Posted on 01/31/2008 2:49:42 PM PST by Leisler
Former Gov. William F. Weld says fellow Republican Mitt Romney can withstand a hometown snub by Bay State voters in presidential balloting next week by simply dismissing the diss as little more than moonbat mania.
“I think people understand when you’re a red governor in a blue state that you have to work with the Democrats, which I think is a good thing,” said Weld, who was governor from 1991 to 1997.
Asked whether his State House successor has to win Massachusetts in his bid for the presidency, Weld, a Romney backer, said, “Not in my view.”
In fact, the former governor predicted, Arizona Sen. John McCain has a good shot in this region.
“Sen. McCain will probably run well in the Northeast; Gov. Romney will run well around the country,” said Weld in an interview with the Herald yesterday from California.
Few polls have been conducted in the Bay State. Romney led among Republicans in a State House News Service survey released Jan. 16. But unenrolled or independent voters - who outnumber Republicans and are key in the Bay State primary because they can cast ballots for either party - prefer McCain 47 to 20 percent.
The independents who helped Romney beat Democrat Shannon O’Brien in 2002 have largely turned on Romney, said Suffolk University pollster David Paleologos.
“And now, they basically have the ability to determine whether Romney will carry Massachusetts,” he said.
A Jan. 24 SurveyUSA poll conducted for WBZ-TV found Mitt Romney with a stronger lead at 50 percent followed by McCain at 29 percent. Romney also led among independents in that poll.
Weld projected the race for GOP nominee would go all the way to the Republican National Convention, scheduled for September in St. Paul, Minn.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Romney would be “laughed out of the race” if he can’t carry his own backyard.
Romney supporter and state Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth) said he considered that Romney might not take the Bay State, but added, “It’ll certainly be embarrassing if he doesn’t.”
Hedlund blamed both the media and Romney’s handlers. “There’s definitely been a conscious effort to package (Romney) differently, but McCain has reinvented himself a number of times and hasn’t been called on it,” Hedlund said.
But Greg Mueller, a GOP strategist and ex-aide to former conservative presidential hopefuls Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes, also believes Romney can survive a home-state loss.
“Massachusetts isn’t a conservative state, and I don’t think Romney is trying to appeal to those center-left states,” Mueller said. jvansack@bostonherald.com
Mitt, on the other hand, had an "epiphany" on abortion while his administration is researching stem cell research, after 12 years of outspoken support of abortion rights. He headed a private equity firm specializing in corporate turnarounds, which usually starts with massive plant and store closings and finding cheaper labor abroad, which is not wrong per se but he goes around the country talking about creating blue collar jobs in America and about the evils of illegal immigration. That's just phoniness
Bills_Brown_Bag comments
He pretty much ticked off the party with his dismal record of anti-coattail riding. How many lawmakers did the Romney revolution produce? One? The GOP lost seats under Mittens and he could have cared less. It's payback time
BG notices Mitt's political pump and dump skills
Nonetheless, Mitt Romney doesn't create relationships the way politicians have to, which is why, even though he was a good governor in the overall, many don't have good feelings about him. In Massachusetts people would rather get screwed by somebody they like than be governed well by somebody they don't like. That's why this place is losing population and is the laughingstock of the rest of the country. However, Mitt still has to learn that you can't just treat a place like a business. You can't buy and sell it, you have to make a relationship with it and keep that relationship.
“He pretty much ticked off the party with his dismal record of anti-coattail riding. How many lawmakers did the Romney revolution produce? One?”
That’s a load of hoakus. Romney spent hours upon hours of his own time recruiting new Repubilcan candidates in 2004 and spent millions of his own money campaigning for these politicians in 2004.
I dare ask how many other politicians running have done the same? The obvious answer is zero, of course.
And the results? The usual as of late with Massachusetts: a massive victory for Democrats. I suppose Romney should have repeated the effort in 2006 in a year when it was obvious that the tide was high for Democrats and low for Republicans. Just tossed his money and his time away into nothingness...
I’m afraid Mass doesn’t take the state’s well-being all that seriously until the disaster siren is blaring loudly across the bay...
The Massachusetts Republican Party died last Tuesday.
The cause of death: failed leadership.
The party is survived by a few leftover legislators
and a handful of county officials and grassroots activists
who have been ignored for years.
Services will be public and a mass exodus of taxpayers will follow.
In lieu of flowers, send messages to New Hampshire Republican voters
warning them about a certain presidential candidate named Romney.
- Boston Herald, 11/12/2006
Romney arrived on the scene with great promise,
but is leaving the Republican Party here in shambles.
Not only are the Republicans yielding the governors office
for the first time in 16 years, but registered Republicans
have fallen by 31,000 since Romney took office,
and their legislative presence is at historic lows.
But it worked out fine for him:
He is now chasing the prize he really covets, the presidency."
- Boston Globe 11/8/2006
This statement pretty much summs it up for Mass.,
“In Massachusetts people would rather get screwed by somebody they like than be governed well by somebody they don’t like.”
So the snubbing, in the context, means that Mitt was a good governor and didn’t screw the constituancy......But vote for McCain and a stronger drive towards a free and sovreign Aztlan!
Time for Massachusetts to do to Scumney what he did to the MA GOP. Bury it.
Propaganda machine at it’s best. You took it hook, line, and sinker!
See my previous post.
I watched it happen. Romney did bust his hump. Regressive Massachusetts voters clung to their Democrats...again.
NOT a propaganda machine because it is ALL the newspapers
in Romney’s home state.
Seems you got snookered.
“And as you allude to, two short years later, it was buttkis to State Republicans for Mitt. Pump and dump.”
A bit like you were just putting all your money in stocks this time of year in 2001, right?
*rolls eyes*
After Mitt was elected by the state GOP, he couldn’t dump them fast enough.
Mitt is a political Dr. Kavorkian .
Nor did team-Romney's Fake LEO and Fake badges.
Romney destroyed the state's economy putting it at the
bottom of all states in economic job gain.
Bishop Romney failed -- except to his revisionists.
I am not from Mass so i could really care less for any of what is being said about him in the Lib rags they call newspapers of which only two were quoted. I figured in a state so populace they would have more than two newspapers.
What I do know is that McCain is in bed with every major Lib in D.C. and that is someplace Mitt is not from. As far as I can tell Mitt hasn’t supported a degradation of our constitutional rights via McCain-Feingold not to mention the “security” via lanes of McAmnesty.
We’ll save the Huckster for another debate.
It was only a matter of time before the real reason came out for his dislike....his religion. Good post though. \s
Anyways, Mitt was just here to get his resume buffed, ticket punched, and racially, Mayor of Detroit was out.
only two? They are the only two major newspapers.
a medic would examine what is before her/his eyes.
We dislike Joe Isuzu Romney because he’s a sleazy liberal liar and a destructive farce that helps the Democrat cause wherever he goes.
Sensor failure in isle 4.
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