Romney’s State in Iowa

Unabashedly tapping his personal fortune to bolster his name recognition and organization, Mitt Romney has propelled himself to be the Republican frontrunner in Iowa. The former governor of Massachusetts has blanketed the states with ads implicitly casting him in the mold of Ronald Reagan.  The ads and intense campaigning are working, providing Romney a double-digit lead over his nearest competitors in the crucial, first in the nation state.  As the days wind down to January 14, when the ballots are cast, will Romney’s lead withstand increased pressure?

            Romney’s Achilles’ heel is his flip-flopping.  Iowans regard him as the most honest and trustworthy Republican candidate, an unfitting label reflecting the tepidity of attacks directed toward his vulnerable record.  Attacks have either been weak in nature, from weak candidates, or brief mentions in a debate.  Take Jim Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia who dropped out of the race after never gaining traction.  Gilmore lumped the leading Republicans’ liberal views into the conglomerate candidate “Rudy McRomney”.  The hesitant Gilmore repeated this phrase at his paltry campaign events, but declined to vigorously press the charges during the nationally televised debates.  McCain has appeared the most willing to go after Romney’s record, but usually drops in his one or two sentence criticism when ending an answer in a debate.  McCain’s campaign registered mittvsfact.com, a site intended to highlight Romney’s varying stances, but encountered their own problems and shelved the idea.  No one yet has forcefully attacked Romney’s changing positions. 

            Either Giuliani or Thompson is suited to go after Romney on his record.  The mayor is running a campaign portraying him as a strong, tough leader.  He isn’t forced into running a purely positive campaign, it fits with his personality to criticize Romney.  Although Giuliani’s criticism would lead to backlash highlighting his own liberal views, Giuliani’s campaign seems to have moved beyond that.  Who do you want more – a leader tough on terrorism, or someone else? 

            It makes political sense for Thompson to confront Romney about his record, since both of them are pursuing the same social conservatives.  In fact, an anti-Fred site phoneyfred.org surfaced yesterday, full of opposition research hammering Thompson for his lobbying work, policy positions and more.  The creator of the site, Wes Donohue, is an employee for the South Carolina consulting firm overseeing Romney’s campaign in the state.  Romney’s campaign spokesmen distanced themselves from the site, but evidently Romney supporters are afraid of losing voters to Thompson.  Again, there is potential backlash for Thompson, who was a lobbyist for a pro-choice group. 

            Another problem for Romney is his unfavorability.  At his peak in May, the percentage of his favorables minus the percentage of his unfavorables was 8%.  Since then it has trended downward to -9%.  Troublingly, as people find out more about him, the less they like him.  That doesn’t bode well for his electability, an important issue to a party desperate to prolong its hold in the White House.  With the Republicans appearing to lose seats in Congress in 2008, it’s even more important they maintain the presidency.              

Romney has progressed so far in Iowa buoyed by hard campaigning.  None of Giuliani, Thompson, McCain has even remotely neared his efforts.  Giuliani was ambivalent early, entertaining the idea of skipping the state to focus on more moderate, delegate-rich states voting later.  Thompson has gotten into the race late, and McCain is running a bare-bones operation due to low fundraising.  All three also skipped the Ames straw poll, which Romney won resoundingly.  Romney can no longer benefit from this lack of effort, as Giuliani has intensified his efforts recently and Thompson is starting campaigning there.  As said before, Romney faces significant competition with Thompson’s entrance in courting the social conservative bloc, the backbone of Romney’s support.  Without even campaigning, Thompson already ranks second in national polling and has benefited from the post-announcement bump.    Nonetheless, Thompson still has to establish an organization in Iowa and show the same effort Romney has devoted to the state.

Republican support is not very committed in Iowa, less than 50% of voters are strongly backing a candidate.  Iowa caucus-goers are known for deciding in the last week whom to support.  Romney’s campaign seems fragile, and a properly applied push could send it downward. 

Republican Debate Roundup

Winners: Rudy Giuliani.  He adeptly stayed from the social issues, firmly repeating his “tough on crime, tough on terrorism” litany.  Giuliani again tried to direct his fire toward the Democrats, but also made a few subtle jabs at Romney.  In contrast, he was exceedingly kind to McCain, eagerly hoping for his endorsement if McCain drops out before the primaries.

John McCain: McCain’s favorite state is New Hampshire, and it showed last night.  Although McCain seemed fairly tepid in the first half on the topics of Thompson and immigration, he brightened up when foreign policy was broached.  He harshly told Romney the surge was working and stood firmly behind his Iraq policy.   McCain’s been battered by the media in the period between debates, and voters got to see the actual candidate without the media’s varnish.

Losers: Fred Thompson.  New Hampshire Republican chairman Fergus Cullen fired the initial volley against Thompson, saying “campaigns should be more than 30-seconds”, right after a Thompson commercial aired on the same network.  He also said, “In New Hampshire, candidates do the hard work”.  The barrage continued when the candidates threw out a vast array of one-liners, many focusing on Thompson’s lack of personally engaging with voters.  Thompson loomed over the debate, but with a negative effect to his campaign.

Mitt Romney: Last night was a hostile environment for Romney, criticized by McCain on the Iraq surge and by a New Hampshire voter for comparing his sons’ work on his campaign to the sacrifice of soldiers in Iraq.  Romney gave a brief response to the NH voter before clumsily switching to talking about the global battle against jihad.  Romney will have to show he can do better when under the pressure of being a front-runner.

Moments

Debates are defined by moments, of which there were a few tonight.

The first one: Romney’s debate performance was largely dominated by one forgettable moment. A deputy sheriff in the diner criticized Romney for comparing his sons’ campaign work to serving on the ground in Iraq. The one-liner: It was wrong, sir, and you never should’ve said it.  Ouch.  Slip-ups reveal something about what a candidate’s really thinking - in this case, Romney’s arrogance.

The second one. Although I think most of the stuffing has been squeezed out of the Paul punching bag, Huckabee gained a few points during his intense back-and-forth with Paul. When Paul essentially said the American people shouldn’t be burdened by the bad decisions of neo-cons in the government, Huckabee replied that we make mistakes as one country. Huckabee continued, placing honor above the Republican party’s electoral fate.

And although not defined by a single moment, there was a notable uptick in the tension between Giuliani and Romney, especially in the exchanges on immigration.

Finally, we’ll have a more detailed analysis tomorrow, but our impression is that Giuliani and McCain performed well, Huckabee in the middle, and then Romney at the back end.

Preliminary Debate Analysis

Wow.  In an unscientific survey conducted on Hannity & Colmes, not a single person out of 29 was satisfied with the Republican field.  Nonetheless, the clear winner among the 29 was McCain, who converted maybe 10-15 voters by my count.  Themes echoed by the voters supporting McCain were experience, clarity, and leadership.  Just like in 2000, New Hampshire is proving to be a friendly, friendly state for McCain.

More results from the survey: practically everyone thought Giuliani waffled.  Again, I’ll emphasize this is an unscientific survey.

Giuliani and McCain

Giuliani’s been acting rather courteous to McCain this entire debate, even saying he’d support McCain if he wasn’t running.  It reflects McCain’s fall from the top tier and Giuliani’s effort to court McCain supporters.  Both have similar appeal to moderate voters.

Romney Skirting Iraq

Willard Mitt Romney, please answer the question!  The deputy sheriff in the restaurant just asked you for an endgame plan in Iraq, and you started talking about the global conflict against jihad.  Also, under the “Issue Watch” section on your website, there’s not a single topic on Iraq.

Here’s the most detailed Romney Iraq plan I’ve seen.

Paul vs. Huckabee

This is what debates should really be like.  Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee just had an emotional exchange, with both scoring loud rounds of applause after their respective points.  The debate centered around withdrawing/staying in Iraq, with Paul advocating withdrawal and Huckabee supporting staying.

Wouldn’t an exchange like that between Giuliani and Romney be great?

Candidates on the Stump/In a Debate

Some of the Republican candidates jab at their opponents while campaigning, but don’t attack when prompted at debates.  For example, consider Jim Gilmore before he dropped out.  In the South Carolina Fox debate, Chris Wallace asked him to explain his one-liner on why Rudy McRomney is not a conservative.  Gilmore didn’t name names in his initial response when criticizing the candidates, speaking in vague generalities such as “one candidate …”.  Only when prompted by Wallace did Gilmore call out the candidates by name.

The same is happening here tonight.  Mike Huckabee, who has to have a strong performance in this debate to fully capitalize on his Ames straw poll second-place showing, passed up on an open opportunity to attack Mitt Romney’s abortion stance.  Instead, he deferred and said he’d let the others “sort out the differences they had”.  Huckabee, like Gilmore, readily criticizes his opponents on the stump.

Where’s Thompson?

All the candidates in this opening around are jumping on Thompson’s main perceived weakness, laziness.   One example: Giuliani saying that you have to earn the nomination, it’s not a coronation.  It preempts Thompson’s presidential announcement later tonight, and I think fairly effectively.  By emphasizing his absence, the candidates are building that idea of a reluctance to engage in the primary process.

While I’m typing this, a police officer just brought up the word “amnesty” in a question.  I’m still amazed at how much that one word transforms the political debate.  From a New York Times article after the immigration bill collapsed, “It’s a lot easier to yell one word, ‘amnesty,’ and it takes a little more to explain”.

Chris Dodd - Injecting Himself Into the Republican Debate

After having a talk clock for the first Democratic debate, Chris Dodd is now doing the same for the Republican one.  With ten candidates, it’s hard for any specific one to get much speaking time.  McCain’s leading with six minutes, Romney’s at five, and Giuliani’s at four.  Wolf Blitzer is leading by far at ten minutes.