Ryan Streeter
Follow Ryan on Twitter
Given that Mitt Romney has been running for President for about four years now, with only a small break after the 2008 primaries, many people may have been surprised to hear he is making his official announcement today. They just assumed he was officially running all along.
Though Romney has been steadily plowing ahead, raising money, and building his organization, he faces some real problems.
For one thing, he needs to win New Hampshire. And yet as Jonathan Weisman writes in the WSJ today, he faces challenges on that front.
He...will be tested by the new era of celebrity politics. Sarah Palin will appear in Boston about the same time Mr. Romney takes the stage in New Hampshire Thursday. Hours later, Ms. Palin is to arrive in New Hampshire, as will another potential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, who will headline a Republican fundraiser in Concord.
In addition to possibly getting squeezed out of the news, he faces problems beyond his well-known RomneyCare liability. At NRO Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru lay out five questions for Romney beyond the obvious ones surrounding his health care record.
- Has he learned too much from 2008? He moved too far to the right back then, and flip-flopped on issues, so now he’s moving back to the center as the party moves right, and refuses to budge on past decisions. Both could hurt him.
- Can he be authentic? He has trouble getting beyond the perception that he looks like a President in a movie, but doesn’t connect with voters that well.
- Can he win South Carolina? Good question. He has an evangelical problem that could raise its head there.
- Is Huntsman a threat? If Huntsman runs, there is a “ludicrous degree of overlap” between the two.
- Can he win over middle class voters? Romney won the rich vote in 2008, but fared badly among those who aren’t wealthy.
There’s one additional question worth asking: what differentiates Mitt Romney in voters’ minds?
Plenty of research has shown that voters don’t vote for a candidate based on purely rational criteria about stances on issues, but on impressions they have about him or her on a range of factors. How a candidate differentiates himself from the others isn’t the only thing that matters, but it matters a great deal.
Pawlenty’s “differentiation factor” has been that he’s an ordinary guy who has the guts to be a truth-teller. And he put his money where his mouth is by going to Iowa to hammer on ethanol subsidies, Florida to take on entitlements for seniors, and so on. Palin, were she to run, would be the populist “rogue” who wants to take Washington away from the elites and give it back to the people. Had Mitch Daniels run, he would have been the candidate who got into the race to take on America’s fiscal crisis with a tireless ambition that no one else could match.
Why is Romney running? What is it that he brings to America that America needs? At present he seems to be emphasizing his executive experience in contrast with Obama’s lack thereof. That won’t be enough. It certainly won't be enought to overpower his one unfortunate differentiating factor: his health care record in Massachusetts.
The times have changed a lot since he last ran for President. The populace is anxious, frustrated, and looking for candidates who embody an answer to the question: "Who can get us out of this mess we're in?"
Voters need to know what Romney's bold offering is in these difficult times in which we live. Until he does that, all of his fundraising and organization - the envy of any candidate - may well fall short.
> From the ConHomeUSA survey archive: Conservative voters like Romney's executive experience but remain unconvinced that he is the leader America needs right now
God knows the GOP need a good candidate, but Mitt Romney has rather spoilt his image with his indecision on so many issues.
I'd still rather vote for him though against the dreadful Sarah Palin!!
Posted by: David J | June 02, 2011 at 01:38 PM
Sarah Palin is a sweetheart! Besides, she can kill and butcher a moose.
Posted by: Dawn Carpenter | June 02, 2011 at 03:24 PM
He could learn from Reagan by pledging enough cuts in federal spending to balance the budget within six years.Some money from the cuts should along with far fewer tax concessions & higher sales tax could pay for cutting corporate & personal income taxes by 30%.Capital gains & dividends should be taxed as either personal or corporate income for the first four years and then be tax free after then.
Higher revenues on the back of a tax cut fuelled recovery coupled with the federal government shrinking as a share of GDP could wipe out the deficit.
Romney sounds like a competent CEO but to win in 2012 on the economy he must have a credible and popular economic plan.
Posted by: Matthew Reynolds | June 02, 2011 at 05:02 PM
Ron Paul is the last hope for America in this election, the rest are like Labour and the Conservatives - two sides of the same coin.
I hope for the sake of the American people and the world that Paul somehow manages to win the nomination, I really do.
Posted by: dangann | June 02, 2011 at 10:14 PM