Wednesday, January 09, 2008

One More Post-NH Thought   [Rich Lowry]

If you had told me right after Iowa that Romney would get more than 30 percent of the vote in New Hampshire I would have been shocked. I thought he was going to sag significantly from the after-effects of Iowa. A prominent political reporter told me on Saturday in New Hampshire not to be surprised if Romney sank to third, surpassed by Huckabee. Instead, Romney held his vote quite well. I think his message was one of the reasons why—it was pretty effective and it was true to who Romney is. He should stick to it, just augmenting the part focusing on the economy for Michigan and bring McCain's anti-global warming carbon scheme into the conversation (on the other hand, I don't think attacking McCain as an insider works). One lesson we've had from Iowa and New Hampshire is unorthodox moves—while scorned by the pundits (including me)—have worked this year, whether it was Huckabee's ad press conference or Hillary's crying. They are those spontaneous (or spontaneous-seeming) moments that humanize a candidate and give him or her a certain depth. Romney hasn't had one, and his trouble as a campaigner is that he doesn't quite seem capable of having one. Unless he does, he just may never catch on with enough voters to win.

01/09 05:02 PMShare