Posted on 09/19/2012 1:31:31 PM PDT by servo1969
A growing chorus of conservatives are telling Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that he must immediately make changes to his campaign or he will lose.
“The decision not to define Romney, but to attack Obama over the spring and summer was a huge, strategic mistake,” a Republican strategist with knowledge of the inner-workings of the campaign told The Daily Caller in an interview. “The assumption that the race for presidential election defaults in a bad economy to the challenger is wrong.”
But aside from the recent spate in hiccups that give the media and the Democrats reason to hammer Romney on a daily basis — from his convention speech that didn’t mention Afghanistan to his quick political response to the attacks last week on American diplomats — conservatives are pointing to a larger problem: Romney, they argue, is not clearly laying out a specific rationale for why he should be president — other than that he’s not Barack Obama.
“They appear to be realizing right now what many of us having been saying for months: Not being Obama is not enough to get you elected,” said a long-time conservative operative who previously worked on a rival presidential campaign. “You have to believe in something and give people a reason to support you rather than just oppose the other guy.”
The grumbling about Romney’s campaign among conservatives is also airing out in public by prominent opinion makers.
“It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one,” former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
“It’s not big, it’s not brave, it’s not thoughtfully tackling great issues,” Noonan writes. “It’s always been too small for the moment. All the activists, party supporters and big donors should be pushing for change.”
In light of the now famous video of Romney saying he won’t be able to count on the support of the 47 percent of Americans who are dependant on government, others are arguing Romney should use the leak to double down and argue the same points “loudly and often and without embarrassment.”
“We’re all too well acquainted with the cowardly instincts of his campaign staff, as well as with their ineptitude,” Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel of Daily Caller write. “But he has no choice. There can be no needle threading. He said it. He can either explain it and run on it, or he can lose because of it.”
In recent days, a scapegoat has been made of Romney senior adviser Stuart Stevens, who oversees the campaign’s strategy and who worked with the candidate on his convention speech.
Erick Erickson, the editor of RedState who is plugged in with conservative activists, told TheDC he doesn’t know Stevens personally, but he’s heard complaints among conservatives about him.
“The conservatives are particularly distrustful because they see him as a poll driven guy telling him what to do as opposed to using polls to sell what he already wants to do,” Erickson told TheDC.
According to one source with knowledge of the campaign operation, “It’s a much more dysfunctional environment than you know is really reported on…It’s also a campaign that doesn’t ever reach out to anyone, including people who’ve done this stuff successfully before.”
The Republican said Stevens and Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades are known to have tension and Stevens’ “relationships” with many in GOP politics are “generally poor.”
“He’s a guy who [thinks] everyone’s an idiot but him,” the operative said.
But Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, who once worked for Romney, said he “wouldn’t overestimate the conflict in Romneyworld.”
Castellanos told TheDC last week that he’s “not the biggest fan of everybody up there but when I went up to see them not long ago, I’ll admit I found a surprisingly efficient and well-functioning campaign.”
“Doors were open, not closed, a sign of an well-run and focused campaign, not one hobbled by closed-door conspiracies,” he said.
“People should remember that this Romney team has been through a ton of battles together,” the strategist said. “They have gelled. I think they are focused on winning this thing.”
Romney’s campaign appears to be aware of the criticism. In a conference call this week, adviser Ed Gillespie told reporters that the campaign plans to start getting more specific on its policy proposals.
“We are looking forward to this new emphasis and renewed emphasis,” Gillespie said.
“We think people will be appreciative to hear some of those kinds of specifics…A lot of those voters who are in the middle and truly independent, undecided, are looking for information now,” he said.
idiots like her want Romney to shut up and sit down and never fight back whilst the lies and attacks come at him and us.
So she goes out on TV to make herself become relevant and then spout a bunch of crap.
Then the liberal media laps all of this up
Mitt needs to do Both, He has to be a great alternative, and he has to do the illegitimate work of the now Obama campaign media in telling the truth about Obama’s record.
This is a target rich environment, perhaps too rich. I am however shocked how successful the Obama(lying) campaign has been at defining Mitt. This must be reversed big time.
And he just wants to be comfortable -- the way a person who lives in a 5 Star hotel wants to be comfortable. Familiar surroundings, pleasant peers, and help who fawns over him.
more nameless sources and blather.... go away Karl Rove
I haven’t seen any lawn signs either (tons for the Republican Senate candidate) and only one bumper sticker compared to several for Obama. It is a depressed area so people are probably a little embarrassed by Mitt. But they will vote bright red, of that I am sure.
Sure he is. He leads by twenty points, right? Noonan is a pimp but that don't mean that Romney's campaign is gaining traction, because it isn't.
Romney should be ahead by twenty, after all, he is the only one that is electable, so why isn't he?
Truth is, this is not the same country I was born into. Not even Reagan could stop the march toward the Fabian Socialists wet dream.
Why yes, in fact, yes he does. But fortunately he is Electable, ABO! GO.</sarcasm>
Mike Savage, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine all have in common advice to the Romney campaign.
Me, I do not like Romney because he seems too much like an establishment candidate; McCain comes to mind. But I support Romney and will vote for him.
I just hope that he does not self destruct with limp handshake responses, inconsistencies, and mild mannered approach to issues.
Reagan was strong and unyielding on his conservative principles. I am not sure where is Romney.
That's true. A person born with a golden spoon in his mouth, will never know how the common person lives.
However, it is his dry style with no emotion that causes people not to remember what he said. One thing they know - he is not Obama. The truth is the truth and he can't attract people.
I got beaten around the head and shoulders here because I have known Perry for years before he was governor, been at parties with him before and after he was governor, I like him, and knew he could not hack it as president. He cannot think on his feet and gets his sentences mixed up, using the wrong words. Has always been like that and it won't change. Freepers made excuses for him and dumped on me instead of seeking the truth. One must see the truth and try to fix the problems if one can. Denial in politics gets you nowhere but beaten.
I've worked in a number of campaigns, including my husband's as county chair (we never lost), and one has to be realistic in order to win. Admit the problems instead of making excuses and fix it if it is fixable.
Can Romney change and show excitement, anger, disgust, joy, those emotions that prove he is a human being instead of a robot living the life of the wealthy? Doesn't matter if he is rich, but no emotion translates into rich with nothing else there - all hat as the Texans say.
That's true. A person born with a golden spoon in his mouth, will never know how the common person lives.
However, it is his dry style with no emotion that causes people not to remember what he said. One thing they know - he is not Obama. The truth is the truth and he can't attract people.
I got beaten around the head and shoulders here because I have known Perry for years before he was governor, been at parties with him before and after he was governor, I like him, and knew he could not hack it as president. He cannot think on his feet and gets his sentences mixed up, using the wrong words. Has always been like that and it won't change. Freepers made excuses for him and dumped on me instead of seeking the truth. One must see the truth and try to fix the problems if one can. Denial in politics gets you nowhere but beaten.
I've worked in a number of campaigns, including my husband's as county chair (we never lost), and one has to be realistic in order to win. Admit the problems instead of making excuses and fix it if it is fixable.
Can Romney change and show excitement, anger, disgust, joy, those emotions that prove he is a human being instead of a robot living the life of the wealthy? Doesn't matter if he is rich, but no emotion translates into rich with nothing else there - all hat as the Texans say.
Trust God.
Peg, Tucker, etc....you didn’t want a big, brave, bold-colors, tackling-the-big-issues, taking-the-big-risks candidate. You wanted a safe candidate. And you got him. It’s kind of late to worry that maybe you asked for the wrong thing. Maybe in 2016.
how about Peggy “I wrote speaches for Reagan” noonan and her NYC mindset? Didn’t she vote Obama?
Lots of the “white guilt RINOs” did, and they probably will again.
I liked the personable Gov. Perry also, but from a distance as I’ve never been up close and personal with any politician AFAIK. But his penchant for verbal tossed salad would not have established credibility as president.
We may never know why Mitt’s comfort zone includes blasting at conservative Republicans but not Marxist Democrats. Is it his northeast bluedog pedigree? Will be interesting to see which persona he takes at the debates — the polite and deferential one or the attack dog.
Did that work in 2008?
I am all for 'Trusting God', but His Will is not always our will.
Yes, trusting God has always worked.
I am all for 'Trusting God', but His Will is not always our will.
His will shall be revealed. We are happiest when we accept it.
Mitt is comfortable attacking conservatives because he is a liberal. if it was his pedigree he would not be comfortable attacking anyone.
When he is confronted, he stutters and the words that come out after that aren't put together well. I also think he has a “thing” about wanting to look “presidential” and his idea of presidential gives us that staid unemotional statue.
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