The All-Too- Resistible Romney
BARNES, FRED
The All-TooResistible Romney He has everything going for him but voters. BY FRED BARNES Des Moines Mitt Romney’s messages on taxes, foreign policy, and social issues are perfectly attuned...
...Whatever new twist Romney comes up with in hopes of saving his wounded campaign had better come soon...
...Romney now bills himself as a “full spectrum” conservative...
...That’s still possible, but hardly likely...
...And indeed Romney may be—but only on paper and in the minds of his strategists...
...Perhaps his emphasis on “change” will ring some bells with Republican voters, though this is usually what Democrats like to hear...
...He’ll have to leave that to others...
...Straight Talk, Senator John McCain, talks differently today about tax cuts and immigration than he used to, but the press doesn’t hector him about it...
...Nor is Romney in a position to artfully change his positions on issues...
...To win the Republican nomination, Romney has to reach well beyond that core...
...Romney insisted that his “contrast” ads are the best way of pointing up the differences on issues among candidates...
...The word they use is “inauthentic...
...In stump speeches in Iowa, for example, he dwelled on how much he loves the state and its people...
...And he has insisted that his new take on these issues represents the real Romney...
...The fi rst is that switching probably wouldn’t help his Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...And they’re the same ones who earlier rallied behind Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush...
...But changing any of his positions under duress now would produce two results, both bad...
...To update the Bush analogy, Romney as a presidential candidate makes one think of what George W. Bush, the son, might have been like if he’d studied harder at Harvard Business School and stayed in New England...
...Even Mr...
...He told of traveling across Iowa by train as a 15-year-old and coming to the conclusion that “God must love Iowa...
...Indeed, they are, and his ads in Iowa probably kept Huckabee from beating him by an even larger margin...
...And he’s the smartest guy in the presidential fi eld...
...Here’s the profile of a Romney voter in Iowa: upper middle class, urban, someone who thinks a candidate’s religion shouldn’t matter...
...He’s pursuing an early-state strategy that, as you might guess, requires winning in states with early caucuses and primaries...
...I think his problem is that he’s a technocrat who doesn’t come across as a regular guy...
...But all presidential candidates are inauthentic to one degree or another...
...Heaven knows he tries to be a regular guy...
...He moved to the right on social issues—abortion, stem cells, marriage, guns—before entering the Republican race...
...They qualify as thoughtful, and they stir a polite form of enthusiasm...
...Normally, candidates are apologetic about “going negative...
...He succeeded famously in tougher environments— business turnarounds, running the 2002 Winter Olympics— than electoral politics...
...They’re precisely the people pollsters refer to as “likely voters...
...As such, he comes close to identifying himself as a 21stcentury version of Ronald Reagan...
...BY FRED BARNES Des Moines Mitt Romney’s messages on taxes, foreign policy, and social issues are perfectly attuned to mainstream Republicans...
...Romney, to his credit, gave one of the boldest defenses of negative TV ads that a candidate has ever made...
...I suspect he’s right about this...
...What he means is that he refl ects the views of economic, foreign policy, and social conservatives...
...There’s a painful truth about Romney’s candidacy: Republicans in general and conservatives in particular are resisting him in droves...
...What is it...
...Bush senior managed to overcome a similar problem and connect with voters...
...His campaign events attract upscale Republican crowds filled with professionals (both men and women), businessmen, and middle-class strivers...
...The second is that it would inflame a press corps that already loathes Romney for moving to the right on social issues...
...I’ve been amazed at the raw antipathy that so many otherwise reasonable people in the media feel toward Romney...
...He needs to win at least two of the fi rst four: Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina...
...That’s a pretty narrow constituency, and not only in Iowa...
...Romney won’t attract them by generating excitement—for the simple reason that he’s incapable of generating excitement...
...But the I-love-Iowa spiel sounded like boilerplate and just added to the perception of inauthenticity...
...The voters he needs are the ones Mike Huckabee, the guitar-strumming Baptist preacher from Arkansas, grabbed to win in Iowa...
...Their profi le: lower middle class, rural, evangelical Christian...
...His years in Texas politics transformed Bush...
...campaign...
...This was fi rst suggested in poll after poll that found Romney stuck in the high 20s...
...Romney is obviously a decent guy with a devoted family...
...Romney’s years in Massachusetts politics haven’t had the same effect...
...His speeches are solid and forward-looking and serious and strike all the conservative notes...
...The Romney crowds resemble those of George Bush senior in 1988, and Bush went on to win the Republican nomination and the presidency...
...He was probably a good bit more conservative than he appeared when he ran as a moderate against Democratic senator Teddy Kennedy in 1994 (he lost) and for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 (he won...
...There’s something unique about Romney that repels the press and keeps him from making a connection with hordes of Republican voters...
...But excitement...
...He’ll have to do better than that...
...Later, when he worked for a spell in Marshalltown, Iowa, Romney said he learned how terrifi c Iowans are...
...And it was confi rmed by his dismal showing in the Iowa caucuses, in which he captured only a sliver of the conservative vote and roughly a quarter of the Republican vote overall...
...He learned to talk comfortably about country music and ate pork rinds...
...People who’ve worked for Romney speak of him in glowing terms...
Vol. 13 • January 2008 • No. 17
