On a morning when Mitt Romney should be celebrating his big win yesterday’s Florida primary, his campaign is instead trying spin remarks he made in an interview CNN’s Soledad O’Brien:

I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there. If it needs repair I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they are doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who are struggling.

Ouch, talk about squandering your victory lap.

Even taken in context Gov. Romney’s remarks are cringe inducing, his reasoning plays directly into the Democratic Party’s ‘Republicans don’t care about the poor’ narrative. Not that the context even matters, the only thing people are to take away from that interview, the only thing people are going to remember is Mitt Romney saying “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”

The campaign ads practically write themselves.

Frankly, Jonah Goldberg is right:

“… the under-emphasized dynamic in this race isn’t that Romney isn’t conservative enough (though that’s obviously a real concern out there) it’s that he’s simply not a good enough politician. He may be the most electable on paper. He’s certainly a nice guy, decent father, smart, successful etc. But, every time he seems to get into his groove and pull away he says things that make people think he doesn’t know how to play the game.”

And that more than anything else is why I think he’s the wrong candidate, for all his strengths, he has the uncanny ability to look and sound like a frighteningly bad caricature of a disconnected, elitist country club Republican.

Overall, this gaffe probably isn’t fatal, but it’s worrisome — make no mistake this gaffe is going to come back haunt him. This is still Romney’s campaign to lose, he’s going to have to sharpen his focus and make sure he doesn’t fall into the class-warfare trap. This election is about the economy, the focus should be on fixing the economy so that everyone benefits not pitting one group of Americans against another, the way Barack Obama has.

The world has done surprisingly well since the Great Recession began at not making things worse with trade protectionism. But that may soon change thanks to the U.S. Senate, which is expected to vote as early as this week on the most dangerous trade legislation in many years, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. This is when an American President would normally step in and defend the U.S. and world economies, but Barack Obama is bobbing and weaving for his own narrow political ends. This is risky business.

Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham have pushed since 2005 to impose punitive tariffs on China if the value of the yuan doesn’t rise faster. The legislation is now coming to the floor because Senate Democrats want protectionist political cover against unions in return for voting on the free-trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and Korea that President Obama finally sent to Congress yesterday. But what is cynical posturing in Washington may look more threatening to the rest of the world, and once trade wars start they can be hard to stop.

The senators speak during a news conference on Sept. 22, to discuss unfair currency manipulation.

Unlike America’s last great trade blunder, the Tariff Act of 1930 (aka Smoot-Hawley), the China bill wouldn’t raise tariffs across the board, but would instead allow companies to seek countervailing duties by treating a “misaligned” currency as a subsidy. This would nonetheless open the floodgates to applications from American companies, and the resulting tariffs would violate World Trade Organization rules. China would undoubtedly retaliate, meaning companies and consumers in both countries would lose.

If other countries follow suit, there would be knock-on effects throughout the global economy. As the erstwhile leader of the world’s trading system as well as one of its main beneficiaries, the U.S. bears a special responsibility to avoid this outcome.

It’s fun and easy for politicians like Sen. Schumer and Sen. Graham to blame China’s monetary policy or “free trade” for the loss of American manufacturing jobs… It’s a much more difficult thing for politicians to admit that the tax and regulatory policies they and their colleagues have saddled American industry with are at least partly to blame for the job losses.

In short Senators Schumer and Graham and their ilk should spend less time worrying about the international economy and more time worrying about our national economy. They should be focusing on comprehensive, common sense tax and regulatory reforms that make it more lucrative for American manufacturers to produce quality, affordable goods here rather than overseas. Instead they’re focused on pushing foolish protectionist trade policies that could set off a global trade war.

One has to wonder what would happen if Washington’s policy makers reduced corporate tax rates, ended the punitive double taxation of repatriated profits from foreign subsidiaries, and reduced regulatory burdens? Call me crazy, but I suspect we’d see a boom in American industry.

For this round are (in no particular order): Herman Cain, John Bolton, Thaddeus McCotter, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and John Huntsman

Changes from round three:

1. I’ve removed anyone who isn’t already declared candidate or at least hinted that he or she many get into the race.

The results from round three are here.

From the Wall Street Journal:

None of the 16,892 votes filed at Iowa State University in Ames will count toward the Republican nomination, but the straw poll is likely to separate the top contenders for the nomination from candidates unable to muster the organization or the passion to make a final charge.

Mrs. Bachmann garnered 4,823 votes. Mr. Paul was close behind with 4,671.

Mr. Pawlenty received 2,293 votes after pouring money and time into organizing for the contest.

Rick Santorum was fourth followed by Herman Cain.  Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who just announced his candidacy this afternoon received 718 write-in votes (3.6%) and finish ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Here’s the final numbers:

1. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (4823, 28.55%)
2. Congressman Ron Paul (4671, 27.65%)
3. Governor Tim Pawlenty (2293, 13.57%)
4. Senator Rick Santorum (1657, 9.81%)
5. Herman Cain (1456, 8.62%)
6. Governor Rick Perry (718, 3.62%) write-in
7. Governor Mitt Romney (567, 3.36%)
8. Speaker Newt Gingrich (385, 2.28%)
9. Governor Jon Huntsman (69, 0.41%)
10. Congressman Thad McCotter (35, 0.21%)

The candidates in this round are (in no particular order): Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, John Kasich, John Huntsman, John Bolton, Jeb Bush, Liz Cheney, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Ron Paul.

Changes from round two:

1. I’ve added Jeb Bush, Liz Cheney, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Ron Paul to the ballot.
2. I’ve removed John Thune and Mike Pence from the ballot since they’ve made it clear they’re not running.
3. I’ve removed the option of voting for “Other” from ballot, you still have the option of voting “Undecided” though.

The results from round two are here.

The candidates are (in not particular order): Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, John Thune, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, John Kasich, John Huntsman and John Bolton.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal are both rising stars but I think they’re still a little “green” to be viable challengers in 2012. I don’t know enough about John Huntsman to make an informed judgment… That leaves Texas Gov. Rick Perry… He has proven record and most importantly he’s not on any of the media short lists.

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

By Mitt Romney, New York Times Op-Ed, Wednesday, November 18, 2008

Boston

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable. Read the rest…

Gov. Romney is right, simply witting Detroit a check will only delay the inevitable. If the Big 3 are going to survive long term they need restructure drastically.

Allahpundit has commentary and video @ Hot Air.

Counterpoint: General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner explains “Why GM Deserves Support” in today’s Wall Street Journal.

4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year.

I doubt it. In the hastily penned postmortems of campaign ’08, much of the blame for McCain’s loss seems to have fallen at the feet of the candidate and his advisers, who (so the narrative goes) made a series of lousy strategic decisions that wound up costing the Arizona senator the White House. There’s little question that some of the choices McCain and his team made — the most obvious being the impulsive decision to suspend his campaign and try to broker a deal on the financial rescue bill, only to see his efforts blow up in his face — did not help. But a look at this year’s political atmospherics suggests that the environment was so badly poisoned that no Republican — not Mitt Romney, not Mike Huckabee, not even the potential future GOP savior, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — could have beaten Obama on Nov. 4.

Why not? Three words (and a middle initial): President George W. Bush.

In the national exit poll, more than seven in 10 voters said that they disapproved of the job Bush was doing; not surprisingly, Obama resoundingly won that group, 67 percent to 31 percent. But here’s an even more stunning fact: While 7 percent of the exit-poll sample strongly approved of the job Bush was doing, a whopping 51 percent strongly disapproved. Obama won those strong disapprovers 82 percent to 16 percent. And Bush’s approval numbers looked grim for the GOP even before the September financial meltdown.

Just one in five voters in the national exit polls said that the country was “generally going in the right direction.” McCain won that group 71 percent to Obama’s 27 percent. But among the 75 percent of voters who said that the country was “seriously off on the wrong track,” Obama had a thumping 26-point edge.

Those numbers speak to the damage that eight years of the Bush administration have done to the Republican brand. It’s a burden that any candidate running for president with an “R” after his — or her — name would have had to drag around the country.

5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin.

No subject is more likely to break up a dinner party early than the Alaska governor McCain chose as his running mate. Everyone not only has an opinion about her qualifications (or lack thereof) but also feels it necessary to share those opinions with anyone within shouting range.

Love her or loathe her, the data appear somewhere close to conclusive that Palin did little to help — and, in fact, did some to hurt — McCain’s attempts to reach out to independents and Democrats. But just because Palin doesn’t appear to have helped McCain move to the middle doesn’t mean that picking her was the wrong move.

Remember where McCain found himself this past summer. He had won the Republican nomination, but the GOP base clearly felt little buy-in into his campaign. A slew of national polls reflected that energy gap, with Democrats revved up about the election and their candidate and Republicans somewhere between tepid and glum.

Enter Palin, who was embraced with a bear hug by the party’s conservative base. All of a sudden, cultural conservatives were thrilled at the chance to put “one of their own” in the White House. In fact, of the 60 percent of voters who told exit pollsters that McCain’s choice of Palin was a “factor” in their final decision, the Arizona senator won 56 percent to 43 percent.

For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It’s hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain — even to the relatively limited extent that they did — without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain’s loss could have been far worse.

I agree with Cillizza on both points.

1) Republicans had no chance in this election… Over the last decade they’ve abandoned traditional conservative principles in favor of some sort of squishy, centrist/populist quasi conservative “Republicanism” that lead to out of controlled spending and bad policy ideas like campaign finance reform, no child left behind, and amnesty for illegal aliens.

If Republicans expect to have any chance in the 2010 mid-terms or in 2012 Presidential election they need rediscover traditional conservative principles. Defining those principles isn’t a simple task but for me they start with a fundamental unwavering belief that, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

It used to be that Republicans embodied those principles by fighting for fiscal responsibility, limited government, private property rights, and a strong national defense. I’m not sure how or when the Republican party lost its way what I do know is they’ve lost lost two straight elections because they’ve alienated both their conservative base and independent voters.

2) Sarah Palin may not have helped McCain with independent voters she did energize the conservative base of the Republican party… Without her on ticket I think it’s a safe bet that Barack Obama’s margin of victory would have been larger.

Personally, I think some of Palin’s problems with independent voters sterm from the McCain campaigns management of her. They would have been better served by having her do a handful of interviews on talk radio and with local media outlets in swing states to tell her story directly to voters before having her do national media interviews with Charlie Gibson and Kattie Couric.

Ed Morrissey has more here.

Side notes…

Michael Steele, Mike Huckabee, Linda Lingle and Rudy Giuliani all hit home runs with their speeches last night. Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and Mitt Romney also gave great speeches but they didn’t quite connect with me for some reason.

Videos, bios and transcripts are available here.