Newsweek also reported that many Tea Party activists feel that Romney is a ‘guy served up by Republican elites who speaks conservatism with an establishment accent’ and not one of their own.
Adding to tensions is the feeling that Romney sat back during the Republican primaries and watched the Tea Party candidates tear each other apart before jumping in at the end.
This has all led to a lack of enthusiasm for him - a Washington Post poll last week found that just 38 per cent of his voters will back him ‘very enthusiastically’. The comparative figure for Obama is a striking 51 per cent.
So when Palin said on Fox News last week that Romney should appeal to the grassroots more and ‘light our hair on fire’, it would have struck a chord with many of them.
Whether or not she can still light things up, however, is an entirely different story.
Palin’s influence has waned from the days when a single posting on her Facebook page could change the political landscape.
But she still hold huge power, especially amongst the conservative heartlands that Romney desperately wants to court.
She is also miles ahead of Romney when it comes to social media: on Facebook Palin has 3.4m likes whilst Romney has 2.3m. On Twitter Palin has 804,000 followers, whilst Romney has 658,000.
In an email to Newsweek, Palin claimed she was being snubbed by the political elites for speaking out, a line she has used repeatedly to paint herself as a maverick outsider.
VP candidates are not publicly invited ahead of time to convention. Most of us didn’t even know her name four years ago. MR wouldn’t dare ignor her/us.
Mitt runs the GOP convention and decides who comes?
Where is that written?
I really don’t see the problem. Say some nice things about her, give her time for a speech at the convention.
Why is this so difficult?
Tokyo Rove needs to pull his head out of his a$$
I keep thinking surely... SURELY they will invite her and give her a decent speaking slot. Otherwise it’s a pretty clear-cut message a la Barbara Bush to “stay the hell up in Alaska.” Might as well be an all-out invitation by Romney/Bush and the GOP-E for her to just LEAVE the Republican Party. No other way to interpret it.
But four years later Mitt Romney is facing one of the most vexing questions of his campaign: what to do with Sarah Palin?
__________________________________________
Willard we know what to do with Governor Sarah Palin...
Our vexing question is what to do with you...
But four years later Mitt Romney is facing one of the most vexing questions of his campaign: what to do with Sarah Palin?
__________________________________________
Willard we know what to do with Governor Sarah Palin...
Our vexing question is what to do with you...
Ask Sarah to give the speech nominating Romney.
She'll do a great job; she'll be inspirational.
And the nominating speech won't upstage any of Romney's speeches. It will amplify his presence.
He needs to do something to rile up his base
***We are no longer the base. He and the GOP-E think they can win this election without conservatives. And he’s probably right, because Obama is a disaster of a president.
Where did you copy & paste that from?
“He needs to do something to rile up his base, to make them enthusiastic. And I don’t mean just the Tea Party.
‘I mean die-hard Republicans.’”
He’s got the die-hard republicans. What’s he going to do about the die-hard Conservatives?