts, Mitt Romney finished behind John McCain in the 2008 CT primary, receiving 33 percent of the vote. His business background and expertise on economic issues offer a stark contrast to the economic record of President Obama. But perhaps a gauge of the strength of his candidacy is the reaction to it: other candidates keep getting in the race.
It’s true that Republicans can win the Presidency without Connecticut. But in politics, as in life, the way you accomplish tasks is often as important as the accomplishment itself. Ronald Reagan didn’t achieve greatness simply by winning the Presidency twice – fourteen Presidents have done that. It was the way he did it, winning 49 states amid the most convincing Presidential victory since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. If the GOP wants to elect the next great Republican President, they might start thinking about how to win in Connecticut.
Heath W. Fahle is the Policy Director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy and a former Executive Director of the Connecticut Republican Party. Contact Heath about this article by visiting www.heathwfahle.com
Tags: republican, presidential nomination
(9) Comments
posted by: ... | August 19, 2011 12:54pm
If that internal strife does die down in the Huntsman Camp and he revives his campaign nationally, he would be an effective candidate in CT for the general election. Romney also has a chance, but I figure Huntsman would be more likeable and appears more genuine than Romney.
posted by: Susan Jane Bigelow | August 19, 2011 1:38pm
Romney might have a chance here, but he would need to tack to the center hard post-primary and run a much stronger and more engaging campaign than he ever has in his life.
Then again, this election is going to be very strange, so who knows?
posted by: ... | August 19, 2011 4:15pm
It would also be important for Heath to mention how a more appealing Republican Presidential candidate in CT could really aide those running for the U.S. House or Senate seats.
A Bachmann/Perry/Paul would create a lot of straight, party line voters for the major parties. But a Huntsman or Romney Candidate might fracture party-line voters for a variety of reasons.
posted by: saramerica | August 19, 2011 5:54pm
Romney has lost credibility because he changes his views according to his audience - anyone who accused Kerry of being a “flip flopper” is going to have a hard time defending Romney as a presidential candidate. His ardent defense of corporate personhood is not going to win him many friends amongst the general populace either. Huntsman is by far the most sane and appealing of the GOP field, which could be why he did so badly in Iowa. And he had the courage of his convictions - when pressed on his stance on gay marriage, he stood his ground, instead of staring into the camera and repeating “I’m running for President” like a la the Stepford Bachmann.
posted by: NOW What? | August 19, 2011 7:56pm
Which Republican Presidential Candidate Could Win Connecticut? Probably NONE of them, at least at this point in time.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | August 21, 2011 11:10am
None.
Romney has the best chance at playing a proven Moderate as he did in Massachusetts.
Bachmann and Perry will never get around issues like Intelligent Design and other conservative Christian values.
It’s really what makes this election interesting. If Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania go with a Conservative Christian then the isolation of California and the North East 10 (New England, NY, NJ, MD, Delaware) is complete.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | August 21, 2011 11:38am
The New South is also in play and there are signs that the IT workers in Virginia and engineers in the Research Triangle North Carolina and non-unionized auto workers in South Carolina and Georgia aren’t looking North any more. The Northern economic model is rejected as a proven failure.
The answers aren’t to be found in the stagnant deficit ridden states and socially liberal secular states like CT.
Instead America’s job growth and future is in the Hispanic workforce of the Southern Border States or the highly educated IT workers of Reston Virginia or the engineers in Research Universities in NC and Georgia and Texas.
The progressives are on the run and they don’t know it.
I expect the North to become more like post-War Europe. Obamacare and other forms of state socialism will be a necessary triage for a broken and bombed out industrial system with too many poor patients without jobs and the North East 10 will look for the next Marshall Plan to bail out their faltering economies suffering from both Foreign and New South competition in pricing, quality-of-life issues or both.
Do the Northern Liberal Elite and their education systems perceive themselves as a proven failure? Of a 1950s model gone wrong? 150 years of thumbing their nose at the South coming to a sterile end?
posted by: Careful | August 21, 2011 8:21pm
Readers are using their own “crystal balls” with an election 14 months away, when none of them has a clue!
posted by: gerardw | August 24, 2011 10:50am
Eight electoral votes? not anymore. The 7 votes of consistently blue Connecticut aren’t significant. The only reason a Republican would campaign in CT is to collect Fairfield County dollars for their nation campaign war chest. New England’s mindless left-winginess has made it mostly irrelevant to national politics. (Which the exception of New Hampshire, but obviously that’s just due to it’s first primary status.)