Intrade is still giving Mitt Romney a 55 percent chance of winning Michigan tonight. But imagine what those internal campaign polls look like if Romney’s holding a press conference like this the day of the primary:
The morning after confidently declaring he would win Michigan’s primary, on Tuesday Mitt Romney acknowledged a series of gaffes had damaged his effort and downplayed expectations for the voting results in the state where he was born. …
When pressed by reporters, Romney acknowledged he had hurt his campaign with a series of comments in which he seemed to casually flaunt his wealth. Over the past several days, Romney mentioned his wife drives “a couple of Cadillacs” and told an Associated Press reporter he has friends who are NASCAR team owners.
A reporter asked if these remarks had hurt him.
“Yes,” Romney said. “Next question.”
Romney’s also setting the stage for a loss by continuing to suggest that Democratic dirty tricks would be responsible for a Santorum victory:
“I think the hardest thing about predicting what’s going to happen today is whether Senator Santorum’s effort to call Democrat households and tell them to come out and vote against Mitt Romney is going to be successful or not,” Romney told reporters at his campaign headquarters in Livonia during his first press conference in almost three weeks. “I think Republicans have to recognize there’s a real effort to kidnap our primary process.”
It’s certainly possible that high Democratic turnout could push Santorum over the top. Democrats participating in the primary are supporting Santorum over Romney, 47 percent to 10 percent, according to the latest Public Policy Polling survey. They also make up 8 percent of primary voters, a not-insignificant number.
But this was also a state Romney was expected to lock up, and he’s not going to be able to inoculate himself from criticism by blaming a loss on his recent blunders. It just so happens that Santorum’s made plenty of problematic comments himself, and somehow he’s still managed to end up neck-and-neck with Romney.
Mitt Romney is not a Democrat. Nobody seemed to care that FDR, JFK, and John kerry were all vastly wealthier than the former Massachusetts governor. One apparently is more respectable if they advocate on behalf of redistributing the wealth of other people.
I definitely think there's a double standard where Democrats are concerned — concerning the wealthy; but there aren't so many affiliated strongly with either party (I think like only half the voters combined) — so that one party's double-standard isn't significant to the other party. What I wanted to throw in is what your comment got me thinking, that times are different than 50 years ago. Kerry did get a lot of negativity over his wealth. I remember how much fun was made of him going to McDonald's for lunch (and then having I-think-seafood delivered to the campaign bus). I think that's why Obama's class warfare tax the rich is effective. So I do think Romney has a problem with connecting and it has to do with being wealthy and maybe with thinking like a CEO and not a Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman).
It's not so much that mainstream Republicans are against Romney, they just aren't as excitable as the base, who are almost as "anybody but Mitt" as they are "anybody but Obama". And this base seems to be dominating the GOP. As classic poli-sci tells us, this is not due to numbers but to energy. But dominate, they do. n nThe irony is that while claiming to give the party "a choice not an echo," the base's choices may give the GOP an echo anyway — an echo of 1964, when the party's right wing closed out Romney's dad — an Eisenhower Republican — and nominated a right-wing purist, assuring a debacle at the polls. Ironically, that right wing purist — Goldwater — would not be right-wing enough for the wingnut kamikazes that today seem to have taken over the party, if the primaries are any indication. n
I'm still holding out against all hope that Romney somehow stumbles across the finish line and has an opportunity to retool before the general election. If he does pull it off, no one can say he wasn't tested. Or that it was handed to him. He's been skewered from the Left and the Right. n nAnd all the banging on about how he outspent everyone is a red herring. Who cares? Winning is all that matters. How he wins is nothing more than empty fodder for wannabe pundits.
Seems to me the MSM is a great job at keeping things stirred up for their own (and other) benefit . . there will always be the right fringe and moderates, but looking at popular votes suggests Romney is doing pretty good when you consider the 20% who won't vote for him while another Republican is available. I think if we went back and looked at how Reagan was doing at this point we could find confirmation of that.