US Politics Analysis: Santorum Drops Out, But Can Romney Win?

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On Tuesday afternoon, Rick Santorum suspended his campaign to become the Republican nominee for this November's US Presidential election. His effective withdrawal from the race --- while his run is suspended, Santorum can still raise money to pay off campaign debts --- leaves Mitt Romney as the GOP candidate to face President Obama.

That passive expression, "leaves Mitt Romney", sums up the work the former Massachusetts Governor has to do in the next 6 months to persuade wavering American voters he has the conviction to be elected President. The overriding impression from the last few months of Republican primaries is that Mitt is the last man standing, a victor because of his overwhelming superiority in finances and campaign organisation. He will not enjoy those advantages in a contest with President Obama and what is sure to be a withering assault from the Democratic Party.

It does not take much imagination to predict that the brunt of the attacks against Romney will concern his wealthy elite background, as well as his party's ideological defence of lower taxes and entitlement changes that erode the security of the middle classes. For the last six months, President Obama has been proclaiming his populist "fair share" message across the nation, and the next six months will only see that campaign narrative intensify. It is the club that the President and his staff intend to bludgeon Romney with incessantly until his campaign is left bleeding and on the floor.

Recent polls suggest that Obama's emphasis on economic fairness will not necessarily deliver him the support of undecided and Independent voters, but the progressive groups that provide the enthusiasm for his grassroots campaigning style will not let him abandon this stance. With Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts as his point woman, President Obama will go the polls in November committed to policies like the Buffett Rule and to no further extension of the Bush tax cuts in January 2013.

Six months is a lifetime in politics, and it is anyone's guess if, let alone how, Mitt Romney can turn around some of the specific demographic problems his campaign faces. Polls suggest that women were not impressed with the social issues raised in the GOP nomination contest and are backing President Obama for the general election by a margin of 60-40%.

Yet while women are historically less likely to vote Republican than men, there is not an automatic gender advantage for Democrats. Women voted in the majority for Ronald Reagan in 1980, and again in 1984 when Democrats ran Geraldine Ferraro as the Vice-presidential candidate. It is hard to see how President Obama will lose his current advantage with female voters, but Romney has the time to sway many to his side.

And perhaps Romney will get an unexpected boost from a potential 2012 election wild card. The Occupy movement burst on the scene last autumn with a number of high -rofile events, but during the winter the movement seemed to lose the enthusiasm that brought it to national attention. A few progressive journals still cover Occupy, but the national media has largely lost interest as the headline-grabbing occupations of city centres have dwindled.

Occupy, however, have promised a Spring resurgence for the "We are the 99%" movement. On May Day, they are holding a protest to "Take The Streets!" in New York, where “workers, students, immigrants, professionals, houseworkers --- employed and unemployed alike --- will take to the streets to unite in a General Strike against a system that does not work for us. Don't go to work. Don't go to school. Don't shop. Take the streets!”

May Day parades have a long history in New York, and not just as a socialist celebration of International Workers Day. And they have a history of reaction. At the height of the Cold War in 1948, patriotic Americans, led by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, organised an annual counter-rally dubbed Loyalty Day. A media battle ensued as to which march had attracted most participants and supporters, but a VFW sponsor proclaimed the following year, “The eyes of the world are on the Fifth Avenue Loyalty Demonstration to see how it outdraws and by how much the Eighth Avenue May Day crowd.”

It will be interesting to see if Occupy re-stage the route of the traditional socialist march, south on Eighth Avenue from 56th Street and then east on 17th to Union Square. But the larger point is whether it can achieve the resurgence it promises with its pledge to Take The Streets.

If this General Strike, and other Occupy events planned in May do not capture the support of most Americans then Mitt Romney may have the chance to benefit. Occupy will not just disappear: if their protests become generally unpopular, Obama --- with his recent populist turn --- will suffer from his perceived connection to them.

Rick Santorum made much during his campaign that he was the only candidate who could attract blue-collar "Reagan Democrats" to vote Republican in this election. But if Occupy becomes the disliked counterpart of the anti-Vietnam War protesters in the late 1960s and early 1970s, then Romney could win that Reagan Democrat vote by default, as Nixon did in 1972 with his "hard hat" appeal to blue-collar workers.

One drama is over. It remains to be seen if another one is to be written.