Romney’s Big Mistake
Update with campaign response
In every campaign mistakes are made. Some are little mistakes, others are big mistakes. The question, therefore, isn’t whether one will make a mistake – one always will – but only how big the mistake is and whether one will correct it in time.
One of the campaigns that made a big mistake is Mitt Romney’s. As for ‘correct it in time,’ I fear that the correction comes too late. At least for New Hampshire (although he could in theory still win there). He could, of course, win in in Michigan, but two weeks ago everybody basically agreed that if Romney wanted to have a shot, he had to win either in Iowa or in New Hampshire. He failed in Iowa and he could fail in New Hampshire as well.
(Image: is it going to be a cold night for Romney in New Hampshire tomorrow? AP)
So, what’s Romney’s big mistake?
The Politico has a fascinating report up about the strategy of the Romney campaign. Some advisers wanted him to emphasize the fact that he’s not a Washington insider. That he, therefore, can change the tone of the debate in Washington and do something about bad habits. They also wanted him to point out time and again that he’s a successful CEO: he knows how to run a business, and a big one at that. The Washington-outside-CEO: that’s the card some advisers said he should play.
Other advisers disagreed however. They said that if Romney wanted to win he has to convince the conservative base to vote for him, mostly based on his stance on social and fiscal issues. It’s why he talked about abortion so often.
The last group of advisers clearly won.
Why is this a mistake? Because those topics are exactly Romney’s weaknesses. When he talks about abortion time and again, we just see a video of him of 13 years ago saying that he was pro-choice. It doesn’t work for him. It’s too easy to portray him as a flip-flopper.
What’s more, whether one likes it or not, change – Lord knows that one doesn’t even have to define what kind of change one means exactly – is a powerful motivator. Both Huckabee and Obama are agents for change… and they’re doing great. Romney is different than most other Republican candidates: he’s the only one with a great business career. This is one of his major strengths. He should’ve exploited it for all it’s worth. Whenever Huckabee started talking about what he would want to do to help businesses perform better, while punishing the rich for their success, Romney should’ve made clear immediately that Huckabee should stick to religion and social issues, because the economy isn’t his cup of tea.
You could argue that if Huckabee wouldn’t have surged suddenly, Romney’s strategy could’ve been successful. Perhaps. Who knows. But Romney’s campaign should’ve been aware of Huckabee’s appeal and, thus, danger. If even I, a 23-year old Dutchman, realized months ago that Huckabee should do very well in the polls because he should appeal to Evangelical voters, Romney’s campaign should’ve realized that as well.
They really have no excuse.
We’ll have to wait 36 hours before we know whether Romney’s strategy was indeed as horrible as some, including myself, think, but it is clear that if he would’ve emphasized his business career more and the fact that he’s a Washington-outside more – who can force Washington to spend less, and above else more wisely – he would’ve done better both in Iowa and New Hampshire (it wouldn’t have been close between him and McCain).
This is, after all, what attracted me to Romney. I thought that Romney would be a great commander in chief and would, above all else, be great fiscally. As I wrote in my somewhat-endorsement post, I especially like the so-called Bain-way. The Bain-way means that Romney encourages debate, lets experts who disagree with each other come in, debate each other, and after their debate he draws conclusions. That’s quite a different style than George W. Bush has.
He should’ve explained that time and again. His reasonableness is one of his major strengths. His success as a business man is one as well. Those strengths should’ve been exploited.
The Politico report also explains that Romney and his advisers are already preparing for a loss tomorrow. They’re downplaying expectations and making clear that they’re satisfied if Romney finish a close second. Even his advisers acknowledge, though, that if the gap between McCain and Romney is as big as the gap was between Huckabee and Romney in Iowa, there’s no way to spin the loss in positive way.
The funny thing about the Politico report, however, is that one gets the impression that Romney did quite well during yesterday’s GOP debate and that he’ll create a minor surge. Read for instance this post by Hugh Hewitt and this one by Mark Levin.
It’s far from over yet. He could very well win in New Hampshire. We know that Obama will win in NH, or at least, it’s very likely he will, but on the Republican side, it could still go either way. If Romney wins, he has to continue to exploit his strengths. Let Huckabee play the social conservative card, Romney has to play the fiscally conservative, who’s acceptable to all other conservatives.
As such, I take Politico’s report of how Romney’s campaign is downplaying expectations with a huge grain of salt. McCain’s private news outlet published an article the day before the Iowa caucuses saying that Thompson was likely to drop out – which was a lie – and now, the day before the New Hampshire primaries they publish yet another article indicating that one of McCain’s rivals is preparing for a defeat.
Well color me skeptical.
UPDATE: when asked about the report in the Politico campaign spokesman Stephen Smith responded as follows:
We always expected this race would be competitive, but Governor Romney has shown that he is the only candidate who can change Washington. Americans want change. They want a leader who will actually secure the borders, cut wasteful spending, keep tax burdens low and reform health care.
Governor Romney is the only candidate who is competitive in all the early states. He is strong in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, Nevada and Florida. He is the only full-spectrum conservative in the race who has a strong base of support throughout the nation.
Finally some objectivity.;-)
This is actually my main aggravation with Romney. He’s used his funding advantage to go negative toward McCain and Huckabee in a big way, and a lot of his attacks don’t even hold up to scrutiny or they don’t point out any great advantage of Romney over those two candidates. Both Huckabee and Romney have to explain tax increases in their states since fiscal conservatives tend to automatically disqualify a candidate over that; Romney’s explanation shows that all along, he was using political spin to raise taxes by calling the increases fees or saying he was ‘closing loopholes’, while it’s pretty obvious that he used those terms in order to try to avoid having to answer to the Club for Growth crowd. If he hadn’t started attacking Huckabee for this issue, he could have stayed on a more positive message about his own experience and leadership style, and that would have made him a much more attractive candidate in my view.
The strategy that so easily defeated John Kerry is working against Romney. Flip Flopping. Why this is bad is beyond me but somehow politicians seemed to have convinced the world that if you change your mind its an evil thing and yet the democrats want to change their mind on the war and thats okay. The Republicans want to change their mind on huge spending and thats okay.
The problem this anemic field of GOP contenders are facing is that they are trying to run on policies of 10, 20 years ago when in fact the voters that put them in office then are now in hiding, too ashamed to get out and vote once again for conservative principals which are being so badly badmouthed and associated with GWB and the premptive war in Iraq that people are almost embarrassed to admit they are conservative today.
I agree, I think that has been a mistake, at least to a degree: especially considering the fact that conservative commentators are more than willing to show that Huckabee isn’t exactly a fiscal conservative.
I think he can still turn that around a bit though (he has to). He could present himself somewhat as the Republican equivalent of Obama, but then more realistic and with more experience… o, and with more conservative solutions.
Nah.
You know what: you said that very well. That’s one of the major problems – in my opinion – with politics today. If a politician changed his mind on something (even if he held the other view 15 years ago) he’s a flip-flopper, or he at least has a hard time defending himself against such allegations.
I find that a bit awkward as well. Of course, one should criticize those who change their views out of opportunism, but more often than not that’s not the case and, what’s more, you can’t look inside someone’s heart; very often, people change their views over the years.
In fact, I think very little of the person who thinks exactly the same today as he thought 10 years ago.
It’s the ability to tell the difference that is the problem though. With Romney, it may be a little bit of both: he does seem to have reflected more about his abortion stance when he was actually in position to have to sign legislation. But at the same time, it’s hard to discount the fact that many of his positions were more liberal when running for gov of a blue state and have conveniently become more conservative now that he’s seeking the GOP nomination for president.
On the one hand yes, on the other hand… didn’t he side with the so-called pro-life crowd when governor? He explained this issue himself as saying that once in office, and once put to the test, he went to a difficult time, in which he thought deeply about this issue and couldn’t side with the so-called pro-choice side in good conscience.
YOu see what I mean? And with Huckabee same with the surge: he could be a critic but change his mind overtime. Lord knows I did. What’s the problem with that? Admit it.
On the abortion issue, yes, that’s why I said that for Romney I think it’s a bit of both.
On Huckabee and the surge, the problem is that all of that was over one statement he made, taken out of context. He never did oppose the surge in theory, he just went on record expressing concerns about how the Iraq mission was stretching our forces too thin. He didn’t change his overall view about the strategy, so there’s nothing there to admit. Find other statements he made at that time and you’ll see what I mean- that much touted video clip was just another gotcha moment over a throw away line. He probably should have stated it better because he said "I don’t know if I support the surge" when what he meant to say (judging by the entire rest of his rhetoric at that time) was that he supported it in theory but had concerns about whether or not it could be done without breaking our forces.
abrisaham @ 2- your excellent second paragraph contains two huge points with which I concur. First, that the GOP contenders are stuck on old themes, making it very difficult to run as anything but a status quo candidate. Second, the preemptive War still looms large (despite recent body count declines). The GOP has remained loyal to the Administration’s unpopular war and will pay the price, given that there’s no short-term horizonal solution save withdrawal.
As for "I think very little of the person who thinks exactly the same today as he thought 10 years ago"- precisely.