Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Dean Barnett explains what Mitt Romney is facing a heavy media assault: because he doesn't fit the media's low expectations of a Republican presidential candidate.

The press has come to expect Republicans to fit certain molds. They are supposed to be inarticulate and not quick on their feet. The press has stereotyped every Republican presidential nominee since Ford in this way. They are also supposed to be intellectually unimaginative or downright unintelligent. Again, every Republican presidential nominee since Ford has had to live with this label. They are further required to be creatures of politics who have accomplished nothing or next to nothing outside of the political world. Lastly, all Republicans ought to have a bit of Elmer Gantry in them. They should preach about morality and piety, but they should always be obliging enough to have at least a few skeletons jangling in their closet.

Mitt Romney fails to live up to any of these stereotypes. Glib and articulate, it’s hard to imagine Romney ever fearing a press conference or a debate. Intellectually, Romney graduated Harvard’s Business and Law Schools with top honors. Furthermore, it seems like he’s completely unfamiliar with the media dictates that Republicans should wrestle with English like it’s a hostile foreign language and make themselves available for lampooning as dullards.

Even more gratingly, Mitt Romney didn’t become a full-time politician until 2002. Until then, he had been a phenomenally successful businessman who had made hundreds of millions of dollars in a fiercely competitive industry while earning a reputation for honesty and intellectual probity.

Lastly, and probably most frustratingly for the media, the Romney closet is depressingly barren. When Mitt Romney talks about family values, he’s able to point to his own wife of 40 years and a brood of children and grandchildren that seems too good even for a Christmas card.

In short, Mitt Romney is more formidable than a Republican presidential candidate has any right being. He is a fat target...

Barnett's analysis is pretty good, though I think he left something out: The Mormon factor. Simply put, to most members of the media, Romney's particular brand of religious faith is weird - and they know that mainstream evangelical Christians have profound theological disagreements with Mormonism so they are doing all they can to prevent Romney from attracting the support of conservative evangelical Christians.