Mitt the Weak

He may win Michigan today, but he's still the weakest Republican in the field according to this analysis by Michael Medved:

This weekend, CNN released results of general election trial heats, pitting each of the four leading Republican candidates for President against both of the leading Democrats.

The unmistakable message from this national exercise (surveying 840 voters on January 9 and 10th) is that Mitt Romney unequivocally qualifies as the weakest candidate the G.O.P. could field.

In the head-to-head contest with Barack Obama he is utterly wiped out, losing by a margin of 22 points (59% to 37%). Against Hillary Clinton, Romney fares little better, falling 18 percentage points behind (58% to 40%).

The results for other candidates show that this is a Romney problem, not a Republican problem.

John McCain, for instance, virtually ties both Obama and Clinton – running 48%-49% against Obama and 48%-50% against Clinton. In other words, in a trial heat against Barack Obama, Senator McCain runs a startling 21 points closer than does Governor Romney. ...

After spending more money than his major opponents combined, Romney appears more and more clearly unelectable, and a Saturday column by Gail Collins in the New York Times gives a clear explanation why. “Unfortunately, there’s something about Romney’s perfect grooming, his malleability and his gee-whiz aura that seems to really irritate both the other candidates and the voters,” she writes. “What bothers voters about Romney, as it turns out, is not his Mormonism but his inherent Mitt-ness.”

She’s right, of course. As I’ve said repeatedly over the last several weeks, the problem for Romney isn’t his faith, it’s his phoniness. It’s even worse to see that in-authenticity combined with an all-too-visible mean and nasty streak in going after his rivals.

I think Michael has that about right, at least based on my observations. There has to be a reason why he's only polling at 8% nationally and has 62% of the voters saying they'd definitely vote against him.