Posted on 05/30/2007 7:19:37 AM PDT by Reaganesque
WASHINGTON — Just a few weeks ago, advisers to Mitt Romney spoke about a steady, gradual climb from obscurity to the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Mitt Romney, speaking in Lakeland, Fla., Thursday, appears to have momentum on his side among GOP presidential contenders.
Now, Romney has rocketed from behind and is leading the race or is neck and neck for the lead in the pivotal states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
The road to next January's voting still is marked by numerous potholes, including persistent charges that he's a flip-flopper without conviction, a Mormon faith still unfamiliar and perhaps suspect to some voters as well as potential new competition from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Fred Thompson.
Also, his rapid rise may say as much about the fickleness of Republicans this early in the campaign as it does about the former Massachusetts governor.
But for now at least, Romney enters the summer astride the top tier and within reach of being able to claim that he's the front-runner for the nomination.
"He clearly has the three M's: media, money and momentum," independent pollster John Zogby said.
Romney led the field in fund raising in the first three months of this year. Yet until now, he trailed in popularity well behind Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain in most polls, either nationally or in early voting states such as Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina.
However, a poll in Iowa by The Des Moines Register last week found Romney leaping ahead with the support of 30 percent of likely attendees at January's precinct caucuses, well ahead of McCain's 18 percent and Giuliani's 17 percent.
In another new Iowa survey by the Republican public relations firm Strategic Vision, Romney led with 20 percent, up sharply from 8 percent the month before. He was followed by Giuliani with 18 percent and McCain with 16 percent. (A third poll showed McCain with 18 percent, Giuliani with 17 percent and Romney with 16 percent.)
Romney surged in New Hampshire as well. A new Zogby poll there found he had the support of 35 percent of likely primary voters, up from 25 percent the month before. That was well ahead of Giuliani and McCain, each with 19 percent.
Analysts and insiders pointed to three reasons for the Romney rise:
• Good reviews from party members and pundits for his performance in the party's first debate, May 3 in California.
• Unusually early television advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney has been advertising there for weeks, boasting about his record as a business executive and governor. A new ad Thursday bragged that he cut spending and taxes as governor and "enforced immigration laws, stood up for traditional marriage and the sanctity of human life."
• His rivals are in trouble with the party's conservative base. Giuliani's support for abortion rights was highlighted in the first two debates, a problem in a party that still opposes abortion rights. McCain stood with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., on an immigration bill widely reviled by conservatives as amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Romney's criticism of the immigration proposal — which is similar to one he supported a year ago — drew a sharp rebuke from McCain.
That, conservative strategist Greg Mueller said, was a mistake that helped elevate Romney as THE conservative critic of the unpopular proposal among the presidential candidates. "The McCain attack is the best thing that's happened to Romney since the day he got in," Mueller said.
He still faces formidable obstacles.
Foremost is the charge that he's a campaign convert to conservatism after running as a more moderate or liberal candidate in Massachusetts. Notably, he supported abortion rights when he ran for the Senate against Kennedy in 1994 and now opposes them.
"That could be his Achilles' heel," said David Johnson of Strategic Vision, which found in its new poll that Romney loses 4 percentage points of his support when voters are reminded that he supported abortion rights and gay rights in the 1990s.
"That's the one reluctance about Mitt Romney among conservatives," Johnson said. "They don't know if he's a true conservative."
The other potential challenge is his Mormon faith. In Iowa, the recent Register poll found that 1 out of 5 Republicans said they were less likely to vote for Romney because of his faith. But Mueller suggested that social conservatives eventually would care more about what Romney would do in the Oval Office than what he would do in church.
"Is there an undercurrent out there nervous about the Mormon thing? Sure. But they really want to know where he stands on the issues they care about," Mueller said.
Romney's campaign aides say he can answer the flip-flop questions by pointing to his record as governor.
"The only position he's ever changed is on life, and he changed in the right direction," Romney's campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said. "It was a matter of him recognizing he was wrong in the past and now he's right on the issue."
Madden also said that Romney's faith faded as an issue when people met the candidate and realized that he "shares the same hopes and aspirations that Americans of many faiths do."
In the end, those close to Romney tamp down any talk of his being the front-runner, perhaps fearful of raising expectations too high and setting him up for a fall if and when the polls in those early states change again.
"It's still fluid. I expect they will change," Madden said.
But he said the key to Romney's success of recent weeks and his hopes for the coming months were the same: that people get to know him and his record — and that they like him.
No, I am Episcopalian. And I do not await your judgement as to the degree to which you consider my religion specious.
I’m so sorry to read that you too are Episcopalian ... I’ve been attacked, attacked I tell ya, for admitting I’m an heretical Episcopalian (heretical because I do not agree with the election of degenerates to the Bishopric and as Priests).
Focusing on negativity or bigotry is not my style. I do not see it as big an issue as you apparently do. Projecting bigotry is not useful to me either. I'd rather accentuate the positive.
If anyone has blinders on, it is those who fail to see Mitt Romney's executive experience, leadership ability, exceptional record of accomplishments, and personal character all wrapped up in an attractive, charismatic package, as the best thing to come along to carry the conservative message since Ronald Reagan.
Eyes wide open over here.
Sorry to disappoint regarding your religion. I don’t know anything about it and so I will rightly refrain from commenting.
Definition of specious (adjective)
plausible, but deceptive; apparently, but not actually true; superficially attractive
Do you regard the claims of Mormonism as valid?
Romney is the “Bush machine” pick. I have had enough Bushes and Clintoons to last me for a while.
Rudy WILL NOT win any "blue states" and the only swing state he can turn our way would be New Hampshire. He would NOT bring out religious voters in places like Ohio, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Iowa, which would flip to the Dem candidate (who may not be Hillary).
Besides, in case you haven't noticed, Rudy's campaign so far has consisted solely of "Remember me on 9/11" and he has otherwise indicated ZERO substance or gravitas. The man is an empty dress with more skeletons in his closet than the crypt keeper.
I can live with either Mitt or Fred. McCain and Rudy can spend the rest of their lives on the lecture circuit for all I care.
Fred had obligations up until the end of June which walking out on would have been very costly. That’s why the up tick, the Freddy campaign begins now.
Nothing wrong with Romney, governing the most liberal state in the union doesn’t do much for your Conservative credentials. In the last debate Romney saw nothing wrong with reimposing the AW ban.
Here’s a little secret for you (don’t publish this because you will be attacked, also): I too think his executive experience is a superior quality; but he is too moderate for my personal atstes. I also feel his mental accuity will serve him well when debating ANY democrat. If there were a way to avoid the achille’s heel of his religion which will be exploited by the media democrat sycophants, I could vote for Mitt Romney in the general election without worrying about the vote. But to ignore what the DNC has proved they are capable of is to stick one’s head in the sand just to support Mitt ‘to spite bigotry’. And if Mitt were to be elected, the liberal/leftists media would spend their every waking moment exploiting the schismic reality between Mormonism and Orthodox Christianity. You know they would because they would do anything to try and get their liebral democrats back into power. Such constant exploitation of the schism would not mainstream Mormonism or Mormons, and you surely can see that even if you do not focus upon it.
I regard the claims of Mormonism as theological. Didn't you claim to eschew theological discussion on political threads a few posts back?
Henceforth, you and your co-FR-theologians shall be known as the FR Flying Inmans, because in a secular setting you make a big fuss out of religion, and are a threat to hijack.
So you don’t believe the DNC will exploit the heresies in Mormonism or the false prophecies by the founder of Mormonism, or that the effort to expose the heresies will fail?
I will be voting for Mitt Romney . I think he will be great as president.
?
Henceforth, you and your co-FR-theologians shall be known as the FR Flying Inmans, because in a secular setting you make a big fuss out of religion, and are a threat to hijack.
He's talking about the "flyimg imams"...looks pretty close to describing us as terrorist wannabes....this name calling is really getting ridiculous.
In today's Washington Times Audrey Hudson reviews the behavior of the flying imams: "How the imams terrorized an airliner."
The removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight from the Twin Cities set off a nationwide uproar, and the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said it will review the incident.
Bloggers and talk radio buzzed about the need to be vigilant against potential terrorists
Yep.
I kinda wondered what an ‘Inman” was. LOL
Is anyone keeping a tally of the names we’ve been called today? Wasn’t that you foxxy?
Bigot
Mormon Assaulters
Flying Inman
Mormon Assaulters
Flying Inman
Those are just the NEW ones today! Bigot and haters got a real workout against us yesterday, and "anti" and "basher" have been old standbys...looks like the memo went out to come up with new attack names ;(
Coyote, I seem to remember you getting the brunt of the attacks today. Were there some new nasties aimed at you?
Enosh reminded me of these:
“fraud”, “fake martyr” and “un-American!”
Enosh reminded me of these:
“fraud”, “fake martyr” and “un-American!”
Busy aren’t they?
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