When Conventional Wisdom Isn't

Mitt Romney is best positioned of the Republican candidates to beat President Obama in November. That is the conventional wisdom among the politically literate class. He has money and organization to compete, they say. Mitt can attract the all-important independents, we are told. He's a solid family man with no whiff of personal scandal. He'll win by making this election a referendum on the failed policies of the last three plus years.

It's a fine narrative. It's also wrong. Why? Nobody wants to vote for Mitt.

Need proof? Newt Gingrich won by double digits in South Carolina and is going to win handily in Florida. Newt Gingrich with his U-Haul full of personal and professional baggage, his holier-than-thou pronouncements, his, well, Mitt-like ability to be on every side of an issue. He's Silvio Berlusconi without the charm.

Browse the polls at Real Clear Politics and see how many show Romney favored by more than a third of Republican voters. Ever. He's been running for six years and he has faced, arguably, one of the weakest primary fields in modern politics. Still, more than two-thirds of Republican voters have been desperately seeking someone other than Romney to be the nominee. Herman Cain enjoyed a frightening lengthy ride at the top of the polls, for goodness sake. Is it logical to believe that a candidate who can't attract more than a third of his own party's voters after years of pandering to them is suddenly going to be able to command a majority of the entire electorate?

In the excellent movie adaptation of Michael Lewis' Moneyball, Brad Pitt's Billy Beane repeatedly asked a room full of scouts, "What's the problem?" The scouts in that room are like the political chattering class. They talk about Romney in the same way the scouts talk about players. He looks presidential, his resume is impressive, he's manageable. Great. But those attributes don't address the problem.

The problem is: people don't want to vote for Mitt Romney.

There are a minority of voters for whom anyone but Obama will do just fine. At some point, however, Romney would have to convince millions more that they need him in the White House. It won't happen.