How Romney Can Rebound in Florida

Posted by in Blog, Featured, Politics on January 23, 2012 5:35 pm / 4 comments

Mitt Romney has fallen like a lead balloon to trail Newt Gingrich in Florida by a considerable margin and is now in a statistical tie nationally. In a Rasmussen Reports poll released yesterday Gingrich now leads Romney by a 41% to 32% margin and in an Insider Advantage poll also released yesterday Newt leads Mitt by 34% to 26%. In today’s Gallup Tracking poll Romney has 1% lead over Gingrich nationally.

There are numerous reasons for the precipitous drop in Romney’s numbers but with tonight’s GOP debate (NBC, 9PM EST), I’ll focus on the one I took the Romney campaign to task over last week.

Governor Romney has had two abysmal debates in a row against one of the most prolific political debaters in recent history.

As early voting has already started in Florida, and Romney had a considerable lead at that time, he may have some hidden value in those ballots but if Mitt Romney takes another shellacking tonight he may well see his polling numbers drop even further. My bet is he can’t and won’t perform significantly better unless he quietly fired his former debate prep team, hired a new one and has been highly focused on preparation for tonight’s debate.

The former Governor must come out tonight cocksure and aggressive without the fumbling for words and obfuscated answers of last week. He needs to forget Ron Paul and Rick Santorum even exist and take the fight directly to Newt from the first moment. Think of Alice Cooper’s “No More Mister Nice Guy” if you want a theme for what Mitt needs to do tonight. A list of key topics for Romney includes:

  • Tackle the Bain Capital issues head-on without mincing words and paint Gingrich as anti-capitalist or at least incapable of passing valid judgment on free-markets and without a sound economic plan.
  • Address his wealth and appropriate tax planning that includes the legal use of offshore investment strategies. Mitt needs to say, “I’ve made money because I can manage any enterprise, especially the United States” and convince the crowd that business acumen should be embraced not castigated.
  • Announce that he is releasing his last 6 to 8 tax returns. Forget the gamesmanship on this issue he had available before, since he blew the handling of it. He has got to put this issue to bed, and should be using the same argument, as cited above, that his personal wealth is proof positive of his ability to take the reins of the economy and turn it around.
  • Relentlessly pound Gingrich on his past including his marital transgressions, ethics charges as former Speaker, the $300,000 fine and his ultimate resignation. The opportunity will certainly come tonight and Mitt has to hammer Newt for every personal and political flaw that is available. Nobody has seen what can happen when Gingrich is put under direct fire from another candidate because nobody has attacked him aggressively to date. Romney has to put the pressure on early, not let up and force Newt to self-immolate as he is most capable of doing.

Can Romney do these things? If it’s the same fumbling and mumbling Mitt Romney we saw last week, the answer is an emphatic no. If he’s had better debate prep and is ready to take the gloves off, the answer’s maybe. Right now, with his poll numbers dropping, a maybe is as good as it gets but if he flounders again tonight we may well see an acceleration of his recent messiah to pariah like fall.

 
 

4 Comments

  1. Brian says:
    January 23, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    “Relentlessly pound Gingrich on his past including his marital transgressions, ethics charges as former Speaker, the $300,000 fine and his ultimate resignation. The opportunity will certainly come tonight and Mitt has to hammer Newt for every personal and political flaw that is available. Nobody has seen what can happen when Gingrich is put under direct fire from another candidate because nobody has attacked him aggressively to date. Romney has to put the pressure on early, not let up and force Newt to self-immolate as he is most capable of doing.”

    The first three I agree with but if he does the fourth Newt will win. Newt has already started his strategy to confront this. The fact that there were 84 and he was only convicted of 1 says a lot. And when you find out about who headed that panel you get a sense of Dems at their old games of throwing mud up and see what sticks. He has telegraphed his moves by talking about the reports being released online. You don’t point to that if you are not confident that you can handle it.

    I think the fourth should be Fannie Mae. If he can not get the company he was with to release those documents then he can easily be painted really bad. If he can then he has a chance to explain and people will forgive because he inspires them so much.

  2. Tom Dougherty says:
    January 23, 2012 at 6:28 pm

    Brian, I wouldn’t argue the point that Fannie and Freddie, as well as Newt’s “DC Insider” past can be used against him. I certainly think Romney could score points in that area but I was saving that for later in the week.

    My reason for attacking Newt on the personal issues is it’s the greatest chance to get him to come unglued. Defenses aside he has the highest probability to self-immolate in that area as any. Yes he was convicted of only one charge but after backroom dealings, the fine and his imminent resignation.

    All in there is more than enough ammunition available, Romney just has to stop being so mealy-mouthed and attack with a ferocity we haven’t seen yet.

  3. Brian says:
    January 24, 2012 at 10:06 am

    I don’t think Mitt has the genetics to be anything other than “mealy-mouthed”. Even last night when he was zinging Newt he sounded like he was reading from a prompter. Or stuttering like a person that feels bad for what he is saying.

    No, the personal attacks won’t work against Newt and they won’t work against Mitt….for very much longer. The base will get tired of the mud slinging. They want it at the beginning because they want to know if there is anything out there that is important. After that they will be looking towards the issues.

    That spells problems for Mitt, because, while Mitt has good issues they are overshadowed by Newt’s grand ideas.

    America is wanting to return to the days of grand ideas and inspiration. Someone who touts our greatness and believes in us. When they do that they energize us and that is contagious. Hence the surge from SC. Mitt doesn’t have any of these.

    You will find that Mitt is like Ron Paul. He has his loyal base and that is about 25%, but when the votes are cast he won’t get any more than that.

  4. Brian says:
    January 24, 2012 at 10:22 am

    “Sometimes caution can be carried to the point where it is dangerous. When the Super Bowl is on the line, you don’t go with the quarterback who is least likely to throw an interception. You go with the one most likely to throw a touchdown pass.”

    Very good article and does express the view of the base very well.

    http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49005

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