Traverse City, Michigan — This may be the last state Mitt Romney ever thought he could lose. After all, his father, George Romney, was Michigan’s governor, and Mitt spent his childhood in the state, a fact he weaves into his speeches while campaigning here.
But while Rick Santorum’s lead has evaporated over the last couple of weeks — no doubt in part because of the massive blitz on the airwaves from the Romney campaign and Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future — he and Romney remain virtually tied. The Great Lakes State is still very much in play and, with rumblings from the GOP establishment about finding a new candidate to enter the race if Romney can’t manage to prevail in his home state, it has become must-win for Romney.
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“He’s fighting like an underdog. We’re closing fast, and he’s not going to stop fighting until Tuesday at 8pm,” says Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette, Romney’s state-campaign chairman. “It’s crunch time. This is a barnburner of a campaign we’re waging here in Michigan.” Romney, adds Schuette, “is a fighter . . . the fighter for Michigan and the fighter for Michigan jobs.”
“He makes Mark Wahlberg look tame,” Schuette claims, alluding to Wahlberg’s role as a boxing champ in 2010 film The Fighter. “This guy is committed to bringing Michigan back and America back, and it’s all about paychecks, paychecks, paychecks.”
But it’s shared ties, not punches, that Romney is relying on to help him connect with Michigan voters. Working to gain momentum in the state, the candidate is touting his local roots. At a Sunday event in Traverse City, a resort town adjoining a bay off Lake Michigan, Romney recalled how Ann Romney’s parents had owned a cottage in another Michigan town, Manistee. “I actually kissed her there,” Romney said, his wife beside him. “Oh yeah, oh yeah. She was 16. I was 18.”
Ann Romney acknowledged the kiss (“my father caught us, by the way”), and spoke affectionately of her childhood in the state. “I loved the Great Lakes. I would swim in Lake Michigan, and I climbed the sand dunes here. And who loves Petoskey stones?” she asked, the audience approvingly cheering her reference to a fossil found along Michigan’s shores. “There’s some people in the country who don’t know what Petoskey stones are. It’s unbelievable.”
Many of Romney’s remarks — delivered beneath a huge banner reading “Cut the Spending” — were fiscal-centered, as he discussed his job-creation and debt-reduction plans. But he briefly targeted Santorum and Newt Gingrich: “The other two sort of leading contenders are folks who spent their life in Washington, working there and being elected officials there,” he said. “I don’t think you can change Washington if you’ve been part of the culture of Washington.”
“The other night at the debate when one of them said that he voted . . . for something he disagreed with,” Romney said, referencing Santorum’s explanation of his vote for the No Child Left Behind Act, “he said he did it to take one for the team. Look, my team is the people of Michigan [and] of America, and I’m going to fight for you.”
Even if Romney pulls off a win in the state, there are signs that the campaign is exhausted by the drawn-out primary. “It’s going to be a good day Tuesday,” Ann Romney
Truer words have not been spoken. I know popular radio hosts still perpetuate the myth that the current process has been good for the GOP in selection it's potential nominee, but it's not only the Romney campaign that maybe exhausted but the GOP itself.
Many of my political junkie friends and myself included have fatigue of the current process, and the GOP seems to be at civil war with some idiotic belief of Establishment vs. Anti-Establishment. Meanwhile, with gas prices soaring and prices in general soaring, Obama's approval numbers go up?
Already there are some real losers in this process. I believe Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others have or are losing listeners and viewers, especially in their Anti-Romney tilt. Discussing with others, we agree, we don't mind if you have a candidate that isn't Romney, but when you have several candidates such as Gingrich-Bachmann-Perry-Cain-Gingrich-Santorum verses the Happy Mitt Crowd, the Happy Mitt Crowd begins to look like the adults in the room.
I will conclude with the idea I pondered yesterday, what would the GOP do if it didn't have Romney as a potential candidate? I am sorry, but if you take some of the outlandish statements from the life-long Washington Insiders who have worked as closest one can to being lobbyists without being called lobbyists and at the same time some how manage to perpetuate the idea that they are Washington outsiders candidates, I believe Obama would be set up for a guarantee win.
Hopefully, this process is coming to an end soon this Tuesday, and it's going to be a good day for the GOP as it selects the best candidate to move forward in an effort to beat Obama.
If you're 'exhausted by this process, you're pretty new to American politics.
Obama and Clinton fought it out until June 2008; in 1952, the Republicans fought between Eisenhower, Robert Taft, Earl Warren, Harold Stassen and Macarthur. It used to be common to get to the Convention without a selected nominee.
No, I suspect that you're 'exhausted because your beautiful boy is actually having to fight for his chance, and not have it handed to him because "it's his turn".
You should learn from seeing that actual conservative Republicans have made a half dozen choices to keep from accepting Romney. We don't *want* another Rockefeller, Establishment Republican.
Get over it, and get behind one of the Conservatives.
The only true conservative left is Ron Paul. Are you suggesting we vote for him? I don't have a problem with that, I like Ron Paul. I just don't think he has a chance in the primary. If he could make it to the general he would kick Obama's ass. The same can't be said for Santorum. We nominate him and we lose the general; no doubt about it.
The man is a proven loser. The indys and libertarians will not vote for that big govt control freak phoney.
I wouldn't blame Romney if he told the Republican media and that includes NR, Fox, Weekly Standard, Redstate, Rush, and the rest to take the job and shove it. It you want to lose with Santorum, be my guest. There is nothing consistent or conservative about Santorum's voting record, not even with respect to social issues (see Title X, NCLB, prescription drug entitlement program, bridge to nowhere). If what you want is red meat go at it but he will never be able to unify the country to solve its fiscal problems. He has no experience worthy of the presidency.
Truly, it's a miracle the man has won the states he has given that he is fighting both against the Obama media and the ABR media. Despite it all, he has still overwhelmingly won the states that we need to win to win the presidency -- FL, NV, NH, likely AZ. How did Santorum do in those states even among republicans. Do you think he can carry those states when you add in the DEMs and Indies.
Do you wonder why his former colleagues in Congress haven't come out to support Santorum? Do they know something about his abilities that we don't?
"I wouldn't blame Romney if he told the Republican media and that includes NR, Fox, Weekly Standard, Redstate, Rush, and the rest to take the job and shove it. It you want to lose with Santorum, be my gues"
AMEN, Geoph. I have said the exact same thing myself. Let them stand on what they call their "principals" and let them see what cold comfort that will be during Obama's next four years.
After 20 years I turned off Rush for the last time today. Fox, Rush, Hannity, and Levin are off my list for good. They spin almost as much as the left. I'll get my news from the net from now on.
I hear you! I've stopped listening to Rush and Hannity, probably for good. The stunning stupidity of watching all the ABR candidates rise and fall has shaken my faith in my fellow Republicans. This Santorum thing is beyond simple stupidity; it's suicidal.
You are so right, Mark.
After 20 years of being a proud dittohead, I am done with Rush. I've never been a big fan of Hannity or Levin, so I won't miss them all that much. Fox news is another loser, IMHO. I will rely on the net to get my news.
How many home states does Romney have? How long ago did Romney live again in Michigan. Yet Santorum couldn't even make the ballot in the state where he actually lives.
And for the record, Santorum actually pandering to Democrats in Michigan is a new low. Politics in its dirtiest form.
"This may be the last state Mitt Romney ever thought he could lose."
That opening line will certainly never be considered to be brilliant political analysis. There's no question that if Mitt Romney were ranking the states in order by possible probability of losing, Utah would be the last state -- not Michigan.
The idea that Rick is attracting crossover vote because the Dems want to support him through the general election is beyond naive. If you read the text of Rick's Michigan robo calls to Dems, you discover that he's trying to attract Dems by making them think that he's a pro-union guy and Mitt isn't. (Well, Mitt isn't!) If you remember, it was Reagan who broke the air traffic controllers union by standing strong against them, not by portraing himself as their crony.
Not a one. But why are you complaining? Santorum offers you all the vapid, detail-free economics of "I'll cut spending, cut regulations, cut taxes, and still balance the budget" that you guys have been offering for thirty years...plus, the wildly unpopular, moralistic neo-theocratism of "What's really wrong with this country is too many people having sex and not making babies".....plus the suicidal policies of the neo-conservatives who want to bomb every country in the Middle East that Likud doesn't like and we get to pay for it with our blood and treasure.
Romney is just a plutocrat. With Santorum you get the total package.
Craig L. Foster, co-author of The Mormon Quest for the Presidency: From Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman (2011) recently stated that while Mitt Romney was born and raised in Michigan, he has not resided in Michigan since leaving at the age of 18 to go to school and then serve a Mormon mission in France. He has spent more years in Massachusetts and has also spent time in Utah. Romney's connection to thos latter states is much stronger and could realistically be considered as Romney's home states.
Craig L. Foster, co-author of The Mormon Quest for the Presidency: From Joseph Smith to Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman (2011) recently stated that while Mitt Romney was born and raised in Michigan, he has not resided in Michigan since leaving at the age of 18 to go to school and then serve a Mormon mission in France. He has spent more years in Massachusetts and has also spent time in Utah. Romney's connection to thos latter states is much stronger and could realistically be considered as Romney's home states.
'“I actually kissed her there,” Romney said, his wife beside him. “Oh yeah, oh yeah. She was 16. I was 18.”'
Not having had the benefit of hearing Romney speak these lines, I can only imagine him intoning them in his usual monotone voice, feigning enthusiasm quite unconvincingly.
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