MITT ROMNEY MAY BE RAISING THE BUCKS BUT NOT THE DE FACTO GOP WINNER

There has been a concentrated effort on the part of the media including many who are more conservative leaning that since Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump have decided not to run for President, Mitt Romney is the De facto winner of the GOP nomination. Yes he has raised a lot of money and yes he is popular with the club house types in the GOP but money and elitist popularity DOES NOT a nominee make.

Granted at least at the moment the GOP field is a little on the weak side with several unknowns and at least one known, Newt Gingrich who is shooting himself in the foot, but we are still several months from the beginning of the Primary season and so automatically declaring Romney the winner and saying the nomination is his to lose is ridiculous.

Candidates like Herman Cain who is not well known is starting to gain momentum especially after a brilliant showing during the GOP debate earlier this month in Greenville, SC. Ron Paul can't, won't and must not win so should just fade away and go home to Texas. Newt as I mentioned is shooting himself in the foot, Tim Pawlenty is dull and still unknown to most. Rick Santorum and several others who are part of the lower tier are so unknown that it would take a miracle for them to climb the ladder to the nomination.

Additionally there are still others who have not made the decision who will change the dynamics of the GOP race considerably. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, John Bolton and Mitch Daniels are in the wings waiting to decide. While Palin, Bachman and Bolton will move the field more to a predominant conservative group seeking the nomination Daniels is almost a carbon copy of John McCain politically and we know how that turned out in 08.

With all of the above in mind Mitt Romney still poses problems that will keep him at a distance especially from the conservative base in the GOP. Romney although trying to claim opposition to Obamacare, even to the point of making a major speech against it, he has not and will not be able to get past his own state version referred to a Romneycare. With too many similarities to Obama's debacle and Romney's unwillingness to speak against it and all too willing to defend it, is a major obstacle to his gaining the nomination.

Also Romney is not the least bit exciting as a candidate. He proved this in his failed run for the 2008 nomination losing to an extremely dull John McCain and having to drop out well before the Primaries were completed. He is not liked by most conservatives and independents and would need both to have any possibility of gaining the nomination. Two groups he could not gain in 2008 and likely cannot gain in 2012.

We are still much too early in the process for the media or anyone else for that matter to call anyone a front runner or claiming the nomination is theirs to lose. Money does not make a nominee, a strong stance and grasp of the issues that matches the majority of the GOP electorate will win the nomination and Romney does not posses either. His record and his campaign ,"conservative," rhetoric do not match and voters know this.

The race for the GOP nomination is wide open and almost all of the candidates have a strong chance of taking out Obama as many polls show an unnamed GOP candidate beating Obama in 2012 which emphasises just how unpopular Obama is. Declaring a De facto winner is not only too early but ridiculous. Don't buy into it and use your good conservative research to find the candidate that you like the most as we work together to rid our Nation of the plague that is Barack Obama.

Ken Taylor