By Josh Lederman - 04/11/12 05:00 AM ET
The general election has begun for Mitt Romney and President Obama.
Rick Santorum's exit from the Republican presidential primary on
Tuesday cemented Romney's status as the GOP nominee, which the former
Massachusetts governor seemed to acknowledge.
"This has been a good day for me," he said at his first public
appearance Tuesday after Santorum left the race.
Obama, too, has seemed to drop all pretense about who he'll face in
November, referring to Romney by name for the first time earlier this
month.
Although Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul remain in the GOP primary, both
have scaled back their campaigns immensely, and Gingrich has
acknowledged that Romney's nomination is now essentially a fait
accompli.
But, despite the air of inevitability surrounding this match-up, both
Obama and Romney are beginning the general-election phase of the
campaign on new ground.
RELATED ARTICLES
Obama web ad hits Romney as 'severely' conservative
"Every poll done up to today about the presidential race is
irrelevant," said Dan Hazelwood, a Republican consultant. "All of
those were within the context of, 'He might be it, he might not be.'
The American people will now begin the process of truly evaluating
Romney and Obama in comparison to each other."
The shift from the primary to the general election was palpable in a
flurry of activity that erupted in the hours after Santorum called off
his campaign. Prominent Republican figures who had been reluctant to
pick sides in the primary — including Gov. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Sens.
Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — all backed Romney after
Santorum exited the race. And Crossroads GPS, a deep-pocketed
conservative super-PAC founded by Karl Rove, announced it would drop
$1.7 million on television ads in six swing states slamming Obama on
energy issues.
Santorum didn't say Tuesday whether he would back Romney, but
Santorum's spokesman said Romney had already requested a meeting to
discuss an endorsement. A nod from the former Pennsylvania senator
could provide a major boon to Romney by reassuring dubious social
conservatives and allowing Romney and the GOP to present a united
front.
"I'm sure Gov. Romney will want his help in some form," said Henry
Barbour, an Republican National Committee committeeman and Romney
supporter, of Santorum. "He has a ton of upsides going forward, and he
resonates with a bunch of conservative Americans."
Even Obama's team seemed ready to acknowledge the end of the
hard-fought GOP primary that had given Democrats more time than they
had expected to entrench themselves for the general election.
"It's no surprise that Mitt Romney finally was able to grind down his
opponents under an avalanche of negative ads," Jim Messina, Obama's
campaign manager, said in a statement. "But neither he nor his special
interest allies will be able to buy the presidency with their negative
attacks."
Polling has showed that neither party has a firm grasp on control of
the key swing states, but Obama appears to have the advantage as the
general election gets underway. Obama led Romney 51 percent to 42 in a
USA Today/Gallup poll of 12 swing states released in early April.
Even before Santorum officially bowed out, the race between Romney and
Obama had been picking up speed. Obama's campaign launched their first
ads directly targeting Romney last week, and the president delivered a
major economic speech at a university in the crucial general-election
state of Florida on Tuesday where he lashed out at Republicans for
taking a slash-and-burn approach to federal spending.
Obama entered the gymnasium in Boca Raton, Fla. to chants of "four
more years," but as his motorcade arrived for his speech, he passed a
throng of protesters bearings signs reading "abolish the presidency"
and "abort Obama."
Romney too has had his sights trained on Obama for the past few weeks,
ignoring his Republican rivals on the campaign trail in favor of
attacks on Obama and dispatching surrogates to challenge the
president's record on taxes and women's interests.
But with the only other viable challenger out of the race, Romney and
his team are now free to focus exclusively on waging battle places
that will likely determine control of the White House come November.
"Where he went to campaign and where he spent his money was still
focused on the primary calendar. That can all shift now to the general
election," said Charlie Black, an informal Romney adviser and veteran
GOP strategist.
Black said Romney might need to follow through with some events in
upcoming primary states that had already been scheduled, but that the
emphasis moving forward would be on swing states. He said the campaign
was also focused on raising general-election funds in conjunction with
the RNC. Romney had events scheduled Wednesday in Connecticut and
Rhode Island — two states holding primaries on April 24.
The unofficial start of the general election also presented new
challenges for Romney, who has spent the past eight months assuaging
conservatives' doubts that he is a true believer.
Strategists said the moment is approaching when Romney will come under
increased scrutiny from the wide segment of the population that tuned
out the primary and is just now starting to pay attention to the
presidential race. With that comes a chance to redefine himself on
positive terms. But Democrats are lying in wait, ready to pounce on
any perceived duplicity as an example of a flip-flop by the former
Massachusetts governor.
"We fully expect Mitt Romney try and Etch-A-Sketch away his extreme
positions and failed record," said Democratic National Committee
spokeswoman Melanie Roussell, noting that Democrats had spent the past
year reminding voters that the policies Romney advocates have been
tried and failed. "We'll stick with what we're doing not just because
it's working – but because it happens to be the truth."
But if Romney moves to the center politically or focuses exclusively
on courting moderate and independent voters, he risks alienating his
party's base and undercutting GOP turnout in November.
"The immediate goal for him is to unify the Republican Party, to pull
all the elements of the GOP under one shield, and then move forward,"
said Craig Smith, a speechwriter in the Ford and first Bush
administrations. "He's got to do that."
Tony Perkins, a major evangelical leader who heads the Family Research
Council, said social conservatives are so averse to Obama that they
stand no chance of voting for him. But he said there are serious
doubts about whether Romney can generate the intensity and enthusiasm
necessary to topple an incumbent president.
"If he wants to have the type of support Rick Santorum enjoyed from
conservatives," Perkins said, "he needs to pick up Santorum's message
and work to aggressively shore up his base — or a base that he doesn't
have."
— Jonathan Easley contributed
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment