Romney on the verge of victory

What happened

Republican voters and leaders anointed Mitt Romney their presumptive presidential candidate this week, as he won a trio of primary contests and a wave of key endorsements. Romney scored a decisive 7-point victory in Wisconsin, where his chief rival, Rick Santorum, had campaigned relentlessly in search of an upset win. With easy wins in Maryland and Washington, D.C., Romney has now amassed over half the delegates required to secure the nomination. Santorum said he would fight on, but the race is now shifting to the general election bout between Romney and President Obama. Key Republican figures endorsed Romney last week, including former President George H.W. Bush, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. “We need to coalesce around Mitt Romney and focus on the big task at hand,” said Ryan, “which is defeating Barack Obama in the fall.”

President Obama signaled that he considered Romney his challenger, mentioning him by name in a speech for the first time this week. Obama criticized Romney’s support for the House Republican budget proposed by Ryan, which he derided as “social Darwinism.” Romney fired back in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, characterizing Obama as an “out of touch” leader who has surrounded himself with an “adoring staff of true believers.”

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What the editorials said

Santorum had his chance to prove himself the “champion of conservatives,” said The Wall Street Journal, but he has failed. Even self-described Tea Party supporters backed Romney over Santorum in Wisconsin, and “GOP reform leaders” like Ryan have given him ringing endorsements. Santorum says he’ll remain in the race to force a decision at the convention. But without an “issue or rationale” to rally Republicans with, he ought to ask himself “what purpose is served by continuing to stay in the race.”

Now comes Romney’s “Etch A Sketch moment,” said Bloomberg.com. Can he “shake the slate clean” of the hard-right positions he has taken on immigration, tax reform, and social issues, and emerge as a moderate Republican once again? Let’s hope so, said the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The “moderate inclinations” he has shown in the past on issues such as health care and the environment make him the best candidate to attract independent swing voters. If Romney rejects the “worst impulses of the political Right,” President Obama could have a real fight on his hands.

What the columnists said

The race may be all but over, said John Dickerson in Slate.com, but Romney is left with a “badly battered image.” Only 35 percent of independent voters view him favorably, and 52 percent say they don’t like him. Obama now has an 18-point lead over Romney with female voters. The question now is “how does Romney fix all of this”? Not easily, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post. “Come the fall, Romney will still be Romney”—and his image as an uninspiring flip-flopper unable to connect with ordinary people is now stamped in voters’ minds. If Romney thinks he can Etch A Sketch that away, “he’s got an awful lot of shaking to do.”

The good news for Republicans, said William Kristol in The Weekly Standard, is that this former Bain executive has experience in “turning around an enterprise that’s likely to fail.” To defeat Obama, Romney now has to pivot from a negative tone to a “bolder, more forward-looking” message, offering voters a clear “choice of paths for the future.” He would be wise to drift back to the political center, too, said Timothy Stanley in CNN.com. A “subtle shift in tone” on social issues could help bring female voters back to the Republican fold.

Whatever happens next, said Michael Gerson in The Washington Post, the general election campaign already looks more like a “contest of the wounded” than a “clash of the titans.” Romney’s image problems make him a weak candidate, but Obama looks just as vulnerable. His approval ratings are still below 50 percent, with many voters unconvinced by his performance on the economy, job creation, and health care. Poll after poll shows him losing to a generic Republican opponent. But to deliver on that promise, Romney will have to prove to voters that he’s “something more than a generic Republican.”