For Mitt Romney, the stakes have never been higher.
“If Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,” a top GOP senator told ABC News. Politico’s Mike Allen reported that top Republicans are “poring over filing deadlines” in primary states and are devising a plan that would allow a new candidate to enter the Republican primary, in the event that Romney loses his home state.
Enter Michigan Republican governor Rick Snyder. Snyder, who endorsed Romney this week, brushes off Romney’s lagging poll numbers, describing the situation as “very fluid.”
“I think it’s still fairly early in the process,” Snyder says in an interview, predicting a change in Romney’s fortunes in the Great Lakes state. “I think you’re going to see a lot of progress,” he remarks.
“He’s focused in on jobs and economic growth,” the governor says of Romney. “When you go to Michiganders, that’s the top issue here, is about more and better jobs.”
Romney has been playing up his ties to the state, where his father George Romney was governor and where he himself grew up. In recent comments, he has peppered in local references. Still, a poll by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed that 62 percent of Michigan Republicans didn’t view Romney as a local.
But Snyder expects that Romney’s background will ultimately give him some edge over his rivals. “It’s not going to be their prime decision making criteria,” he remarks of voters, “but it is nice, because it shows he has an appreciation of the state and how great it is.”
Campaign visits and TV ads, Snyder adds, will also impact the race. Snyder, who was with Romney on the campaign trail this week, offers sthat Romney “was doing great connecting with people.”
While avoiding directly commenting on Romney and Santorum’s attack ads in the state, Snyder nonetheless stresses the importance of not alienating voters with negative campaigning. “There is a risk of people running negative ads and turning people off,” he says, noting he ran no negative ads in his own gubernatorial campaign in 2010.
Traveling around Michigan, Romney has been highlighting his stances against big labor, attacking Santorum for various pro-union votes over the years. And he has been talking on the stump about his support for a right-to-work law in the state, reports the Detroit News, a matter that Snyder has indicated previously he does not wish the state legislature to take up in the near future.
“In terms of emphasizing union issues, my approach is I don’t go on that path very often because I think the main topic is to stay focused on the jobs question,” says Snyder. Asked directly if Romney should avoid anti-union rhetoric, Snyder responds carefully. “I think that the biggest thing he should focus on is jobs and the challenges in Washington and how that is holding Michigan back,” he says.
Santorum has been attacking Romney for supporting the “Wall Street bailouts” but opposing the bailout of Detroit’s auto industry. (Santorum says he supported neither.) Snyder, for his part, questions how much voters care about the candidates’ positions on the auto bailouts. “I think it’s an overblown topic in many respects,” he says. “The main thing is the auto industry is working and it’s going well.”
And while Michigan hasn’t gone Republican in a general election since 1988, Snyder has no doubt that Romney is the Republican most likely to be able to turn the state red. “Gov. Romney would be the best candidate on the Republican side because of his emphasis on jobs and economic growth,” he says.
Snyder’s own experience as a candidate bolsters his nonchalant attitude to the polls showing Romney behind right now in the state.
“I know what it’s like to come back in the polls,” says Snyder, noting that he was a “margin of error” candidate at one point. “I ended up winning by 18 points in the general election.”
Because of that, he says, “I don’t overemphasize the polls as you go. “
Here's Mitt at his oratorical best:
External Link
P.S. Mormons may not be allowed to drink alcohol, but apparently amphetamines are OK.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe X factor will be how much Operation Chaos goes on in this open primary. Kos is exhorting his followers to vote for Santorum to prolong the process and improve Obama's chances. His cohort will be negligible, but if the unions react to Romney's critiques of Big Labor, they could bring out the troops.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs per the Mr. Inevtiable's ads, Paul is crazy, Gingrich is nuts,and Santorum is a Opus Dei freak. but we're supposed to vote for this guy?
Romney tries so hard to be liked, to be a regular guy, that it simply falls flat.Trees, lakes and car parts...what the?. The man is not comfortalbe in his own skin. Not sure he even knows why he wants to be president. There's no real rationale. Only the awfulness of 4 more years of Obama policies can make me vote for Romney.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo membership in a Catholic fraternity makes you a "freak", whereas going around baptizing Jewish corpses makes you "electable"?
You people are delusional.
Nominating Romney is the surest way to guarantee Obama's reelection. Axelrod is going to tear this empty-suited stiff apart.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI know what it’s like to come back in the polls,” says Snyder, noting that he was a “margin of error” candidate at one point. “I ended up winning by 18 points in the general election.”
-------------------------------------------------------
Problem is that Romney never was the margin of error candidate, that was Rick. Although 18 points might be a stretch to expect in 10 days.
And though I am for Rick at present, I can enthusiastically vote for Romney against Obama. I can't say the same for a lot of GOP Senators, especially the sort that annonymously bash a good Republican Senator like Santorum, or who cry gloom and doom if Mitt loses MI. I think the homestate aspect for Romney is being overstated and his followers need not surrender with a MI loss. Though some panic might be in order... :-)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney's record in Mass. is not conservative and barely meets a RINO definition. State constitution requires a balanced budget. He also had the line item veto. Two conservative tools for sure but Romney did not have Conservative convictions.
In his own words he defined himself as follows in 2002: "I think the old standby definitions of who votes for which party have been blown away in this campaign. I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe will not win with Romney; you can win with Santorum or Gingrich. Ideas matter, solutions matter, conservative republican track record matters, a bold contrast to Obama matters. Romney has none of those going for him.
The establishment republicans are propping up Romney and covering him with a fake fur of conservatism. The people are not buying it.
Romney is not electable. He's our own bumbling, awkward, patrician, GOP version of John Kerry. The sooner we realize that and move on the better for the party and the country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney is "our own bumbling, awkward, patrician, GOP version of John Kerry", because he has no core guiding beliefs. Running the trains on time is not a guiding principle.
If you don't have core principles, you cannot articulate them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is clear that Romney will make the best President and maybe even great President.
It is also clear he is not a natural politician and his campaign is even worse. He is getting squeezed by right elite attacks and constant attacks by the DNC and Axelrod and their minions in the MSM. Then there are the other candidates who have painted Romney as something he is not. The campaign has been flat footed for months. Why? Did they think he was inevitable and they didn't want to create any damaging narrative for the general election? None of the other candidates are held to the same standard as Romney and none are put under the same microscope. Of course he also has many self inflicted wounds but they are all magnified by the MSM.
These questions will linger for a long time if Romney loses MI.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney might also be fretting about Arizona now in the wake of his state co-chair's gay illegal immigrant sex scandal.
External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMore on the Babeu scandal...
External Link
External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHave to admit, I'm curious as to who these "top Republicans" who want a Mitt replacement will be angling for. Hoping Christie will renege on his prior promises and endorsement of Romney, and doubly harm his image and credibility in the process?
Short of maybe Bobby Jindal, I can't see anyone who would enter the race and have a hope of winning with establishment support. Not even sure the establishment would support Jindal, if a consummate team player like Santorum doesn't suit their purposes...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHis "path" is the same it's always been---spend millions of dollars sliming conservatives.
Not that we'd expect the magazine which used to be the flagship of the conservative movement to state the obvious when it comes to Your Man Mitt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExactly!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suspect that the Mike Allen story might be bogus unless he can go on the record and name the so-called "top Republicans:" who are "poring over" filing deadlines to "devise a plan" to enter someone new in the race at this late date. This is the childish nonsense of a few career establishment Republicans and hired guns who now are having buyers' remorse that they could not crown Romney on a timetable of their own choosing with all the money in the world. If they exist, and Jonahtan Karl would not name his source either, they are now in full panic mode that Romney might lose Michigan. They fail to understand that many conservatives think the milquetoast GOP establishment is just as much or more the enemy of freedom and prosperity in America as the collectivist Obama Administration is and if they try to force another Gerald Ford or Read My Lips Bush 41 on the convention, they will ensure that Obama wins again. The whole premise that Romney is more electable and invevitable because only he can appeal to independents is more nonsense. The party that wins is he one that can energize the base to turrnout. The Eastern press in 1980 also said Reagan was too conservative to win and he changed the rules of the game to create a new voting bloc called Reagan Democrats. Santorum will inherit what is left of that coalition but Romney cannot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMitt Romney has to give us the future he is envisioning. So does Rick Santorum. I am less concerned where they have been than where they are going.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, the current Michigan polls don't matter; Mitt can overcome them? However, the polls for the general election which show Newt and Rick losing to Obama are set in stone, and we need to find new candidates??? Get back to us when you have acquired some logic, Republican establishment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith supporters, endorsements and friends like Rick Snyder and Paul Babeu (not to mention the RINO amen chorus), who needs to spend money on negative advertising? Rick Snyder's approval numbers are dropping like a rock in Michigan, and Mitt's Arizona campaign chair turns out to be a gay "immigration hawk" poseur who only wants to deport Mexicans who he is not sleeping with. Truth is stranger than fiction! At least Romney will succeed where his father failed in one respect. Mitt will manage to lose the presidential sweepstakes twice. And just to think, he was the "electable"..."inevitable"..."most qualified" candidate for over a year (according to NRO and other experts). That must be some kind of record. Mitt Romney - The Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Man!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse