Mitt Romney Unleashes Vicious Attack – On Unnamed “Career Politicians” – Casts Himself at the Washington Outsider



See Mr. Romney - Texas is Farther from
DC Than Massachusetts



Note to Mitt:  Texas is Farther Away from Washington Than Massachusetts

The Presidential campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has several strategies.

1. Mr. Romney is acting like the presumed nominee, and campaigning against Mr. Obama, not the other Republican hopefuls.

2. Mr. Romney is portraying himself as the competent outsider, a successful business leader and not a Washington insider.

3. Mr. Romney changes his position sufficiently often so as to confuse his potential detractors into thinking maybe he is of the same mind as they are.

4. Mr. Romney will stand aside and let the media go after Mr. Perry.  Mr. Romney will only refer to unnamed “career politicians” to contrast with himself as the non politician outsider.



Can you see the sign Mr. Romney?



This strategy is colliding with reality, reality in the form of Texas Gov. Rick Perry who has just entered the race and has vaulted to the top of the polls.  Mr. Romney now needs to realize that this strategy will not work against Mr. Perry, and that coming up with a successful strategy to combat the Texas Governor is not going to be easy.

The idea of the “outsider” vs. the “career” politician is one of the most successful campaign themes in recent American electoral history.  But Mr. Romney and his advisers are not reading history correctly.  The successful outsiders have been career politicians who are outsiders from Washington.  Ronald Reagan was the consummate outsider, even though he had been in politics for over 15 years when he ran for President in 1980.  Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were all partial or total career politicians who were successful in Presidential elections because they were outside of Washington.

The big losers have been the career politicians who were also Washington insiders.  Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry all fit this description.   The rule does not work all the time (in politics no rule does) as the election of George H. W. Bush shows, but that was an anomaly. 

The re-election thing is also important.  Had Mr. Romney been successfully re-elected as Governor of Massachusetts in 2006 his chances for the Presidential nomination of his party would have been greatly enhanced.  Instead he decided to leave office after just one term, and so has been running for President for almost five years, (seven if you count the last two years of his governorship where he essentially abandoned the job to concentrate on his Presidential ambitions).  Mr. Perry’s two re-elections give him the “voter stamp of approval”, something Mr. Romney does not have.

Mr. Romney and his advisers are now facing the difficult problem of just how to campaign against Mr. Perry.  Casting Mr. Perry as a radical conservatives just reinforces his standing with the radical conservative base of the Republican party.  Criticizing Mr. Perry risks alienating those undecided radical conservatives.  Pointing to non conservative position of Mr. Perry is just plain silly; Mr. Perry has bona fide conservative credentials.

Apparently Mr. Romney does feel that Mr. Perry is vulnerable on immigration.  He has started to attack the Texas Governor for allowing some state programs to be available to illegal immigrants.  There may be some political advantage here, but this is a dynamic issue, and this is not 2008 where a hard line on immigration was a sure winning Republican message.

So look for Mr. Romney to continue his indirect attacks on Mr. Perry with terms like “career politician”, and look for this strategy to be ineffective.  Mr. Romney can only win if Mr. Perry self destructs, a position Mr. Romney has in common with Mr. Obama.  And this is another reason why the tone deaf political advisers should not have tried to schedule Mr. Obama against the first Republican debate to feature Mr. Perry.  Mr. Obama’s re-election chances hinge on getting as many voters as possible to pay attention to the Republicans.