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Romney ver. 08 running Gallagher ver. 06 |
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He’ll likely be able to blame the same flawed strategy that cost him in every one of the three states so far where he devoted months of his life and millions of his own dollars: a failure to sell himself to the bloc of evangelical Christians that he chose early on to make his “base.” If any of this sounds familiar, it should. This is the same strategy Tom Gallagher tried in the Republican governor’s primary 18 months ago. Romney even has much of the same financial backing and political support that helped Gallagher to a two-to-one drubbing in 2006 at the hands of Charlie Crist. In that case, Gallagher, once a live-and-let-live bachelor, tried to sell himself as an anti-pornography, anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage Christian. Romney, in contrast, has long walked the walk of a devoted family man. His sales job has been something else: telling evangelical Christians that he was just like them. In a way that matters deeply to many fundamentalists, of course, he is not like them. His Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded less than 200 years ago in western New York. It teaches that it is the only true Christian church, and puts great weight in its Book of Mormon – doctrine at odds with Southern Baptists and others who see the King James Version of the Bible as God’s last word. In the two states so far where evangelicals dominate – Iowa and South Carolina – the objects of Romney’s long courtship have not returned the love. In Iowa, those voters gave fellow evangelical Mike Huckabee an easy win. In South Carolina, Romney spent more money than all the other candidates put together. He came in fourth, winning 15 percent of the total vote, and 11 percent of the evangelicals. Which brings him now to Florida, where he apparently ignored the lessons of the 2006 primary when he mapped out his campaign here. Gallagher, a longtime insurance commissioner and treasurer with a solid understanding of Florida government and its challenges, instead downplayed all of that decided to run on his new-found religion. It’s only been recently that Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, retooled his message to emphasize his experience with the Salt Lake City Olympics and his venture capital business as credentials for fixing the economy. Helping save and create jobs has finally overtaken telling teens to get married prior to having children. The new storyline helped in Michigan, where he was born and his father was once a three-term governor, but not in South Carolina, where dismal polling led Romney to abandon the state two days before the election and head to Mormon-friendly Nevada instead, where the only competition was libertarian Ron Paul. In Romney’s favor, Florida is demographically more like Michigan than South Carolina. Evangelicals make up maybe 35 percent of the Republican electorate, not 60, like South Carolina. Working against him: while he and his people were busy locking up the 34 percent of Florida Republicans who voted for Gallagher, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain concentrated instead on the 64 percent who voted for Charlie Crist. Is it too late for Romney to reverse gears here? Maybe not. Florida Republican voters are not like New Hampshire Republicans who base their opinions on what a candidate says in their living room, but more like Republicans nationally, who will base much of their choice on television advertising. Romney, if he chooses to, can have an overwhelming advantage on that measure. Huckabee cannot afford statewide television, McCain’s campaign is not likely to throw up much more than $1 million worth, and one-time frontrunner Giuliani could well end up with a smaller TV presence than McCain in the final week. On the other hand, McCain has the momentum from South Carolina, which cannot be discounted, regardless of how hard Romney tries to equate it with his own win in Nevada. Nine days is a long time in a compressed primary schedule, and the mega-primary on Feb. 5 looms, influencing time and money decisions in ways not completely predictable yet. If Fred Thompson drops out and endorses McCain, as is rumored, that could further help McCain – as would a continuation of the McCain-Huckabee non-aggression treaty during Thursday night’s televised debate. Huckabee can expect to win the lion’s share of the evangelical vote, but that’s probably about it. Even if Romney were to win the rest of the social conservatives (which is not likely; McCain got nearly three times as many evangelical votes than Romney in South Carolina), he could have a tough time winning a majority of the remaining 65 percent – particularly when so many of them are Hispanics unhappy with his newfound hard line on immigration. Romney’s next best hope probably is for Giuliani to reverse his slide and stop McCain here, letting Romney’s personal checkbook become the biggest player in what would become a TV-ad-based national primary on Feb. 5.
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January
20, 2008