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Christian
Science Monitor...
Romney
vs.
Obama: weak challenger faces weak incumbent
After five
decisive primary victories Tuesday, Mitt Romney promises ‘a better
America’ to
general election voters. He has work to do on likability, but a weak
economy
hobbles Obama.
By Linda
Feldmann
April 29, 2012
For Mitt
Romney, now begins the hard part. Five decisive primary victories
Tuesday
confirmed that he will be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee
in
November. But as Mr. Romney squares off against President Obama, he
faces
multiple challenges.
Romney is
still not well known to general election voters, and polls show he
faces a
massive deficit on likability against the president. Though he governed
solid-blue Massachusetts as a moderate, he has spent the past six years
trying
to recast himself as a conservative. His party’s base is rallying
around him,
but not with any marked enthusiasm.
And in
perhaps his biggest challenge, Romney is up against an incumbent
president who
faced no primary challenge and has been actively preparing for the
general
election for more than a year. Mr. Obama brings to the table all the
fundraising, organization, and media attention that naturally flow to a
sitting
president.
Despite it
all, Romney begins the general election season polling close to Obama,
who is
hobbled by a weak economy. Republicans, fueled by the tea party anger
that
burst forth three years ago, are eager to unseat him, and even if
conservatives
aren’t excited about Romney, they are animated by the prospect of
defeating
Obama. Money will flow both to Romney’s campaign and to the outside
groups that
are expected to make the campaign especially nasty.
And as a
poorly known challenger, Romney has a greater potential upside with
voters than
the well-known president – particularly with the independent voters who
will
decide the election.
In his
victory speech Tuesday night, Romney set his sights squarely on Obama,
accusing
him of making “false promises” and offering “weak leadership.” Romney
echoed
the famous question that then-candidate Ronald Reagan posed in 1980,
the last
Republican to unseat a Democratic president: Are you better off now
than you
were four years ago?
“Is it
easier to make ends meet? Is it easier to sell your home or buy a new
one?”
Romney asked, speaking to a crowd in the battleground state of New
Hampshire.
“If the
answer were yes to those questions, then President Obama would be
running for
reelection based on his achievements and rightly so,” Romney said. “But
because
he has failed, he will run a campaign of diversions and distractions
and
distortions.”
Romney also
echoed the winning campaign message of the last Democrat, Bill Clinton,
to
defeat an incumbent Republican, the first President Bush: “It’s the
economy,
stupid.”
“It’s still
about the economy,” Romney said. “And we’re not stupid.”
On Tuesday,
Romney won the GOP primaries in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York,
Connecticut,
and Rhode Island with majorities. Turnout was low, as Romney had
already effectively
sealed the nomination. But questions lingered over current and former
primary
opponents.
In
Delaware, Newt Gingrich made a push to win, campaigning heavily there
and
securing the endorsements of key Republicans, including a last-minute
switch by
the state’s GOP national committeewoman, Priscilla Rakestraw. Romney
still won,
but with his lowest percentage of the five states, 56.5 percent. Former House Speaker
Gingrich came in second
with 27 percent.
In a speech
Tuesday night in Concord, N.C., Gingrich did not drop out of the race,
instead
vowing to press on...
Read the rest of this story at the Christian
Science Monitor
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