Romney not ready for prime time

posted at 10:41 am on November 30, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Elections ]   

On Monday, the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state’s largest newspaper, endorsed Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination. On Tuesday, a Gallup poll showed Gingrich surging in positive intensity, a measure of the difference between a candidate’s favorable and unfavorable public opinion.

None of this is good news for Mitt Romney, whose own numbers plunged to a new low in the same poll. Increasingly, Romney is coming off as robotic, as someone who—to borrow the words of Joe McQuaid, the Union Leader’s publisher—is “going to say … what he thinks you want him to say.”

But, judging from his less than polished performance in an interview with FOX News Channel’s Bret Baier Tuesday night, political expediency is the least of his problems. Romney appeared uncomfortable, and a little peckish at times. Worse yet, he was ill-prepared for Baier’s questions about his shifting views on key issues—precisely the sorts of questions he will face in the presidential debates should he win the nomination.

When Baier noted early in the interview that Romney has been accused of being “on both sides of some issues,” including climate change, abortion, immigration, and gay rights, Romney bristled, replying:

Well, Bret, your list is just not accurate. So, one, we’re going to have to be better informed about my views on issues. My view is you can look at what I’ve written in my book, you can look at a person who’s devoted his life to his family, to his faith, to his country, and I’m running for president because of the things I believe I think I can do to help this country. [Editor's note: The editorial we is a nice touch.]

Putting aside the damning revelation that a line in his book was changed after the initial printing, Romney needs to articulate his positions firsthand. Unless he’s on a book tour, he should not be sending voters back to his book.

He also needs to go back and “study the film.” In an era where virtually everything is captured on video, it is suicidal for a candidate to challenge an interviewer on his record, as Romney did in this exchange:

Baier: I’m sure you’ve seen these ads using videotape of you in previous years speaking on various issues. And it seems like it’s in direct contrast to positions you take now.

Romney: Well, I’m glad the Democratic ads are breaking through—

[Crosstalk]

Baier: Well, Jon Huntsman has a couple ads that do the same thing.

Romney: —and there’s no question but that people are going to take snippets and take things out of context and try and show there are differences where in some cases there are not….

Would, for Romney’s sake, that the problem was simply a matter of context. By his own admission, his position on abortion has changed, but it is hardly the only issue on which the candidate has attempted to be all things to all people.

Although it seems as though there’s no direction to go at this point in the interview but up, things go downhill fast when the questions turn to specific issues. Romney’s position on immigration is incomprehensible, and his professed views on RomneyCare, captured in this video from the interview, are based on fiction. Baier puts the lie to Romney’s claim that he never advocated extending his health care plan to the nation later in the broadcast, when he plays a clip in which the candidate expresses support for doing precisely that.

With Barack Obama’s polling numbers in the gutter and his quiver empty, Republicans should have an easy time unseating him in 2012. The fact that they do not is less a function of Obama’s plan for the future than it is the Republicans’ lack of one. As the party fumbles to cobble together a message, the last thing it needs is a nominee who can’t get his own story straight. If Mitt Romney is to be that nominee, he had better get to work.

Related Articles

• Election 2012: One year and counting; Obama’s chances
• Is Herman Cain ready to be president?
• By January 2013, Obama will have added as much debt as all 43 prior presidents
• Poll: More than half of voters do not believe Obama deserves a second term
• Poll: Independents reject Obama’s “jobs bill” 53% to 33%; likability under 50%
• 2012 campaign slogan: A vote for someone other than Obama is a vote for racism

Blowback