Lasting Damage for Romney

Ruth Marcus on Mar 7, 2012

"Until the very end, Clinton and Obama were haggling over superdelegates, waging searing attacks, and griping over DNC rules and bylaws as they scrambled for every last vote," Spicer noted.

In March 2008, one-fourth of Clinton supporters were warning that they would ditch the Democrats and vote for John McCain if their candidate didn't win. The experts spouted dire warnings of how Obama would have to waste precious time shoring up a segment of the unhappy base before turning to independents.

But there are two big differences between Clinton-Obama 2008 and Romney-Santorum-Paul-Gingrich 2012. First, whatever hard feelings remained between the candidates' supporters after Clinton eventually conceded, Obama enjoyed an energized following. In this campaign, the words "enthusiasm" and "Romney" do not appear together in the same sentence without the being accompanied by the phrase "lack of."

More important, the Republican primary -- unlike the Democratic contest in 2008 -- has pushed the all-but-certain nominee further to the ideological edge. Romney will survive Rick Santorum, but he will suffer a Santorum hangover.

During the course of the campaign, Romney has ramped up his rhetoric on issue after issue, from immigration to taxes to contraception, in ways that threaten to undermine his chances in the general election. Instead of positioning himself to exploit Obama's weakness among white, working-class voters, Romney has railed against union bosses, denounced the auto bailout, and made himself the candidate of Bain Capital, spouting unfortunate Richie Rich-isms.

Romney could yet win. But as much as his campaign would like, there is no magic button.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus(at symbol)washpost.com.