A Romney-Obama duel will be fought with hard facts

So it looks as if the arranged marriage between Mitt Romney and the GOP is being consummated. It remains loveless but unavoidable, and although the congregation was smiling last night, they weren’t smiling with their eyes.

Romney’s win in New Hampshire was the triumph of organisation, stamina and simplicity. Four years ago Mitt’s campaign here had all the charm of an actuary’s PowerPoint presentation. It also didn’t help that John McCain, with his gutsy record and gritty temperament, made Mitt look and sound like milktoast.

But this time round there are no characters to overshadow the former governor of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney has fought a much better campaign. Although still lacking in charisma, he looks like the designated driver next to the combustible Newt Gingrich, the swashbuckling and hapless Rick Perry, or the prim extremist Rick Santorum.

Fellow Mormon and former governor of Utah Jon Huntsman also wants to be the designated driver. He keeps talking about his Harley Davidson, the way that middle-aged men tend to. A thinner version of the already thin Mitt Romney, Huntsman wears his leather combat jacket like one of Rick Santorum’s tank tops. The leather jacket is asking: what am I doing here?

So barring a major earthquake, November’s electoral duel will be fought between two tall, lanky, clever geeks who both see politics as a pragmatic, results-driven exercise and regard the flesh-pressing, cheek-tweaking, bear-hugging tactile side of campaigning as an unavoidable but unpleasant must. The result will be decided less by campaign style and rhetoric.

Hope, let’s face it, is like a soufflé. It never rises twice. The 2012 race will come down to hard economic data, the ground war of dragging people to the polls, kicking and screaming, on election day and Angela Merkel‘s ability to fend off catastrophe and contagion in Europe.

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