comMITTed to Romney!

See why at this blog entry at Iowans for Romney.

Jeff Fuller

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Patrick Ruffini writes, “Where’s Romney’s Bio?”

First he states:

I know I’m sort of questioning a big strategic assumption behind the Romney campaign here, but I really have to wonder whether the brick wall in polling that he’s hitting is because his campaign has become all about issues and not his incredibly compelling bio.

I disagree with this assessment. Romney’s campaign from the very beginning has promoted his experience as a businessman, at the Olympics, and as Governor while also putting forth great ideas of ways to manage our country better. First, lets go to the bio question.

Has Ruffini never seen this campaign video?

I think the video sums up the bio piece quite nicely. And it’s not like this was the end of telling his story, and who he is and where he came from. There have been others as well.

Furthermore Mr. Ruffini goes on to say:

Despite spending gobs of money, despite eclipsing Fred Thompson in the invisible primary, he still can’t quite connect with conservatives. Yes, he barely won the FRC straw poll, but only after he and the other ballot stuffing strawpoll-centric campaigns figured out they could phone it in for the in-person contest and focus exclusively on running up the score in the online vote. Filter out the online votes, and you have a pretty organic (and one sided) protest vote for Mike Huckabee.

What a mischaracterization he has going on here.

If you’ll read this post from Evangelicals for Mitt it explains how the poll turned out and why. I don’t know why Patrick has decided to keep this mischaracterization going even after this was already explained now at least two or three days ago.

Then Mr. Ruffini drones on about how Governor Romney can’t be as conservative as Thompson and Huckabee…

Romney’s speeches are built on the assumption that he can out-conservative Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee by out-talking them. His words are a litany of conservative talking points.

Earlier this year, when his conservative credentials were genuinely in question, the issues-talk might have helped. But now his problem has morphed into something far worse: an authenticity problem centered around flip-flopping. And arguably, each time he opens his mouth and spouts platitudes, he only makes it worse.

Romney has done to himself what the Bush campaign did to John Kerry. The Bush team made it so that every time Kerry opened his mouth, he hurt himself, thanks to the perception that he was talking out of both sides of his mouth. Kerry couldn’t help himself by saying the right things because nobody believed what he was saying.

Romney’s situation is further complicated by the fact that issues are actually friendly terrain for Rudy Giuliani. Huh? That’s right — because people assume Rudy’s positions are liberal, when he talks conservative, that’s reassuring. When Romney talks issues, people assume he’s pandering.

Rudy has an issues problem, one that he’s trying to make go away by talking issues. Romney’s problem is not an issues problem. The flip-flopping charge is a character problem, not an issues problem. So what Romney really must do is shore up perceptions of his character.

Romney should resign himself to the fact that he won’t be able to out-conservative Thompson or Huckabee on issues.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, lets take some of the conservative issues.

If you go to this link, it spells out in depth Governor Romney’s agenda.

Lets list them (be patient these are PDF documents):

• Keeping Americans Safe at Home and Abroad
• Confronting Radical Jihad
• Combating Nuclear Terrorism
• Strengthening Latin American Allies and Confronting Tyrants
• Winning the Global Economic Competition
• Ending Our Dependence on Foreign Oil
• Curbing Out of Control Federal Spending
• Ending the Tide of Illegal Immigrants
• Reducing Spiraling Health Care Costs
• Confronting Threats to American Culture, Values, and Freedoms

All of these are very conservative issues, and ones where Governor Romney excels. He has a pattern of successful leadership over and over again.

Next Mr. Ruffini goes on to say:

In all the ads we’ve seen so far, where is Romney the incredibly successful businessman — the most successful one in North America according to Jim Cramer? Romney the father of five? (this one’s only made the occasional cameo before social conservative audiences). The guy who was home with his wife doing his HBS homework while George Bush was out partying? (Okay, go light on the last part in the primaries.) Or the guy who saved the Olympics?

What about this ad Patrick, it does a pretty great job at highlighting his accomplishments.

He finishes off with this analysis:

The Romneybots could probably dredge up clips to show all of this in campaign material. No need to bother. I’ve seen the clips and they’re playing in my head right now. But how many points have they really put behind bio spots in the early states? Where’s the 60-second bio spot with the soaring music?

On February 5th, Mitt Romney wants people to go to the polls saying this: “Slick Romney may be a smooth talker. He’s just telling me what I want to hear. But he was a pretty darned successful businessman. A good governor. And family man — take that Billary. And he’s not Rudy.”

Think of how Bill Clinton fought back against ultimately more serious character charges: by reframing the character issue. Yeah, he was a lying, pot-smoking philanderer. But he felt our pain.

I like Mitt Romney. But I feel icky whenever I hear him debate. He needs to remind people why they liked him to begin with.

First off, I am not a Romneybot. I never have been. I am not employed by the campaign, nor told what to do on his behalf. It all comes from within, and I think that it’s ridiculous for you to characterize everything that’s been done in the Romney grassroots as “robotic”. We work well together, we get things accomplished. We really have our stuff together collectively as a grassroots, but we are marching to the beat of our own drums here.

As for this talk of “Where’s the 60-second bio spot with the soaring music?”. Governor Romney has campaigned relentlessly in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early primary and caucus states. Every single member of his immediate family has fanned out across the country to campaign for him. His wife goes and speaks, his sons, his daughters-in-law. I’ve never seen a candidate with such familial support as Romney. People in those early states see that. He doesn’t need a campaign commercial to prove his worth to them. They see it every time he comes to visit.

As for Romney being slick, well, you go on believing what you want to believe Mr. Ruffini. In the end though, Governor Romney is going to be the strongest person and the last one showing for the nomination. With the exception of losing to Ted Kennedy (which he really gave him a run for his money), Governor Romney’s been successful in every endeavor he’s put his mind to. I don’t see this being any different. He has the intelligence, the team, the organization, and the grassroots to back him up. It’s unfortunate that you can’t see that.

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It is amazing to me how all the other candidates continue to do all they can to try and marginalize Governor Romney.   And they do it by nuanced analysis.    The fact is that Gov. Romney had tremendous support at last week’s Family Research Council Summit and most of them voted online.   And the other fact is that Huckabee has no organization to speak of.    This just in from National Review Online: 

So with Huckabee still with a tough road ahead of him, is Mitt Romney the big winner after this weekend?

It would have been nice for Romney to walk out of the FRC summit as the consensus pick. With the endorsements from social conservative leaders that he’s lining up, he just needed the rank-and-file to confirm their leaders’ preferences. But the rank-and-file probably has more love for Huckabee at this stage in the game.

(Nancy, a Romney-supporting Campaign Spot reader, wrote in to note that while she attended the summit, she voted online, as did several others in her group. I suspect a lot of Romney backers feel like the FRC organizers have made their overall win seem “less legit” by releasing the results of the online and in-person vote results differently. Having said that, how many Romney supporters could possibly have attended the summit and voted online? Anywhere near enough to make Huckabee’s 51 percent look less impressive? I’m skeptical.)

Still, as long as Romney holds onto his leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he can loan as much money to his campaign as he wishes, the former governor has as much a shot at this nomination as anybody else.

Let me share a scenario laid out for me by a Romney backer after the most recent fundraising numbers came out:

Romney leads in Iowa; if somebody comes on strong, he can spend a half-million on advertising in the state touting himself and a half-million going negative on whoever’s the biggest threat to his lead. Same thing in New Hampshire. Neither of those states are relatively expensive to run advertising in, and so he can get a lot of bang for his bucks. Then he can move on to South Carolina, and once again, run plenty of positive ads, and run plenty of negative ads if necessary. (Also, depending on where Michigan is in this process, he should have another early win, or at least a strong finish.) Right now, all of Romney’s rivals will have variously limited resources. Giuliani and maybe Thompson can punch back. Maybe if McCain’s matching funds come in, he’ll be able to run a limited ad campaign. But it’s unlikely anyone else will be able to keep up.

And right now, Romney’s the only one with the resources to really put a significant campaign on the airwaves on Super Duper Tuesday.

Now ads and money alone can’t elect a candidate. And it’s possible that we’ve seen Romney’s high-water mark, or that he never really catches fire beyond the two early primary states. But if this primary campaign were a poker game, Romney would be the man holding a pretty strong hand and a big stack of chips.

So with Huckabee still with a tough road ahead of him, is Mitt Romney the big winner after this weekend?

It would have been nice for Romney to walk out of the FRC summit as the consensus pick. With the endorsements from social conservative leaders that he’s lining up, he just needed the rank-and-file to confirm their leaders’ preferences. But the rank-and-file probably has more love for Huckabee at this stage in the game.

(Nancy, a Romney-supporting Campaign Spot reader, wrote in to note that while she attended the summit, she voted online, as did several others in her group. I suspect a lot of Romney backers feel like the FRC organizers have made their overall win seem “less legit” by releasing the results of the online and in-person vote results differently. Having said that, how many Romney supporters could possibly have attended the summit and voted online? Anywhere near enough to make Huckabee’s 51 percent look less impressive? I’m skeptical.)

Still, as long as Romney holds onto his leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he can loan as much money to his campaign as he wishes, the former governor has as much a shot at this nomination as anybody else.

Let me share a scenario laid out for me by a Romney backer after the most recent fundraising numbers came out:

Romney leads in Iowa; if somebody comes on strong, he can spend a half-million on advertising in the state touting himself and a half-million going negative on whoever’s the biggest threat to his lead. Same thing in New Hampshire. Neither of those states are relatively expensive to run advertising in, and so he can get a lot of bang for his bucks. Then he can move on to South Carolina, and once again, run plenty of positive ads, and run plenty of negative ads if necessary. (Also, depending on where Michigan is in this process, he should have another early win, or at least a strong finish.) Right now, all of Romney’s rivals will have variously limited resources. Giuliani and maybe Thompson can punch back. Maybe if McCain’s matching funds come in, he’ll be able to run a limited ad campaign. But it’s unlikely anyone else will be able to keep up.

And right now, Romney’s the only one with the resources to really put a significant campaign on the airwaves on Super Duper Tuesday.

Now ads and money alone can’t elect a candidate. And it’s possible that we’ve seen Romney’s high-water mark, or that he never really catches fire beyond the two early primary states. But if this primary campaign were a poker game, Romney would be the man holding a pretty strong hand and a big stack of chips.

~ Vic

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Some really important news this last week indicating that Mitt is starting to get real traction among social conservatives. SoCons, of course, are critical to winning the Republican nomination, and the big question throughout this campaign has been whether SoCons, and particularly the Christian community, would get behind Mitt. While there still work to be done, there are clear signs of momentum building, and I believe that we will see a major swing toward Mitt in the coming weeks and months before the primaries begin.

First, it was a squeaker, but Mitt won the Value Voters Summit Straw Poll (VVSSP) this weekend. Mitt won the VVSSP by 30 votes over Mike Huckabee (28% vs. 27% respectively). They both got nearly 3x the votes that Fred Thompson did which calls the rationale for his campaign as the “true Conservative” into serious question. Rudy and McCain did dismally at 2% and 1% respectively, trailing all other Republican candidates .

One interesting note on Rudy’s performance. Not only did he crater on the favorability straw poll, Rudy was voted 2nd place (behind Hillary Clinton) as “least acceptable candidate” from either party . In my mind, this really undermines’ Giuliani’s “most electable” rationale. The fact is that a major portion of the base will either not vote or at least not activate for a Giuliani candidacy, which could turn some purple/slightly red states into play. People only look at the Blue states that Rudy would allegedly put into play, but they forget about the other part of that equation.

If you’d like some more detail, here are some good links for you to check out:

• Video of his actual speech at the Summit
• LiveBlogger commentary reacting to the speech
• Complete results for both Online and Offline totals
• Insiders views of the Romney Campaign’s strategy and the significance of the win

Mitt has also received a number of very high profile endorsements from Christian Social Conservatives just this past week:

• Wayne Grudem, Professor of theology at Phoenix Seminary, a former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, and a hugely influential thinker in Christian academia ( a href=”http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/bd467d78-5ed4-4679-b0a1-021b7c3d2728)
• Bob Jones III, President of Bob Jones University in the critical state of South Carolina (http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/5a10f1d9-70a9-4f54-bbe3-5c58fa2437d3
• Robert Taylor, Dean of Bob Jones University (http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/5a10f1d9-70a9-4f54-bbe3-5c58fa2437d3 )

Dr. Don Wilton, the pastor of the largest Baptist Church in Spartanburg and the immediate past president of the South Carolina Southern Baptist convention (http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/romney_scores_an_important_sou.php)

• Dr. Richard Land, President of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the public policy entity of the Southern Baptist Convention; not a formal endorsement, but very favorable comments (http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/correction/richard_land_1.php )

Add these to recent messages from Evangelical heavy weights (and Mitt Supporters)

• Jim Bopp (http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/front_page/jim_bopp_weighs_in.php)
• Mark DeMoss (http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/front_page/go_mark.php - Letter here - http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/demoss_memo.pdf) and we are seeing the beginning of a real movement toward Romney from this key constituency.

So for those of you who voted online earlier this week, Thank You! With a 30 vote margin between winning and losing, you really see that each of us makes a difference, and as we get together to get behind Mitt, we can really make his candidacy a reality! All the pieces are falling into place. Mitt and his team are executing amazingly and I’m feeling more bullish than ever on Mitt getting the nomination!

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A little bird (David Kim) pointed this out in an email, and it deserves to be seen here…

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OUTSTANDING! That is all I can say about Governor Romney’s performance and reviews out of yesterday’s Family Research Council. By now, we have all read the various reports and the slicing and dicing of Gov. Romney’s win of the poll. To me however, more important is what the experts and other conservatives are saying. Please take a minute and read these; they are great! Click here to see them all ——> HEADLINES

My favorite of all the quotes:

CBN’s David Brody: “And I think this week, we will look back on this week, if Mitt Romney goes on and wins the nomination and if you see other evangelical leaders in the future, come November, December, or even into January, start to endorse Mitt Romney, you’ll look back to this week as a very key week for the Romney campaign.” (C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” 10/20/07)

With the strong statements made by key Evangelical leaders by way of endorsement of Gov. Romney these past 10 days or so, I have felt that Gov. Romney has in fact turned the corner. I cannot put my finger on it yet, and my hunch is completely visceral, but I strongly agree with David Brody’s statement just above. It is conspicuous that major Evangelical leaders are not publicly endorsing Huckabee.

~ Vic

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The esteemed Justin Hart over at MyManMitt and Charles Mitchell at EvengelicalsForMitt have some great scoop on the inside story about how the Straw Poll went down.

Justin also puts the importance of the victory in perspective for all of us.

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From The Politico

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney increased his already growing credibility with evangelical Christians on Saturday afternoon by winning the Family Research Council’s “2008 American Values Straw Poll.”

Romney edged former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who received the most enthusiastic reception of any of the speakers at the council’s “Values Voter Summit” at a Washington hotel. The results, released with a literal drumroll:

First — Mitt Romney — 1,595 votes

Second — Mike Huckabee — 1,565 votes

Third — Ron Paul — 865 votes

Fourth — Fred Thompson — 564 votes

A total of 5,576 votes were cast.

Announcing the results, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said the top four issues picked by voters were 1) abortion; 2) marriage; 3) tax cuts; and 4) permanent tax relief for families.

Here’s something important to remember about the poll: The results reflect not just the 2,000-plus attendees at the three-day conference, but also anyone who went online and contributed as little as $1 to join FRC Action, the legislative action arm of the Family Research Council.

All the Republican presidential candidates spoke to the conference. The poll is being widely watched as a barometer of the preferences of social conservatives, an electorally potent group whose leaders have not settled on a candidate.

Attendees who filled out the straw poll on-site were given colorful “I Values Voted” stickers. People had to be in line by 1 p.m., so the results could be announced at 3 p.m. sharp.

After speaking to the crowd on Saturday morning, Huckabee held both an availability with bloggers and a news conference. His campaign handed out fliers saying “Do Not Compromise Your Values,” with “Your” crossed out and replaced by “God.”

Romney’s campaign distributed a news release announcing he had been endorsed by Dr. John Willke, founder and former president of the National Right to Life Committee. Willke said on the release: “I know he will be the strong pro-life president we need in the White House.”

On the straw-poll ballot, the first question was: “Which of the following candidates for President would you be most likely to vote for?” Voters were given the choice of 18 candidates, both Republican and Democratic, plus “Undecided.”

The second question, with the same list, was: “Which of the following candidates would be least acceptable to you as President of the United States?”

The third question was, “Please indicate which issue is the most important in determining your opinion of the candidate that you will most likely vote for?” A dozen choices were provided, most of them priorities of social conservatives, plus tax cuts.

Seven candidates addressed the crowd on Friday. Two spoke Saturday morning:

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took a conciliatory tone, promising to work toward “decreasing abortions and increasing adoptions”: “You and I know that I’m not a perfect person. I’ve made mistakes in my life, but I’ve always done the best that I could to try to learn for them. I pray for forgiveness. I pray for strength. … During what I believe were the greatest crises of my life, I prayed to God, and I needed God’s help and guidance. Religion is about love, forgiveness and inclusion – it’s about salvation. .. If we’re honest with each other, trust will follow. We may not always agree — I don’t always agree with myself. … I want to work with the community of faith to develop new ideas that can protect our shared vision.”

Huckabee took a fierier approach. After talking about protecting freedom and family, Huckabee said: “Faith is also threatened, and let me share with you how. I believe that there are many who will seek our support. But let me say that it’s important that people sing from their hearts, and don’t merely lip-synch the lyrics to our songs. I think it’s important that the language of Zion is a mother tongue, and not a recently acquired second language. It’s important that a person doesn’t have more positions on issues that Elvis had waist sizes.”

FRC says it “champions marriage and family as the foundation of civilization.”

–By Mike Allen

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Boston, MA – Tonight, Governor Mitt Romney delivered remarks at the Family Research Council’s “Washington Briefing: Values Voter Summit.” In his address, Governor Romney proposed a 12-point conservative plan to strengthen families in America. Below is the full text of Governor Romney’s remarks as prepared for delivery. More »

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Hurry over to Evangelicals for Mitt for a definite MUST READ from Nancy French. I won’t spoil the post, just go over and read it!

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Head on back over to My Man Mitt for Justin Hart’s interview with Rev. Lou Sheldon. It’s awesome, explains how he came to his decision to support Romney…and more.

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Go over to My Man Mitt, and check out Justin’s interview with Jay Sekulow.

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Woo hoo, I got my vote in. Have you? You can vote for as little as a $1.00 donation to the Family Research Council. Come on, let’s show Governor Romney what we’re made of.

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Just figured you all would want to keep up…

Live Blogging with Justin Hart

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Thanks to Nancy French at Evangelicals for Mitt, here are the instructions on how to vote in the Family Research Council Straw Poll.

1. Go on-line to Family Research Council .
2. Once there, click on the large banner “Participate in the 2008 American Values Straw Poll.”
3. If you are not already a member of FRC Action, you can join by submitting an annual donation of any amount (minimum: $1.00). After joining, you will be taken directly to your on-line straw poll ballot where you can vote for Governor Romney.

Thanks to frofreak for suggesting that I make this it’s own individual post.

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