Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Romney's Message   [Peter Suderman]

The Politico's Roger Simon has an article about Romney's plans to push up his poll numbers — what it calls "The Romney Rehab Plan."   I'm not sure "rehab" is entirely fair—Romney may not have the public eating from his hand right now, but it's not as if his image is hurting in such a way as to need "rehab"—but that's a minor quibble.  Anyway, the part of the piece that talks about how Romney will tailor his message is worth noting:

Romney intends to exploit what he perceives as two of McCain's great vulnerabilities in the Republican primaries: the McCain-Feingold law, which restricts campaign contributions, and the McCain-Kennedy bill, which would change immigration laws and allow for a guest-worker program. And while Romney disagrees explicitly with Giuliani on issues such as abortion, gun control and gay rights, he implicitly draws distinctions between Giuliani's rather turbulent personal life — he has been married three times — and Romney's own marriage of nearly 38 years.

"There are issues on a social basis that I think are critical for the future of America," Romney told The Politico. "One of them relates to the family. I really fundamentally believe the strength of America derives from the American family."

"The breakdown of the family," Romney continued, "is an issue that needs to be spoken about."

When I asked Romney if it was legitimate to ask people to vote for him because of his stable family life, his wife, Ann, who was sitting next to him, interjected: "We'll take that! I'll take it!"

There are, of course, significant policy and personal differences between Romney and the other major candidates.  Right now, though, so much of the talk about Romney focuses on his religion, his lack of national name recognition in comparison to Giuliani and McCain, and the evolution of his positions on social issues.  But what's lacking—and what Romney really needs during primary season—is some actual discussion of his major differences with the other leading Republican contenders.  There are substantial differences, and they're differences that stand a fair chance to help him with Republican primary voters.  He seems to have done this pretty well at C-PAC (and scored a minor victory as a result). That's probably a good place to start, but it won't be as easy from here on out. If Romney's to have a chance, he'll need to make his views on issues the first thing people think of when they hear the word "Romney"—not "Oh, he's that Mormon guy who used to be kinda socially liberal, isn't he?"   

03/06 12:58 PMShare