Category Archives: Mitt Romney

Do you think the Jet Ski image hurt Romney?

Daniel Henninger over at the WSJ is kinda torqued at whoever over at the Romney campaign allowed the indelible image of Romney on vacation be the one of him looking “fabulous” with this “fabulous-looking wife” on a Jet Ski.

And if it was Romney himself, he says it’s over: The Henninger column is subheaded, “If that jet-ski ride was the candidate’s call, his campaign is headed for a Dukakis-like catastrophe.” He elaborated:

What the Romneys thought they were doing with this innocent spin around the lake is irrelevant. Mr. Romney happens to be the GOP’s candidate for the American presidency. That fellow in the jet-ski photo would be the same Mitt Romney described in political analysis the previous week as having taken on water with the public because of the Obama campaign’s attacks on him as a rich guy from Bain Capital.

It would be the same Mitt Romney whom Barack Obama plans to define from now till November as out of step with a middle-class America in which “so many folks are just trying to get by.”

But “catastrophe”? Really? Look at the picture and see what you think.

Is America really that malleable, that much a sucker for a single image? It’s not like he looks like a total dork, like Dukakis in the tank. The comparison that Henninger makes to John Kerry windsurfing is probably more to the point. But if we’re going to attach importance to these things, isn’t riding on a Jet Ski a more plebeian pastime, less effete, than windsurfing? They’s a heap a good ol’ boys out yonder on Jet Skis at Lake Murray of a weekend — right?

Or have I got that wrong? I tend to associate people roaring around on the waterborne equivalent of Harleys as more something Joe Sixpack would either do, or want to do.

But hey, it’s not about what I think. It’s about how it plays. How does it play with you?

No, ma’am: If OBAMA killed him, he’d be dead

Unfortunate choice of words by Ann Romney this morning:

(CBS News) On a mission to shatter the image of her husband as rigid and unrelatable, Ann Romney told CBS News she worries that President Obama’s entire campaign strategy is “kill Romney.”

“I feel like all he’s doing is saying, ‘Let’s kill this guy,” she said, seated next to her husband, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in an exclusive interview with CBS News chief political correspondent Jan Crawford. “And I feel like that’s not really a very good campaign policy.

I say that because, well, Barack Obama just happens to be the only president in history who we know has an actual “kill list” that he personally maintains. And he doesn’t mean the word “kill” figuratively. You end up on Obama’s list, and you’re dead.

So, since Mitt Romney’s still kicking, that’s a really good argument that he never made the list.

Of course, I then read on to see that Mrs. Romney didn’t come up with the word herself; some idiot in the Democratic Party did:

In August, some Democratic strategists let leak to the press that Obama’s top aides were looking at a massive character takedown of Romney in light of a deterring economy; “kill Romney” was a phrase used by one. “That was their memo that came out from their campaign,” Ann Romney said. “And it’s like, ‘not when I’m next to him you better not.”

Still, I wouldn’t bandy that word about so carelessly. Not with this president.

Romney: No, wait — TODAY it’s a tax…

photo by Adam Glanzman, Flickr

Wait a minute… I see he said this yesterday, which means, I suppose, we might hear something else today. But in the meantime, here’s what he said yesterday:

UPDATE: And now we’ve come full circle in all the “penalty” vs “tax” talk. Mitt Romney has spoken and clearly affirmed that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is a tax, directly contradicting his senior adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, who had said earlier this week that it was a penalty. Romney tried to explain the contradiction by noting in an interview with CBS News that it was all about the Supreme Court’s majority opinion. “While I agreed with the dissent, that’s taken over by the fact that the majority of the court said it’s a tax, and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There’s no way around that,” Romney said.

When Romney was asked whether the fact that he was unequivocally calling the mandate a tax meant he had changed positions on the issue, the Republican focused on President Obama, saying he “has broken the pledge he made” because “it’s now clear that his mandate, as described by the Supreme Court, is a tax.”

Obama’s campaign, however, quickly seized the opportunity to say that Romney “contradicted his own campaign, and himself,” reports the Washington Post…

You ever see such a case of somebody trying to have it every which way?

Roughly, here’s the timeline:

  1. Romney pushes through health care reform as governor, and it includes a mandate that everyone have insurance. He goes around bragging about it for years, as well he might…
  2. But then, President Obama pays him the complement of pushing health care reform that does the very same thing, and suddenly Mitt’s not so proud of what he’d done, because he wants the votes of people who spit on the ground every time Obama’s name gets mentioned. If Obama did it, the thinking goes, it’s evil. So Romney quits bragging.
  3. Then, the court says it’s not a mandate; it’s a tax. And the GOP seizes on that, because if there’s anything nearly as evil as Barack Obama in their book, it’s a tax.
  4. But then Romney’s aide says the court’s wrong, because Romney, having created just such a mandate, ought to know a mandate when he sees one. Which stands to reason.
  5. But then Romney adopts a position of Hey, what do I know? It may look like a mandate to me and this other fella, but the court says it’s a tax, so it’s a tax. And taxes are bad, harrumph, harrumph.

At this point, is there anyone left in the country, of any philosophical bent, who’s enthusiastic about voting for Mitt Romney in the fall? Oh, some are eager to vote against Obama; that hasn’t changed. But are they pumped about voting for Romney? I doubt it…

Do you really think Obama’s that much ahead?

I don’t. And even if he is, it’s a long way until the election. But I’m curious what y’all think of the Bloomberg survey everybody’s talking about:

Barack Obama has opened a significant lead over Mitt Romney in a Bloomberg National Poll that reflects the presumed Republican nominee’s weaknesses more than the president’s strengths.

Obama leads Romney 53 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, even as the public gives him low marks on handling the economy and the deficit, and six in 10 say the nation is headed down the wrong track, according to the poll conducted June 15- 18.

The survey shows Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has yet to repair the damage done to his image during the Republican primary. Thirty-nine percent of Americans view him favorably, about the same as when he announced his presidential candidacy last June, while 48 percent see him unfavorably — a 17-percentage point jump during a nomination fight dominated by attacks ads. A majority of likely voters, 55 percent, view him as more out of touch with average Americans compared with 36 percent who say the president is more out of touch.

I haven’t seen anything happen out there that suggests we’ve moved away from our dead-heat impasse in American politics. But maybe it looks different from outside SC…

Actually, Wawa IS pretty amazing

Let’s set aside for a moment whether Mitt Romney was having a “Bush at the checkout” moment of cluelessness, or celebrating technology that denies jobs to the working class, or any of that stuff.

The bottom line for me is that Wawas are pretty amazing.

Have you ever been to one? I have, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It is unlike any other Interstate exit/convenience store/gas station/fast food experience I’ve ever had. I wish I could have taken my late father-in-law to one. Since he was in the convenience-store business in Memphis, he would have fully appreciated it.

It’s a sort of Alice’s Restaurant “you can get anything you want” experience, laid out in an attractive and accessible manner.

The last time I stopped at one, the manager told me that Wawa was about to open some stores in South Carolina. Has anyone seen one down here yet? (If so, they’re not included on this store locator, which indicates they are only to be found in DE. MD, NJ, PA and VA.)

No question, Ronald Regan was a great Amercian

OK, now we’re getting into the nit-picking, since this time it was small type way down in a slide, rather than the title of an initiative. And it wasn’t the candidate himself who made either mistake:

First “Amercia,” then “sneak-peak,” and now “Ronald Regan.” No wonder the Romney campaign is searching for a copywriter. (Required skill: “Ability to edit and proof own work.”)

Buzzfeed spotted the latest spelling error from the Romney team on Wednesday after taking a look at a slideshow the campaign’s pollsters put together for bundlers, and the rest of the Web appears to have taken notice. (The Gipper’s last name is spelled Reagan.) Among the international outlets currently running the story: Britain’sTelegraph, Canada’s Star and Ireland’sIndependent.

The typo was in a chart showing the approval ratings of incumbent presidents in the May before their re-election attempt. “Ronald Regan” was noted as having a 53 percent approval rating. (For the record, Obama’s was 47 percent, according to the chart).

But that’s the way it works. Poor ol’ Gerald Ford stumbles once, and the heartless media marketplace labels him a klutz.

For Romney, it looks like it’s gonna be spelling. Sorry, Mitt; them’s the breaks.

If Mitt loses election, he also loses $5 million a year

The AP reports on an additional reason for Mitt Romney to run really, really hard to win this thing:

WASHINGTON (AP) — To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they’d tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama’s tax plan. For a man of Romney’s means, that could save almost $5 million a year.

For Obama, not as loaded as Romney but still well-off, losing re-election could provide a tax windfall. He’d save as much as $90,000 a year if Romney’s plan were enacted rather than his own tax-the-rich vision.

Two nonprofit research groups, the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice and conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, did the calculations, based on the most recent completed tax returns released by the candidates. Compared with what they owed in April, both men would be dinged in 2013 under Obama’s proposal, along with other wealthy taxpayers. They could expect savings under Romney, depending on which tax breaks the former Massachusetts governor decides to oppose….

That’s assuming, of course, that paying a lot more in taxes matters to Mitt. It apparently doesn’t to his opponent, but of course, he has less to lose.

If I had Mitt’s fortune, I don’t think it would matter to me. But then, that’s probably because I’m not the kind of guy who was ever motivated go out and amass all those bucks. Chicken or egg thing.

When Romney was a bully (or so they say)

A couple of readers have brought this up, from different ends of the political spectrum. And I suppose I’ll go ahead and post it for y’all to discuss, even though I hardly know what to say about it myself:

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”…

For my part, I don’t look at the Mitt Romney of today and see a guy who would do something like this. And one hates to hold youthful errors against anyone forever. If Romney was ever like this, then I’m pretty sure he’s not that way now.

But… while I, too, have matured (a bit) over the years, and I might have done some crazy things in my youth… I can’t imagine a time, ever, that I would have done something like this. It just never was in me to do something like this to another person. Of course, maybe if I’d been sent off to boarding school and had to define my place in a Lord-of-the-Flies kind of pecking order, maybe I’d have been a different sort of person.

But this gives me pause, if this is true. Because however much a person matures, he’s still the individual who did this.

I don’t know. I doubt I’d make my decision whether to vote for someone based on this.

But what do y’all think? That’s my purpose in raising this.

Romney Gay Shocker!

Just ran across this exclusive from Jennifer Rubin at the WashPost:

Richard Grenell, the openly gay spokesman recently hired to sharpen the foreign policy message of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, has resigned in the wake of a full-court press by anti-gay conservatives.

In a statement obtained by Right Turn, Grenell says:

I have decided to resign from the Romney campaign as the Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman. While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Grenell decided to resign after being kept under wraps during a time when national security issues, including the president’s ad concerning Osama bin Laden, had emerged front and center in the campaign…

And I couldn’t believe it.

I know what you’re thinking: What? Romney had an openly gay adviser? Even for a second?

Yep, that’s what I was thinking, too. Who’da thunk it?

One thing seems sure — you won’t get “change” of any kind with Mitt Romney

This morning on the radio, I heard a discussion of what a challenge Obama has in his re-election effort getting young people to back him they way they did in 2008.

Those young people, the argument went, wanted “hope” and “change,” and didn’t get enough of it.

I can see how that might have the effect of dampening enthusiasm, perhaps even of suppressing turnout.

What I don’t see it doing is translating to support for Romney. Unless these young folks really delude themselves, or unless the change they want is of a rightward bent — in which case, they’re still deluding themselves.

And most of us know this. It’s why the GOP base went running to everyone else they could think of before settling on Romney — they knew he wasn’t a True Believer on the kind of change THEY wanted.

And I knew it, which was why I saw him as the most palatable candidate in the field — the real conservative. Romney is a manager. He wants to manage the nation to prosperity. And maybe he can do that. But he’s not a revolutionary, or a counter-revolutionary. He’s a manager.

Now you might throw at me various statements that he’s made or positions he’s taken that contradict that, to which I’ll say, Right. And he’s also the father of Obamacare, but you don’t see him acting like it, do you? As you may have noted, his positioning is somewhat… flexible… based on what he thinks is needed to get the job done at a given time.

I backed Romney — reluctantly — because I didn’t like the kind of “change” that the GOP field was offering this time around. Repealing Obamacare. Endangering the full faith and credit of the United States by absolutely insisting that budget cuts not be accompanied by any kind of tax increases. I didn’t want any of that stuff.

When McCain and Obama ran four years ago, there were changes I looked forward to with each. I believed McCain would manage the War on Terror much better than Bush had. I knew he had the courage to take on things like comprehensive immigration reform. With Obama, while being reasonably certain that he would NOT institute the kinds of national security changes his base hoped for (and I was right — in fact, he has pursued the war with a stronger hand than Bush, and gotten away with it) and he just might give us meaningful health care reform. I even sorta had hopes for a rational energy policy.

But Romney’s virtue, to me, is that he does not represent the kind of change that his party has stood for since 2010 (or perhaps I should say, since the day after Election Day 2008, which seems to be the moment that party went off the rails). That’s a good thing.

What’s with the tieless look?

Obamabiden_2

As I noted earlier, the masculine equivalent of Sarah Palin’s specs and tied-up hair is to wear a coat and tie. The effect in both cases is to project seriousness of purpose.

So what are we to make of the fact that, all of a sudden, the male candidates for president and vice president are, quite deliberately, showing themselves in public without neckties?I don’t mean as a sort of occasional thing for a barbecue, but all the time. And don’t try to tell me this is just happening without somebody thinking about it; campaigns think about everything these days, as Peggy Noonan noted the other day (writing about Obama’s acceptance speech, the last time he was seen wearing a tie).

This has been coming for some time. As far back as 2006, Joe Biden was regularly appearing here in S.C. with a jacket, but no tie… sort of the Paul-McCartney-on-the-cover-of-Abbey-Road look. Here’s proof of that.

Then, I started noticing Obama doing the same. And McCain, too. And Huckabee and even Romney.

Here’s what worries me about this… those of you who are old enough to remember will recall how JFK killed men’s hats. There are some authorities that dispute it, but then there are many who believe Oswald didn’t act alone. Suffice it to say that before JFK, men wore hats. Afterwards, they didn’t.

Obama could do the same with the necktie. Biden and McCain aren’t so much of a threat, because when they go tieless, they just look like they’re been playing with their grandchildren and didn’t want them chewing on their ties. They don’t look natural that way.

But there’s been altogether too much loose talk about Obama’s charisma. No less an authority than Ted Sorensen has sat in my board room and pronounced Obama the rightful heir to Camelot. He’s already known as The One. How long can it be before he’s dubbed The Tieless One? (Note the picture above — while Biden just looks like he’s on his way to play golf, Obama is making that "early-60s, Best-and-Brightest" statement again with the white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up).

So, if the necktie industry, moribund as it is, wants to save itself, it had better do what it can to elect McCain. Because if Obama’s elected, every day will be casual Friday.

Or at least, he would get the "credit." The fact is that, as I have noted twice in recent columns, Gallup has found that only 6 percent of American men wear a tie to work every day. I, of course, am of the 6 percent, and am determined to wear the thing every day until I retire. I mean, I have to now — it’s a statement. Before, it was conformity. Now, it’s a statement of adherence to traditional values and seriousness of purpose. I’ll have you know that I bought on of the last bow ties at Lourie’s — in fact, it may have been the last bow tie they actually sold.

I also still have a Wilson Jack Kramer Autograph wooden tennis racket, although I don’t use it any more. I do use my old persimmon 4 wood, though. When I’m hitting it right, it’s the best club in my bag; the ball flies like a rifle shot. Which reminds me, I’m not working today…
Mccainhuck

More on Romney and McCain

Mccain_romney2_2

Just FYI, here’s the story on Romney backing McCain:

BOSTON — Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party’s presidential nomination and asked his national convention delegates to swing behind the likely nominee.
    "Even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated, the caliber of the man was apparent," the former Massachusetts governor said, standing alongside his one-time rival at his now-defunct campaign’s headquarters. "This is a man capable of leading our country at a dangerous hour."
    "Primaries are tough," said McCain, referring to their earlier rancor. "We know it was a hard campaign and now we move forward, we move forward together for the good of our party and the nation."

Pictures, too. OK, go ahead. This is the cue for all you McCain-hating alleged "conservatives" to fulminate. Get it out of your systems. And don’t feel all alone — you are joined by McCain-haters on the left (OK, technically this one is a Bush-hating group, but it doesn’t mind hating McCain by association — how dare he occasionally agree with the guy?)

And neither group need feel lonesome, as once he sweeps by Hillary (which he will do if enough Democrats keep wising up), the Obama haters on the right will get good and geared up. That’s what partisanship is all about.

Mccain_romney

Looks like it might be over: Romney to back McCain

Just got this e-mail alert from the WSJ:

    Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has agreed to endorse Sen. John McCain and is asking his national convention delegates to swing behind the party front-runner, according to officials familiar with the decision. If all of Romney’s 280 delegates switch, McCain could quickly reach the total of 1,191 needed to clinch the nomination and end rival Mike Huckabee’s chances.

Make of it what you will.

A haiku for Mitt

There are different ways of looking at Mitt’s departure. And when I say different, I mean different. The WSJ has a blog that’s kept count on how many lawyers there were in the race, and has been striking them off the list one by one. (I called it up because the headline, "Mitt Romney (Harvard Law ‘75) Suspends Campaign," seemed an odd thing to be stressing at this moment.)

But what’s odder still is that this "Law Blog" has invited readers to submit haiku about each lawyer-candidate who has dropped out. Some samples:

Pony with one trick,
Don’t forget Nine Eleven,
Nine Eleven’s it.

They called him “tortoise”
But now the man with no hair
Has got out of ours

They call the form "bye-ku." Here’s my first attempt at one for Mitt:

French cuffs, perfect coif
He offered a ‘turnaround’
We didn’t want one

I’m sure you can do better. And no, I don’t know offhand whether he actually does wear French cuffs. Want to see my literary license?

Romney’s out

Romney_2008_wartmm

Looks like Mitt Romney’s accepted the inevitable, which is a good thing:

WASHINGTON (AP) _ John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his faltering presidential campaign. "I must now stand aside, for our party and our country," Romney prepared to tell conservatives.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney will say at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America."

McCain prevailed in most of the Super Tuesday states, moving closer to the numbers needed to officially win the nomination.

Overall, McCain led with 707 delegates, to 294 for Romney and 195 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at this summer’s convention in St. Paul, Minn.

"I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating al-Qaida and terror," Romney said.

Romney acknowledged the obstacles to beating McCain.

"As of today, more than 4 million people have given me their vote for president, less than Senator McCain’s 4.7 million, but quite a statement nonetheless. Eleven states have given me their nod, compared to his 13. Of course, because size does matter, he’s doing quite a bit better with his number of delegates," Romney said in prepared remarks.

Romney’s departure from the race came almost a year after his formal entrance, when the Michigan native declared his candidacy on Feb. 12, 2007, at the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation in Dearborn, Mich.

So Republicans, it looks like John McCain is your nominee. As for me, at least there will be one candidate on the ballot in November I will be glad to vote for. Still waiting to see whether there will be two.

Romney_2008_wartnnn

Another overused (and ill-defined) word: ‘Conservative’

Having switched to PBS, where apparently they have a larger vocabulary, I’m not hearing "presumptive" so much, so that’s good.

What I am hearing to an absurd degree is the term "conservative," and always used either with no defining context, or with a contradictory context.

For instance — one of the talking heads was going on about how McCain had not yet been declared the winner of his home state some 90 minutes after polls closed (the irony was that McCain was declared the winner while this guy was talking), and saying that exit polls indicated it was because of self-described "conservative" voters.

And what do they mean by "conservative?" Well, apparently no one thought to ask them — which I would certainly do before turning around and reporting that they were conservative, because the word seems to be so malleable and subjective these days.

Anyway, we were told that Mitt Romney was leading among people who wanted to deport all the illegal aliens. Of course, those people are not conservatives — conservatives are sensible folk who don’t entertain fantasies — so that was apparently an unrelated phenomenon.

Then they spoke of voters who were opposed to abortion. OK, I thought, now we’re getting somewhere…. except that these voters were going, NOT for the senator who’s been strongly pro-life his entire public life, but for the ex-governor of Taxachusetts whose position on abortion depends upon what office he’s running for at a given moment. What on Earth is with these people?

Basically, I think newsfolk — so many of them being self-reported "liberals," whatever they mean by that — tend to be very gullible and just take people at their word when they say they’re "conservatives," sort of the way they tend to lump people into the realm of the unintelligible if they happen to be evangelicals (hence their constant surprise whenever Mike Huckabee gets a few votes).

You can still buy victory (maybe)

Romney_raise

    Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll see that, and raise you another $7 million…

Those of you who despise John McCain over McCain-Feingold (and sorry, but I don’t think I’m ever going to buy the George Will theorem that Spending=Speech) should be resting easy today. Even though, all across the country, Republicans are accepting and even embracing the Arizonan as their presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney just might prove today that you can still buy your way to victory — even in the biggest market, or bunch of markets, in the country — if you’ve got enough do-re-mi on hand.

Here’s the latest from Zogby, showing McCain winning pretty much everywhere that matters other than California, where Mitt Romney was said to be spending oodles of his own cash.

There is, of course, an alternative explanation I’ve read as to why Romney is leading 40-33 in California is that California Republicans are particularly partisan and ideological. Maybe so. That would explain Reagan, although not Nixon. But why would just the Republicans be that way out on the Left Coast? If it’s in the water, why wouldn’t that rigidity manifest itself among Democrats as well? If it did, Hillary Clinton would be leading there. But she’s not.

Romney outgunned McCain 10 to 1 in Florida, and still lost

At least we don’t have to worry about whether pore ol’ Mitt Romney was able to get his message out in Florida. Check out this WashPost story, "After Romney’s Barrage, McCain Stands Tall:"

    In Florida, as he did in other early states, Romney blanketed the airwaves with ads financed partly by his own fortune. According to Nielsen Co., Romney ran nearly 4,500 ads in Florida by Monday, compared with 470 by McCain.

How much longer do you suppose it will take Gov. Romney to get the fact that the voters aren’t buying what he’s trying to sell — or perhaps I should say, aren’t willing to sell what he’s trying to buy?

This was brought to my attention by McCain backer Bob McAlister, who observed, "It is absolutely stunning that our guy overcame such odds. I don’t know if that’s ever happened — being outgunned on the air 10 to 1 and still win convincingly. It just shows that character and integrity can still trump glitz."

Holding my breath over Florida

Thought y’all might be interested in the latest Zogby numbers out of Florida. I’ve been holding my breath over this one for a week:

Released: January 28, 2008
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll: McCain Gets Endorsement Boost, Leads Again in Florida
Giuliani passes Huckabee; is stuck in a distant third place

UTICA, New York -– In what’s become a two-man game for the Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain now holds a slim lead over rival Mitt Romney while all others lag well behind in the Florida primary race, the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby telephone tracking poll shows.
    Boosted by a strong endorsement from Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, McCain has 33% support, compared to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who wins 30% backing. The two leaders have been locked in a tight contest ahead of Tuesday’s election. This three-day tracking poll, which surveyed 818 likely Republican voters, carries a margin for error of +/- 3.4% and was conducted Jan. 25-27.
    Eight percent of voters remained undecided in the tight race.
    In the battle for third place, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is once again ahead of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 14% to 11%. Huckabee had leapt ahead of Giuliani in yesterday’s three-day tracking poll, but he gave back three points in the last 24 hours and again trails Giuliani.
    Voters who identify themselves as conservative, a group that represents more than half the sample, have also reversed themselves. After giving Romney the edge, McCain now has the support of 34% to Romney’s 33%. In yesterday’s tracking poll, Romney led among those voters with 34% of their support to McCain’s 28%. Moderate voters consistently prefer McCain, giving him 44% of their support in the most recent poll, compared to Romney’s 15%. Among “very conservative” voters, Romney fares far better, winning 48% support to McCain’s 13%. Huckabee is actually ahead of McCain among the “very conservative” voters, winning 20% support.