Math with Mitt, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #171 | @MDWorld

March 14, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 3 Comments

Dear Art,

I don’t understand what I have to do to end this nomination battle.  I have a distinct delegate advantage over my two rivals and I’ve gotten over a million more total votes than Rick Santorum, my next closest competitor.  I don’t know if you’ve been reading these articles about how poor turnout has been but a million votes is huge right now.  If this were the 2008 Democratic primary either of these advantages would have been plenty.   What do I have to do to end this primary?  When will the party start to come together around me?

-Mitt Romney

Mitt,

Allow me to rephrase your question in a way that will expose the absurdity of what you just asked me.  Your question is, essentially, “Why are Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich not reasonable people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?”  These are two people who made their entire career being unreasonable.  The kind of person who would drag the country through the Lewinsky mess while he himself was having an extramarital affair is not the kind of person that is going to drop out of a presidential race just because it’s completely implausible that he would win.  He’s probably the more rational of you opponents too.  Rick Santorum seems to think he was called by God to transform America into a theocracy.  A zealot like that isn’t going to stop just because it seems the math is against him.  His church used to persecute mathematicians all the time.

I don’t think you’re getting enough credit for your accomplishments.  You’ve gotten through a very ugly primary by doing a masterful job of dividing and conquering the two-bit opponents that have come and thrown themselves into the ring.  The ruthlessness with which you’ve unleashed your attack machine, even against members of your own party, speaks well for your ability to attack President Obama in a general election.  Sure it might take you until June to finally get the delegates you need but think of this as a good way to tune yourself up against some half-baked campaigns before you have to face the thresher that will be Obama’s general campaign.

There’s also another important barrier you might be able to break down: you could be our first robot president.  Robots have run before; John Kerry even got his party’s nomination.  You could be the one that finally breaks down that barrier.  People don’t even seem to be holding it against you anymore.  Can you imagine if John Kerry had said some of the things you’ve said in the past few weeks?  If he belittled a NASCAR crowd’s rain gear the way you did?  Or if he had talked about how he suddenly liked saying y’all and eating grits?  He would have been eaten alive.  You’re getting hardly any pushback at all.  Intrade has you at 35% to win the presidency.  You’re a brave trailblazer Mitt.  Keep at it.