Matthew Shugart on Presidential Candidates and Their Parties
The State of the GOP
08/13/2012
Steven L. Taylor,
Outside the Beltway
While we are focused, understandably, on the presidential contest, and its latest twist, Mitt Romney’s choice of a running mate, the real story in terms of US governance remains the dysfunction in Congress, where it seems that actually governing is not the priority.
First, while still on the topic of the presidential race, I was struck by a statement by Samuel Popkin, a distinguished political scientist at UCSD. In an e-mail to James Fallows at the Atlantic, Popkin notes in commenting on the current presidential contest:
Whenever you hear politicians say the problem is the candidate, that it’s not about the party, you can be sure it is about the party.
Not only have we already heard some rumblings within some GOP circles about Romney (as well as some this weekend that I have seen in passing, about whether the party would be better off with Ryan on the top of the ticket), but if President Obama is re-elected in November* then this line of reasoning will come to dominate the Republican Party. What I expect to see is the “if we had only nominated a real conservative, we would have won” argument (which will be untrue, but could have serious consequences for the party in 2016).
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Matthew F. Shugart is a professor of Political Science at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. Professor Shugart can provide commentary on elections, election reforms, and constitutional crises in the United States and abroad.
