Ross Douthat on Romney<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory ... but I'd suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ross Douthat on Romney\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory ... but I'd suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-22T01:27:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\",\"name\":\"Ross Douthat on Romney\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-03-22T01:27:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-03-22T01:27:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory ... but I'd suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ross Douthat on Romney\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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{"id":26560,"date":"2012-03-21T20:27:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=26560"},"modified":"2012-03-21T20:27:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:27:53","slug":"ross-douthat-on-romney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross Douthat on Romney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Ross Douthat<\/a><\/strong> points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory \u2026 but I\u2019d suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be the best idea: what is happening is that the media doesn\u2019t want that campaign to end. So they are moving the goalposts to prolong the story.<\/p>\n

Mitt Romney has good reason to be exasperated with the way his slow progress to the Republican nomination has been covered in the press. Again and again, he\u2019s won supposedly-decisive primary victories, only to have the press turn around and insist that actually, <\/strong>it\u2019s the\u00a0next<\/em> big primary that is the crucial one, the make-or-break moment, the contest that could throw the whole race into chaos. First Florida was going to be decisive, then Michigan, then Ohio. Romney won all three, but\u00a0the goal posts kept moving<\/a>, and suddenly it was Illinois that threatened to cast his nomination into doubt.<\/p>\n
Naturally, Romney won Illinois as well, cruising to a predictable victory on Tuesday. And for all the talk about how badly his campaign has been run, his partisans can credibly argue that he\u2019s suffered more from the extended primary calendar and the press\u2019s addiction to drama than from his own mistakes. As the Weekly Standard\u2019s Jay Cost\u00a0 pointed out this week<\/a>, if you compare results primary by primary, Romney is actually running \u201ca pretty solid 4-6 percent\u201d ahead of John McCain\u2019s 2008 campaign \u2014 \u00a0\u201cnot the sign of a particularly dominant front-runner,\u201d Cost allows, \u201cbut also not the sign of a uniquely weak one, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, no one doubts that the Romney team would have preferred to shorten the campaign and win the nomination sweepingly and graciously rather than gradually and with a bludgeon. The long grind has been hard on Romney\u2019s campaign war chest,\u00a0 his general-election narrative<\/a> and his favorability ratings. Even though the press has sometimes overhyped its weaknesses, his campaign did miss several opportunities to silence the doubters and put the race away earlier.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory \u2026 but I\u2019d suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be the best idea: what is happening is that the media doesn\u2019t want that campaign to end. So they are moving the goalposts to prolong the story. Mitt Romney has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRoss Douthat on Romney<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory ... but I'd suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ross Douthat on Romney\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory ... but I'd suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-22T01:27:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\",\"name\":\"Ross Douthat on Romney\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-03-22T01:27:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-03-22T01:27:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Ross Douthat points to three features of the Romney campaign that have slowed down victory ... but I'd suggest his goalposts are moving comment might \u00a0be\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/03\/21\/ross-douthat-on-romney\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ross Douthat on Romney\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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