The 10 Myths or Misconceptions about Mitt Romney and the Romney campaign

March 17, 2012 | techno

[techno]

Over the course of the GOP primary season it is quite easy to get so absorbed or distracted by the day to day happenings and events on the campaign trail that one loses sight of the current political reality and loses one's perspective on what is really happening on the ground. And in respect to how many voters view Mitt Romney and his campaign, correctly or mistakenly that is no exception.

Well here are 10 most glaring myths or misconceptions that have surrounded Mitt Romney and the Romney campaign, many of them admittedly spun by Romney's own propaganda machine or the mainstream media:

1)Mitt Romney has the market cornered on "electability" against President Obama of all the GOP candidates running

There are two ways to view a statement like this: See it as an opinion and leave it at that or cite polling evidence to whether the statement is true or not.

If you are truly objective there have been many more polls than not released over the past 4-6 weeks by several different pollsters to show that Rick Santorum is also extremely competitive against President Obama.

All you need to do is to go through the Real Clear Politics summary of poll results or Hedgehog reports and you will see this is true.

But there is no doubt that a good majority of Romney's supporters cite his electability as the #1 reason they are supporting him. If they choose to ignore the polls and don't want to admit Santorum is competitive, that's up to them.

2)That if a winner-take-all system was in place in earlier primaries as was the case before 2012 that Mitt Romney would have accumulated more delegates by now as a result

From Rob Richie of My Fair Vote:

"Contrary to conventional wisdom current projected delegate totals for frontrunner Mitt Romney are far closer to what they would have been if every state had used a winner-take-all rule for allocating delegates than if they had used proportional allocation of delegates. Romney's share of delegates currently is projected at 52.1%. If every state and territory had allocated delegates by winner-take-all, his share of delegates would be just 53.0%."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-richie/media-gets-it-wrong-on-wi_b_1348276.html

3)That Mitt Romney is hurt more if Newt Gingrich stays in the race

In reality it depends on the demographics in each state and whether there is a winner-take-all component in the primary.

There are three ways in which a winner-take-all component could exist:

a)Winning a state outright by leading the vote count

b)Winning the popular vote by 50% +1 and being awarded all the delegates

c)Winning a congressional district (CD) within a state by 50% +1 and being awarded all the delegates from that district

Looking ahead, after April 1 there are many winner-take-all contests in the North-east. Romney should win them all, but he would face an easier pathway to winning these states or congressional districts if Santorum and Gingrich split the votes.

In contrast in states where Santorum is stronger, with Gingrich still in the race, it makes it more difficult for him to reach the 50% threshold whether it be state-wide or congressional district and thus allows Romney to keep amassing delegates.

Ideally Gingrich would only vigorously pursue contests to prevent Romney from reaching 50% in states or CD and bypass states or congressional districts that Santorum has a decent chance to reach the 50% threshold. But we don't live in an ideal world, do we?

So it really depends on whose ox is being gored whether Romney benefits or loses as a result of Gingrich staying in the race.

4)That evangelicals are voting against Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon.

Not according to Michael Tesler. Here is the link:

http://yougov.com/news/2012/03/12/evangelical-opposition-romney-not-rooted-anti-morm/

Conclusion: "All told, the evidence suggests that Evangelical opposition to Mitt Romney's bid for the GOP nomination is rooted in perceptions that he is NOT SUFFICIENTLY CONSERVATIVE ON SOCIAL ISSUES, rather than in aversion to his religious faith."

5)Mitt Romney so far in the primary season is getting killed among evangelical voters

Through March 12, evangelical voters have comprised nearly 51% of all GOP voters (states that had entry or exit polls conducted)and according the Faith and Freedom Coalition this is how the vote has broken down in the aggregate in these states:

Santorum 33%

Romney 30%

Gingrich 30%

Paul 6%

6)Mitt Romney should have won in Mississippi or Alabama

When both states boast a huge evangelical population (in fact evangelicals made up over 70% of the overall vote in each state), there is no way in hell that Mitt Romney should have been expected to win either race. The demographics were definitely not in his favor. In addition not in 2008 or up to now in 2012 has Romney ever won in the Deep South. I wonder if that historical stat ever was given any consideration.

So why did many folks interested in the race think Romney was going to win one of the states? One answer: hype. What Team Romney, Romney's surrogates (eg Matt Drudge) and the media did was to suggest that Mitt would do the impossible. Why Team Romney thought they had to resort to this strategy at this time with Mitt as the frontrunner, God only knows!

7)Carpet-bombing, outspending your opponents by vast sums in states and having a vastly superior organization doesn't appreciably affect voter perception or severely undermine your opponents' credibility

The reality: After winning South Carolina by a wide margin over Romney on January 21/2012, Newt Gingrich was flying high at 32% support with the Gallup DTP and about 4-6 points up on Romney. Then Romney engaged in massive negative campaigning and carpet-bombing against Gingrich due to his superior resources. By the time the Florida primary rolled around on Jan. 31, Gingrich had dropped below 20% with GDTP and Romney had taken a double-digit lead on him, a swing of about 15 points in a matter of 7-10 days.

Since the Florida primary, Newt Gingrich has NOT been above 20% with the GDTP and has steadily declined to where he now sits at 13%.

Don't be fooled these tactics work. Why would Romney invest millions of dollars in a dud?

8)Rick Santorum currently has a huge lead nationally over Mitt Romney among Tea Party supporters

Not if you believe Rasmussen polling. On March 8, Rasmussen reported Romney and Santorum were neck and neck in this demographic and yesterday posted that Santorum only had a 5 point lead over Romney (38% to 33%)among TP supporters.

On the other hand a recent Fox poll showed Santorum with a 18 point lead over Romney (43% to 25%) among TP supporters and ABC/WAPO reported that Romney and Gingrich were tied among support from Tea Partiers and that Santorum had about twice as much support from the TP than they had.

9)Mitt Romney is now at the crossroads in his campaign

Who's kidding who? Regardless of who is projecting the number of delegates each candidate possesses, the bottom line is Mitt Romney has at least twice as many delegates as Rick Santorum does. Mathematically, all Romney needs to do is to methodically pick up delegates along the way in the next 2 and 1/2 months, win the states that he is supposed to win demographically speaking, and to avoid a huge misstep or making a series unforced errors to win the nomination in regulation time. The ball is most certainly still in Romney's court. Santorum,as the chaser, is under a lot more pressure to perform than Romney is. And he has fewer resources than Mitt Romney to do it with.

10)There is no way that Mitt Romney can lose the nomination going forward.

Actually there are two ways:

a)Romney not reaching the required 1144 delegates and not winning the nomination at the convention

b)Rick Santorum miraculously reaching 1144 delegates in regulation time

Neither is expected to happen. But was the US Olympic hockey team expected to win the gold medal in 1980, did anyone see journeyman Jack Fleck upsetting Ben Hogan in the 1955 US Open, or how was it possible that the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 3, 1993 were down to the Houston Oilers in a playoff game 35 to 6 at the half and came back in the second half and overtime to win 41-38?

Sure anything is possible, but probable--that's another story.

[Yaelle]

11. Mitt Romney has deep convictions and beliefs and his stump speeches reflect them.

[SERKIT]

12. Mitt Romney “saved” the Utah Olympics with private money.

[Diogenesis]

Romney has NO chance.

NONE.

FLASHBACK:

The McCain/Palin ticket was up ++4 to 10 pts
in some polls, days prior to Election 2008.
So rather than helping the GOP, Romney and
TeamROMNEY and the RNME (Republican National Media Establishment)
decided …to attack Gov. Palin to throw Election2008.

Romney, and the Van der Sloot RNME RINOs for Obama in 2008

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers…
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide…
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
"Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."

---

The Palmetto Scoop reported: "One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was
the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
… aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.

---

"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

---

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

---

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

---

[GraceG]

The Problem as I see it with Romney is that he will be such a mediocre President that even if he does win he will be so middle of the road as to “not upset the apple cart” that the economy will not bloom and then in 4 years it will assure that the democrats take back power on the whole meme that the “economy didn’t recover”. Not to mention any GOP president is going to be so damned hated no matter how “moderate” they are. Mittens will get so damned gun shy that he will be ineffective and the MSM and the Democrat controlled media will smell blood and keep attacking him even as he retreats and this will paralyze him to what needs to be done to restore the economy and defuse all of Obama’s horrible regulatory actions.

Newt is going to be hated like hell anyways and HE KNOWS THAT, but he also knows that he will have the people who put him there behind even if the Media doesn’t paint it that way every night at 5:00pm. So therefore, Newt (who thrives on antagonism instead of flinching from it) will take the bold measures to recover the economy despite being thrashed every night on the MSM news channels. In Four years the MSM will be flabbergasted like their were on election night in 1984, because the man on the street will notice the economy improvement.

Mitt is a Flincher, Newt is a Clincher