freedomworks, one of the largest organizations, and steve kornacki is a political columnist for salon. gentleman, thank you for coming on both, within and outside the tea party movement. i am struck, i m not a man of the right, but i m struck over and over again by the fact that romney seems to be the inevitable nominee, because he keeps in there, and you guys keep changing who you like, now it s herman cain, and i don t sense you re going to win, in the long run. we might split our vote, but it strikes me that tea partiers are shopping around and checking out all these various alternatives to romney. clearly, he s the establishment guy, and the question is, can we coalesce around somebody to challenge them? if you add up the numbers, if the anti-romney vote coalesces it s 77%. we win. yes, but when are you going to get to that point where you can actually knock him out or he will win. you have to get together, or he will win, by definition? but we haven t cast a vote yet
the old establishment of the republican party wins again. yeah, and i think that s probably the most likely scenario, except watching it sort of from the outside, like you re saying, i would put a little different spin on it. i think if romney comes through this process and wins the nomination, yeah, he s the establishment candidate, but i still think in a way, the tea party s won in a very significant way, if that happens. because when you look at mitt romney, we call him sort of the moderate candidate in this race. we re calling him that because in massachusetts, you know, a decade ago, two decades ago, he definitely was a moderate. and we re calling him that because of the health care plan. and because in this campaign, he s been a little less, you know, willing to go and throw all the red meat out there, unlike in 2008. so that s why we re calling him a moderate. but when you look at his actual positions on every issue, right down the line, you know, what they re going to build t
don t really want an establishment leader. you don t want a john wayne to el you what to do. you like to call your own shots individually. do you want a leader, honestly, a strong leader at the top to tell you where to go, to march, like reagan? i don t think that that s essentially what we re trying to do. but how do you get a nominee? president is one position, but we d love to drive the process from the bottom up from you on, just like the freshman class has done in the house and senate. so let romney have it and kick him in the butt once in a while? no, we want to find the best candidate that can win. and we don t think that that s mitt romney. let me go to steve kornacki. we re trying to figure this thing from the inside. the dynamic to me seems like there s always going to be somebody, as matt says, who will challenge romney. he always will have an anti-romney from the right. the question is, could it be that in the end, they don t have a strong person from the right?
haley s prediction. my argument is this. mitt romney is more vulnerable than herman cain as a nominee, because he is very vulnerable with 77% of the party who reless lently won t support him, even in polls. he s got a problem. it might be the religion problem, i don t think so opinion i think it s the ideological problem. they don t trust him as a conservative. whereas herman cain, everything he s done has said, i am a conservative. and you think it s going to be going through the weeds of his economic program that s going to kill him. i think he can t sustain any scrutiny on his program or anything else, even for republican primary voters. let s take a look at him. here is haley barbour and what he had to say on laura ingraham s radio show after herman cain, about herman cain. let s watch. he s attracted a very good family, in my family. you know, i think if it were today, my wife would vote for herman cain. one of my sons i ve got grown children from the first day said, d
at the current president is driving the narrative, romney has cast himself as the pragmatic choice. here is the challenge he faces, according to this week s nbc/ wall street journal poll. herman cain is leading romney, 27% to 23%. rick perry, a distant third now. but among tea party supporters, the gap is even more lopsided. herman cain has the support of a third of tea partiers, romney only about 21%. so if the predictions are correct and mitt romney wins the nomination, what does that mean for the tea party movement itself? will they reluctantly get behind him or will they perhaps look for a third party candidate? or does the choice of mitt romney say something about the power of the tea party? as the huffington post asked in a headline yesterday, will mitt romney kill the tea party? matt kibbe is president of