The lengthy primary process is partly due to a new process of designating delegates on a proportional basis rather than the winner-take-all format. But even more important is a Supreme Court decision in 2010 that allows Super Political Action Committees to collect unlimited funds from individual investors to endorse candidates, bearing that these PACs do not coordinate their efforts with the candidates directly. 

The actual result blurred the line of being truly independent. For example, Rick Tyler is the senior adviser for Winning Our Future, a PAC that supports former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. However, Tyler has worked for Gingrich since 1999, until he quit this past June because he had ‘lost his perspective.’ In December, though, Tyler began working for Winning Our Future, saying that ‘the good news is I’ve gotten my perspective back.’ Maybe there is no direct communication between the two, but if that is not considered coordinating, please tell me what is.

The new rules have turned the old mantra, ‘there are only three tickets out of Iowa,’ on its head, creating more uncertainty and hostility than ever. Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum continue to duke it out for the evangelical and Tea Party votes by focusing on divisive social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. Both seem too far behind for a comeback. 

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has stuck around, but the man who champions the ideas of individual state currencies, eliminating federal funding for public education and isolationist foreign policies seems too extreme to be a viable candidate.

But Paul, Gingrich and Santorum continue to attack Romney instead of refocusing their efforts for the greater good of their party, as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Texas Gov. Rick Perry did earlier this week.

A key point of these attacks from the ‘independent’ PACs who represent the candidates has been Romney’s time as CEO of the private equity firm, Bain Capital. The company was responsible for buying underperforming companies and trying to turn them into profitable ones. Romney most notably turned Staples into a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry leader. But for every success story, there were many more companies of which Bain would sell assets, fire employees and build up debt to make profit for themselves and their wealthy investors.

For example, Winning our Future used a $5 million cash infusion from billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to produce a 28-minute video attacking Romney for his time at Bain. While these negative aspects of private equity are actually an attack on the industry, rather than a substantial claim against Romney himself, they show a troublesome crack in the Republican base. 

The attack on the party’s longstanding position of free market economics is an indicator that many historically Republican voters are growing tired of the conservative idea that more money to the wealthy will eventually trickle down. This weakens their ability to stick together on divisive social issues.

Though Romney appears to be the inevitable Republican candidate, this split between economic and social Republicans has created infighting in the Republican Party. The long primary will drain Romney’s resources and alienate pieces of the party base that may be reluctant to vote for him in November. 

All the while, Obama will be sitting on the sidelines, taking the time to strengthen his argument about Republican inaction and raise funds for his own campaign. In the end, Republican efforts to find an ‘anyone, but Romney’ candidate may ensure that candidate is Obama.

Stephen Fox is a graduate student studying for his master’s degree in entrepreneurship and a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. His columns appear weekly. He can reached at smfox03@syr.edu.