Why do only 3 out 22 Republican governors support Romney?—yet more evidence of Romney’s incompetence and lack of political skill

February 3, 2008 in 2008, analysis, argument, campaign finance, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, GOP, incompetence, mitt romney, republicans, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: ambition, Charles Mahtesian, democratic strategist, ed kilgore, greed, Politico.com, republican governors association, rga, ROI, stupidity

[…] “As chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2006, Mitt Romney crisscrossed the country to elect GOP governors and broke the group’s fundraising record by hauling in $20 million,” writes Charles Mahtesian in a politico.com article titled Most GOP govs shun Romney

Yet just two of the 16 governors he worked to elect then are supporting his presidential bid.

In fact, just three of the nation’s 22 Republican governors have endorsed him.

There are plenty of reasons that might explain the former Massachusetts governor’s surprisingly weak support among his former colleagues. But one of them stands out: He appears to have inadvertently alienated a good many of his fellow governors as RGA chairman.

“Right or wrong, the general impression was that he spent way too much time on himself and building his presidential organization,” said a top Republican strategist who has worked closely with the RGA in recent years. “I don’t think anyone ever questioned Romney’s commitment to the organization or the work he put in. They questioned his goals or his motives. Was it to elect Republican governors, or to tee up his presidential campaign?”

A campaign manager for an unsuccessful 2006 Republican gubernatorial campaign echoed the sentiments. “We definitely got the vibe from the staff that our state was never a national player when it came to the strategy that the RGA was putting together,” he said. “Everything they were telling me was about Michigan. They were dumping everything into Michigan.”

For Romney, his inability to win over the governors he worked closest with has proven costly. On the eve of Tuesday’s crucial primary in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist announced his support for John McCain — despite the fact that Romney, as chairman of the RGA, had greenlighted a $1 million check to Crist’s campaign in 2006.

McCain won Florida by 36 percent to 31 percent over Romney. And the exit polls found that 42 percent of the voters said the popular governor’s endorsement was very important or somewhat important.

On Thursday, two more big-state governors who were on the 2006 ballot, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Rick Perry of Texas, lined up behind McCain. Schwarzenegger’s decision came just days before California Republicans vote in this Tuesday’s primary. Perry switched to McCain after his first endorsed candidate, Rudy Giuliani, ended his campaign.

Altogether, six of the 16 Republican governors elected or reelected in 2006 are backing McCain. South Dakota’s Michael Rounds is supporting Mike Huckabee. Nebraska’s David Heineman and Rhode Island’s Donald Carcieri are behind Romney. But the rest of the class is sitting it out, having declined to endorse anyone.

One reason, said a Republican consultant familiar with the thinking behind some of the governors’ decisions, is that Romney rubbed some governors the wrong way during his tenure at the RGA.

“Everything seemed to have strings attached to it,” the consultant said. “If they were going to make a donation, they wanted a quid pro quo like an endorsement or a donor list or a volunteer program. There’s no interest like self-interest in politics. So when [governors] think their political lives are in a do-or-die situation, that’s not the time to offer help with strings attached” […]

Ed Kilgore of the Democratic Strategist comments on Romney’s failure to recruit support from Republican governors:

[…] Mitt has a total of three governors on his endorsement list, none of them exactly household names: Heineman of NE, Carcieri of RI, and Blunt of MO (who’s retiring this year). McCain has six, including such biggies as Ah-nold of CA, Crist of FL, and Perry of TX. True, the other former governor in the race, Mike Huckabee, has just one: Rounds of SD. But given Mitt’s money, organization, and recently acquired conservative-movement street cred, his poor standing among governors is surprising. Hell, he hasn’t even been the beneficiary of the obligatory David Broder column about the superior qualifications of governors for the White House […]

[…] As Barack Obama so aptly said of Romney during last week’s Democratic presidential debate, for a guy with such a rep as an entrepreneurial whiz, Mitt’s had an exceptionally lousy return-on-investment rate for the money and preparation he’s devoted to this campaign (though not as lousy as Rudy Giuliani, who spent $50 million to win exactly one delegate). His proselytizing work, financial and otherwise, among Republican govenors is another case in point […]

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

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“Aggressive, obnoxious stupidity,” writes Jack Kelly about Romney’s operation in Florida—“None of the other candidates like Mitt Romney—This is an indication why”

January 29, 2008 in 2008, analysis, argument, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, gaffs and pratfalls, GOP, incompetence, mitt romney, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: american spectator, AmSpec, campaign operatives, campaign organization, Florida, jack kelly, jerks, morons, prowler, realclearpolitics.com, stupidity, washington prowler

[…] “Most observers thought that debate was won by former Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but Mr. Romney handed back whatever advantage he might have won with some clumsiness of his own,” writes Jack Kelly in a realclearpolitics.com article titled Only Hillary Can Reunite Republican Party

Mr. Romney received a modest bump in the polls immediately after the debate, but it dissipated when Florida’s popular governor, Charlie Crist, and Sen. Mel Martinez, popular with Cuban-Americans, endorsed Sen. McCain. Both likely would have remained neutral were it not for the heavy handed tactics of Mr. Romney’s operatives, said the American Spectator’s “Prowler.”

The Prowler reported Monday he’d been told by a consultant who’s worked for both Gov. Crist and Sen. Martinez that: “It finally got to the point for the both of them that they just got fed up with the constant harassment. They weren’t going to endorse Romney, and under the right circumstances, one or both of them might have chosen to sit the primary out, but the Romney people just made it intolerable.”

Aggressive, obnoxious stupidity. None of the other candidates like Mitt Romney. This is an indication why […]

[…] Both Sen. McCain and Gov. Romney are too flawed to reunite and reinvigorate a dispirited Republican party. There is only one candidate who can do that. And she might lose to Barack Obama […]

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

From the Prowler release that Kelly references:

[…] “In the past week both Florida Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist wavered on their promised endorsements for Sen. John McCain, before finally having their fill of the heavy-handed arm-twisting of the Mitt Romney campaign,” writes the Prowler for the American Spectator in a Washington Prowler column titled Heavy-Handedness Backfires

“It finally got to the point for both of them that they just got fed up with the constant harassment,” says a source close to both men who has worked for them as a political consultant. “They weren’t going to endorse Romney and under the right circumstances, one or both of them might have chosen to sit the primary out, but the Romney people just made it intolerable.”

In the middle of last week, it appeared that both Martinez and Crist would sit out what has become the battleground state for the Republican nomination for President.

It is believed that the Romney campaign has been able to use its candidate’s unfettered wealth to run a successful absentee ballot program, something the other campaigns have not been able to do as well. Those absentee ballots may swing Romney to victory, and keeping Martinez and Crist on the sidelines was part of the strategy for victory […]

Apparently the strategy included arrogant threats:

[…] If Sen. John McCain was anticipating endorsements from Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist in the Florida primary, he’s in for a disappointing surprise, according to Romney campaign aides.

“If those guys want a political future in this state, they will sit on the sidelines,” says one Romney adviser. “We have some of the biggest Florida fundraisers with us right now, and if Mel or Charlie went with McCain, we’d make them both pay when it came time for them to get donor dollars for another race.” […]

A dream is a wish your heart makes. And Romney operatives are thugs.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

NRO organizes conference call to defend questionable decision to endorse Romney—eyeon08.com reports that they received not one supportive question, and no one spoke in favor of the endorsement

December 20, 2007 in 2008, argument, campaign communications, campaign communiques, campaign literature, conservatism, election 2008, gaffs and pratfalls, GOP, incompetence, media, mitt romney, republicans, rhetoric, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: conference calls from hell, eyeon08.com, foreign policy, formerly conservative NRO, national review online, security, Sen. John McCain, stupidity

“[The issue of foreign policy, which the NRO ignored in their rationale for endorsing Romney] shines an important light on National Review’s endorsement of Mitt Romney, which I discussed previously,” writes the Coptic Eye of eyeon08.com in a post titled McCain, Putin, and why experience matters

They had a conference call today to defend it. I didn’t hear a single supportive question, and no one spoke up in favor of their endorsement. Ari Richter of the Concord Monitor asked why so little discussion of foreign policy twice. The first time, Rich Lowry responded that all the candidates were pretty similar. They shared the same views, so the only differences are execution.

But you know what? I don’t think that’s true. Experience and demonstrated judgment matter in this stuff. A lot. And it says a lot about National Review that they are playing that down. And John McCain’s statements today and almost 8 years ago demonstrate that … etc.

See:

Shocker: “In this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field,” the super-geniuses at National Review endorse the most fluid and unpredictable Republican, Willard Milton Romney

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

Romney utterly silent on world financial crisis—we, for one, are grateful for this oversight

October 23, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, campaign communications, campaign communiques, campaign management, election, election 2008, gaffs and pratfalls, GOP, incompetence, media, mitt romney, policy, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: economy, equity-sector, financial crisis, incompetence, policy, stupidity

“James Pethokoukis, who used to work at IBD and whose writing seems to lean pretty much to the economic right, has a consistent critique of the GOP primary so far,” writes eye of eyeon08.com in a post titled It’s the economy stupid. Redux.

His most recent post is entitled, “GOP Debate Strangely Ignores Financial Turmoil.” To be clear, he’s talking about things like the near-doubling of the unemployment rate of the South Florida economy in the last 9 months. Read him. He knows what he is talking about. He has also argued repeatedly that 2008 could be a 1992 redux. Don’t believe him?

eye provides sobering bullet points that include US loan default data, evidence that Americans are cashing in their 401(k)s etc., etc.

“Guys,” eye continues, “The economy is going to be a serious issue. Hillary Clinton is, essentially, taking Iraq off the table as a general election issue. She is going to run on health care and the economy. And the field is being set. And the economy is tanking in important swing states.”

“And we are silent.”

Well, OK., guilty, at least for the most part. But we have addressed this issue, at least obliquely. We have harped on the string of the world economy tanking—the world economy pioneering new ways to tank—all around us as way to reflect upon Romney’s non-leadership. We write about this here:

• world financial system in crisis; Romney, who made his fortune in the equity sector, has nothing to say
• Huckabee contra the inequities and inequalities of the financial services industry; is Huckabee sending signals to the Romneys?

It is grimly ironic that the one candidate with anything to say on this issue is—sigh—Willard Milton Romney.

This—and it pains us to admit this—is where Romney has a genuine contribution to make to the dialogue, the dialogue that has yet to take place.

We thank G-d with out-stretched arms that Romney’s incompetence, Romney’s lack of vision, Romney’s lack of depth, Romney’s lack of purpose, resolve, clarity, or direction, Romney’s lack of imagination, the ineptness and constant bungling of Romney’s lack-wit staff, the disorder, ineffectiveness, and the baffling primitiveness of Romney’s organization, Romney’s stubborn refusal to abandon his naive and unreconstructed faux conservatism, Romney’s difficult relationship with the truth, Romney’s ideological cross-dressing, Romney’s tactical excesses combined with a complete lack of strategic foresight, Romney’s distant and remote personality, Romney’s questionable character and sense-of-self, Romney’s thuggish and apolitical instincts, Romney’s associations with people like Terry Sullivan, Cofer Black, and General James “I will stab you in the thigh” Marks, and Romney’s frequent gaffs, pratfalls, missteps, miscues, and miscarriages of otherwise sound ideas, are such as to prevent the hapless, hopeless, and helpless candidate from ever-ever-ever capitalizing on this, his one true strength, his one true claim that he has to command our attention or even—oh G-d, we hate to write this—our respect.

 Sigh.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.