Republicans are concerned that their candidate is neither tenacious nor aggressive enough to take out Obama, write JEFF ZELENYand ASHLEY PARKER
MITT ROMNEY and his team of advisers built a reputation during the Republican primaries as tough street fighters skilled in the tactics of political warfare. They quietly took pride in tearing apart Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and the rest of their rivals.
The aggressive posture ultimately became one of Romney’s selling points, particularly among conservative voters who were searching for the candidate tenacious enough to take out President Barack Obama in the general election. But now, even with polls suggesting he is battling Obama to a draw at this stage of the race, Romney finds himself confronting concern that he is not nimble and aggressive enough to withstand the Democratic assault against him.
The president and his re-election campaign have managed to turn the focus of the race in recent days to taxes, outsourcing jobs and Romney’s bank accounts – almost everything except the weak job-creation figures released last week.
That has stirred worries among some Republicans that Romney is allowing himself to be defined by the Obama forces and that he lacks the kind of powerful counterpunch the base of the Republican Party is craving.
Now deep into his second run for the White House, Romney has shown consistent discipline, sticking doggedly to his strategy of making the election about Obama’s stewardship of the economy and for the most part avoiding being baited into traps set for him by rivals.
“If you’re responding, you’re losing,” Romney told Fox News on Wednesday, his voice betraying no air of concern. But the latest Democratic offensive has become so intense that the Romney campaign will start a new wave of television commercials, aides said.
In a rapid-fire era of presidential politics, when candidates have the ability to respond at a moment’s notice, the restraint of the Romney campaign over the last two weeks has opened a round of second-guessing about his insistent focus on the economy.
Conservatives have lit up talk radio programmes across the country, worrying whether Romney’s business record has been “Swift Boated”, referring to attacks waged against Senator John Kerry’s military record in 2004.
The Romney campaign headquarters in Boston has been inundated with advice and criticism from donors and supporters who worry that Romney has lost an opportunity to introduce himself on his own terms.
“Team Obama is doing just what we did in 2004, which is to define the opposition furiously and early,” said Mark McKinnon, a strategist who worked on George W Bush’s re-election campaign. “Most voters don’t have a deep sense of Romney other than he’s not Obama. And in this cycle, that may be enough, but it’s a very risky approach.”
Four months before election day, much of the Republican Party’s base is boiling hot. The latest example came on Wednesday, when the House held a symbolic vote to repeal the national healthcare law upheld last month by the Supreme Court.
Romney though was in Houston speaking to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People convention, a sign that he is trying to adhere to his own strategy of working to broaden his appeal to independent and undecided voters.
As his business record and tenure as Massachusetts governor was being relentlessly assailed in television commercials across a range of top battleground states, Romney released a Spanish- language ad that featured his son Craig. He delivered a testimonial about his father, whom he called “a man of great convictions”.
Advisers to Romney acknowledge that the questions about his record and wealth have contributed to a climb in his unfavourable rating among voters. But the campaign does not believe that the overall position of the race has changed, with voters still seeking an alternative to Obama.
While the president has outspent Romney in battleground states, outside Republican groups have nearly evened the disparity. But the advertising from the major Republican “super PACs”, Crossroads and Restore Our Future, are aimed at highlighting the president’s economic record, rather than defending Romney.
Officials close to both groups said they had no plans to change their approach to help defend Romney against the Democratic- led attacks.
While Romney largely avoided an early round of recriminations that often comes after winning a party’s contentious nominating fight, his advisers are feeling it now among some Republicans who worry that he is not taking full advantage of the chance to defeat Obama.
Some think he botched his chance to capitalise on the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the individual mandate portion of Obama’s healthcare law when his campaign contradicted itself, calling the mandate first “a penalty” and only later “a tax”.
Others hoped he would have already responded more forcefully to recent attacks by the Obama campaign on his time at Bain Capital.
Former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas said the Romney campaign “should continue to hammer away” on a message of economic growth and job creation and ignore the commentary from conservative critics. He said Republicans would continue to rally behind Romney because of their strong desire to win back the White House.
“I’m not overly worried,” Huckabee said. “Overall, the Romney campaign is being very disciplined, saving their fire until the convention.”
Romney, who is nearing the final stages of his search for a vice-president and preparing to take a foreign trip at the end of the month, is devoting only a portion of his time to attending campaign events, further limiting his ability to control the narrative of the campaign. – (New York Times service)