Romney in 2012

More than anyone else in the Republican field, Mitt Romney has been generating the buzz for the 2012 presidential nomination.  He has been denying publicly that he’ll run in 2012, but this really shouldn’t be a surprise, as no one announces their campaign four years ahead of time.  Romney is biding his time and strategizing, and reports that he is writing a book, which seems pretty par for the course for a presidential candidate.  Obama and McCain both had popular books out this past election, as they serve as excellent platforms for providing an inspiring personal history and a policy platform.  So “taking time off to write a book” is a pretty safe indicator of what his intentions are.  And he’s topping out most of the polls as most likely Presidential candidate in 2012.
Policy-wise, Romney is a safe bet.  The man has a Midas touch, turning every business, organization, and state he’s worked for into a gold mine, often turning them around in dire financial straits.  He is perhaps best known for saving the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, pulling them out of debt, saving a ton of money, managing a hefty post-9/11security budget and eventually making the games a profitable success.  He also drastically improved the economy of Massachusetts while it was under his governorship.  In one of the most liberal states in the nation, this Republican was a success.  As far as business goes, he’s considered something of a genius.  In everything else, he’s a fairly middle-of-the-road Republican, vocally against gay marriage, but not civil unions.  He seems to be a follower of the Bush/McCain stance on the Middle East and, though he has relatively little foreign policy experience, so it’s hard to tell based off of what he says, there’s a good chance he would adopt a more typically America-as-superpower stance, over Obama’s conciliatory, member-of-the-world-community approach.  The benefits of this largely remain to be seen; if Obama comes out in 2012 as a huge success in Foreign Policy, it’ll hurt him a little, if Obama’s foreign policy is an utter failure, Romney will be able to put up a serious fight on these issues.
Stock stuff, really.  Which is why he’s the safe bet for a Republican Party that’s regrouping in the Obama Era.  He’s got two major divisive problems, however:
1) He’s a Mormon.
2) Until the 90’s, he was pro-choice.
In the 90’s, when he started running for political offices, his pro-choice stance switched because of whatever personal or political reason.  It’s a safe-bet that attack dogs from both sides will go after this little tidbit.  Pro-lifers are going to expect him to take a passive stance on the issue, only making minor changes, rather than championing it, and the left will portray him as a political opportunist.  In truth, Romney’s a moderate when it comes to Abortion, and there’s good reason to think this change was in fact for political expediency.
As far as the Mormon bit, a Time Magazine article states that 29% of all Americans say they would not vote for a Mormon.  That’s a serious chunk of the population, and it’s probably coming from both sides of the political spectrum.  In the American religious scene, the Church of the Latter-day Saints is a bit of a black sheep, and a lot of its, ah, more eccentric views have made it prominently into pop culture.  Romney is not a member of the Fundamentalist LDS, which is an extreme branch associated with polygamy and some seriously messed up goings-on in their secluded communities in the western deserts, but the LDS, which has been doing some major PR work on its image for the past several decades by distancing itself from the FLDS, is still associated with its extremist brethren in the minds of many.
Romney went on the required Mormon 30-month missionary trip to France in the Late-60’s, Early-70’s, but outside of this, he really doesn’t discuss his religious beliefs in public.  He’s distanced himself from Mormonism as much as he could while still remaining in the church, so this will likely be the stance for 2012.  There’s little doubt, however, that this issue will be brought to the forefront.  Obama has personally spoken out against smear campaigns like this, but the Democratic party will likely see it as too easy a target to pass up, while allowing Obama to go the classy road of condemning any smear attacks on a man’s religion.
These two things combined could be a serious issue for the Religious Right, who will not want to see a middle-of-the-road formerly-pro-choice Mormon on top of their party’s ticket.  So in this sense, Romney’s nomination could force a wedge into the already growing rift between the Religious Right and the Reagan Right.  I’m not going to predict a massive party split, with Palin in one corner and Romney in the other, but if these fissures aren’t mended, they’re going to eventually haunt the Republicans in ways that could totally change the entire political landscape of the United States.  And that can only help Obama.