Mitt Romney is finally getting a little respect these days as the clear Republican frontrunner.
He won Monday night’s debate in New Hampshire, where his most credible competitor, Tim Pawlenty, haltingly pulled his punches after tossing out the threatening (and unwieldy) neologism “Obamneycare.”
He previewed his 2012 message this week—jobs, jobs, jobs—with a surprisingly effective ad depicting long-term unemployed Nevadans, including women of color and single mothers, declaring that they are not “bumps in the road” to economic recovery (a phrase President Obama used) and that they will “stand with Mitt.”
He’s polling at 41% in New Hampshire, with the rest of the field in the single digits (including his Mormon doppleganger, Jon Huntsman, who scored 2.3% of New Hampshire voters).
He even managed to joke about Sarah Palin’s bus tour antics being “the best thing that could happen” to his candidacy.
Right now, Mitt Romney’s greatest problem appears to be Republican Party itself.
After opportunistically handing the reins to Tea Partiers and evangelical conservatives to capitalize on unbridled rage against the nation’s first African-American president, the GOP has now cultivated a base most interested in crusading against shari’ah, Romney’s Mormonism, and same-sex marriage.
But the receding economic conservative segment of the Party is also out to get the frontrunner: Texas Republican Dick Armey’s privatization-hawking Freedom Works is gearing up to spend big and mobilize its one million fiscal conservatives against Romney.
Leading GOP donors, operatives, and the media continue to flirt with fantasy candidates, including Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman, who will announce his presidential bid June 21 at the Statue of Liberty. Just like Ronald Reagan did once upon a time.
If a viable candidate is to hang on and emerge from this mess in 2012, only Romney—who has been on the campaign trail for nearly 7 years and who has the best national organization of any candidate at this point—seems prepared to do it.
