President Obama And Mitt Romney’s New Best Friend

by Stuart Shapiro

The entrance of Governor Perry to the presidential race is the biggest news since the race began.  Michael Tomasky says he is the soon to be frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

First, I think Perry becomes the frontrunner, even ahead of Mitt Romney, for three main reasons. No. 1, he fires up large chunks of the base in a way Romney does not. Romney has “default candidate” written all over him, but evangelicals and other hard-shell conservatives are never going to love a Massachusetts Mormon. They’ll love Perry. No. 2, Perry can quickly become the “establishment” candidate because the establishment of today’s GOP is not based on Wall Street or the heartland but in Texas—Karl Rove, the oilmen, the various billionaires who prime those GOP pumps. No. 3 is speculation rather than fact, but I believe Perry will demonstrate pretty quickly that he’s a better campaigner than Romney. It won’t be hard.

Tomasky also goes on to say that unlike Romney, Perry is a frontrunner who could cause problems for the president in the general election.   But there is one great hope for both Romney and Obama.  Either one of them will beat Michele Bachmann easily in a one-on-one contest.  Furthermore, from Governor Romney’s perspective, the longer she stays in the race, the longer the evangelical, won’t-raise-the-debt-ceiling, Social-Security-is-a ponzi-scheme vote will be split.

If I were advising either the president or Governor Romney, I’d tell them to start subsidizing the Bachmann campaign.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.