Sept. 26, 2012,
“Polls show Mitt Romney trailing President Barack Obama in just about every one of the swing states where the 2012 campaign is being waged.
But
Romney appears to be in deeper trouble in Ohio than elsewhere, an
alarming development for Republicans who know that the candidate’s White
House chances begin and end with the kind of middle-class voters who reside
in places such as Akron, Cincinnati and Zanesville.
So why exactly is Romney trailing?…
Interviews with some two dozen Republican strategists and elected officials across Ohio revealed an array of explanations — and no easy answers — for Romney’s failure to catch on there….
Mixed message from Kasich irks GOP
Republican
Gov. John Kasich’s relentless boosterism for the uptick in Ohio job
creation runs counter to the national Republican message that Obama’s policies have kept the economy from bouncing back.
The statewide unemployment rate has fallen to 7.2%, roughly a point below the national average. In bellwether central Ohio, home to the capital city of Columbus and its thriving suburbs, the jobless rate fell to 5.9% in August.
......
The mixed messaging has rankled Republicans in the Romney and Kasich camps. Both sides have done their best to keep the tensions under wraps, but they occasionally spill over into public view.
.......
“When
you run advertising here that’s running in the rest of the country,
it’s inconsistent with how people are feeling about Ohio, that things are getting better,” he continued.
“If you’re just telling people things are getting worse
and you throw in a graphic at the end of the ad that says ‘Ohio,’
that’s not a state-specific message and it’s not working here.”
Romney has, in fact, complimented Kasich’s economic development efforts in a spate of local interviews and at campaign events — and there are no accounts of personal animosity between the two men.
......
But
Republicans close to the campaign have groused privately that Kasich is
bringing little to the Romney effort beyond appearing at campaign
events, while Boehner, Portman and a handful of other statewide officials have loaned manpower and money to the fight.
Portman, for instance,
has turned himself into one of Romney’s most reliable allies on the
campaign trail, hosting more than 20 fundraisers and raising more than
$2 million for the campaign.
One
Washington-based GOP operative involved in the campaign and closely
watching Ohio accused Kasich of not doing enough to help Romney win the
state.
.....
Added:
Nov. 2012 final Ohio results Romney v Obama, Real Clear Politics chart
Romney lost Ohio by 166,214 votes.
……………………………..
Following is full 9/26/2012 CNN article excerpted above for
those interested. Romney had no chance of winning Ohio or the
presidency, shouldn’t have been the GOP candidate in the first
place, and Kasich isn’t the reason he lost Ohio. Kasich
is a Deep State/Lehman Brothers guy which means America Last, creating as much discord as possible.
Kasich does what Sabotage Republicans do, which is try to destroy the GOP. Nelson
Rockefeller set the standard.
Sept. 26, 2012,
“Why Romney is losing must-win Ohio,“ CNN, Peter Hamby
“Polls show Mitt Romney trailing President Barack Obama in just about
every one of the swing states where the 2012 campaign is being waged.
But Romney appears to be
in deeper trouble in Ohio than elsewhere, an alarming development for
Republicans who know that the candidate’s White House chances begin and
end with the kind of middle-class voters who reside in places such as
Akron, Cincinnati and Zanesville.
So why exactly is Romney trailing?
Two surveys released in
recent days, one from the Ohio Newspaper Association and another from
The Washington Post, crystallized the challenge facing Romney as he
embarks on his second straight day of campaigning in the Buckeye State.
The topline numbers — Obama led by 5 points among likely voters in the Ohio poll, and a startling 8 points in the Post poll — only tell part of the story.
Romney’s favorable rating
is underwater. Almost two-thirds of voters approve of Obama’s decision
to bail out the auto industry, a staple of Ohio’s manufacturing economy.
The president leads Romney by a wide margin on the question of who
would do more to help the middle class.
And when voters are asked
which candidate would do a better job handling the economy, Obama has a
sturdy lead, undercutting the thematic premise of Romney’s candidacy.
Interviews with some two
dozen Republican strategists and elected officials across Ohio revealed
an array of explanations — and no easy answers — for Romney’s failure
to catch on there.
Some pointed to the
Obama campaign’s aggressive effort to hang Romney’s opposition to the
federal bailout of Chrysler and General Motors around his neck. Others
said a hangover remains from the divisive 2011 battle over collective
bargaining rights that hurt the GOP’s standing with working class
voters.
A handful of GOP strategists blamed Romney’s standing on campaign staffers who aren’t Ohio natives.
One longtime Republican
strategist griped about the “arrogant top-down” approach of the Romney
team and said they have done a poor job listening to the advice of savvy
Ohio strategists — a charge rebuffed by Romney aides who point out that
field staffers from the Ohio offices of Sen. Rob Portman and House
Speaker John Boehner have come on board.
Still others cited
Romney’s lackluster political skills and said his stiff CEO demeanor as a
turnoff for Ohioans, with one Republican officeholder saying that
former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour wasn’t far off when he said
recently that Romney is being caricatured as “a plutocrat married to a
known equestrian.”
A man without a message
The main criticism that emerged, though, is that Romney is man without a message.
“We are still at a point
where I think it’s still a winnable race for Romney,” said Ohio
Attorney General Mike DeWine. “Generally when you talk people, there is a
feeling that Obama hasn’t done that great a job. But Romney hasn’t made
the sale. He still can. But he hasn’t made the sale yet.”
Another statewide
Republican officeholder who — like others interviewed for this article —
did not want to be identified criticizing the Republican ticket,
offered a blunter assessment.
Both Romney and Obama,
this official argued, have provided nothing but “narrow arguments” and
“fantasy land” policy prescriptions for the country.
“Why is Mitt Romney
running for president and what will his presidency be about?” the
official asked. “I don’t think most Republicans in Ohio can answer that
question. He has not made a compelling case for his candidacy. Don’t
make your campaign about marginal tax rates. Make it about your children
and your grandchildren and the future of this country.”
Romney is adjusting. The
campaign, prevented from spending general election funds until after
the Republican National Convention concluded in late August, launched
its first statewide television buy of the campaign last week.
The former Massachusetts
governor has also intensified his rhetoric on trade, long a potent
issue in Ohio, accusing the president of failing to stand up to China
and costing Americans jobs.
But Romney’s argument du
jour — he has spent a week attacking the president’s handling of
foreign policy and the recent turmoil in the Middle East — isn’t likely
to resonate in Ohio as much as a concise and aggressive jobs-themed
message, Republicans said.
Several Ohio GOP operatives even credited the Obama campaign for presenting a more consistent economic argument.
Fallout over bailout
Obama forces have
persistently reminded voters about the auto bailout — on television and
in small-scale earned media events around the state — and Republicans
faulted Romney for failing to develop a succinct response to the
criticism in a state where one out of every eight jobs is tied to the
auto sector.
Romney wrote a New York
Times op-ed in 2008 titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” and argued for a
managed bankruptcy for the industry, without the use of government
funds. In May, he took credit for proposing the bankruptcy idea. In
August, he tapped a running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who voted in
favor of bailout.
Meanwhile, the Obama
campaign has aired multiple TV ads on the issue and synced their
pro-bailout message with down-ballot Democratic candidates such as Sen.
Sherrod Brown.
Labor organizations are
leaving thousands of bailout-themed doorknob hangers and making phone
calls to union members highlighting Obama’s support for the auto
industry.
According to The
Washington Post poll, 64% of Ohio registered voters view the federal
loans to GM and Chrysler as “mostly good” for the state’s economy. Only
29% said the bailout was “mostly bad.”
Putting a finer point on
the matter, one longtime Ohio GOP strategist called Obama’s advantage
on the auto bailout “a kick in the balls” for the Romney campaign.
Ground operation a bright spot for Romney
One aspect of the Romney
operation that earned praise from Republicans is the campaign’s ground
game, which has made more than 3 million volunteer voter contacts so far
this year and knocked on 28 times as many doors in Ohio as John
McCain’s campaign did in 2008.
“It’s one of the better
operations in the country, as it always is,” Romney’s political director
Rich Beeson told CNN. “Ohio has always led the way and it is again this
cycle.”
The so-called “victory
effort” — a joint venture of the Romney campaign, Republican National
Committee and Ohio Republican Party — has 40 offices statewide.
The Obama operation,
which has been deeply embedded in the state for four years, has more
than twice that number. But the Romney campaign has managed to keep pace
with the president’s voter contact effort, data from to the Post poll
revealed Tuesday.
The humming ground
effort, combined with Ohio’s traditional GOP lean and what’s expected to
be a more animated conservative base than in 2008, has Republicans
confident that the final margin on Election Day will be much closer than
the 5, 6 or 7-point Obama lead seen in recent public polls.
“Nobody will win Ohio by
5,” said Mark Weaver, a Republican consultant with more than two
decades of campaign experience in the state. “Anybody who tells you that
doesn’t know Ohio. This state is too close. It’s too divided. It will
not be Obama by 5 or Romney by 5.”
Weaver complimented the
Romney campaign effort and predicted a 2-point victory for Republicans
in November but advised the GOP nominee to spend more time in the state
and rely less on scripted remarks before large crowds.
“I think they need to
get Romney here in Ohio more, and talking off the cuff more,” he said.
“I think he is a sincere guy, and I think the more he talks off the
cuff, the more people will like him.”
Another Ohio Republican
strategist said Romney should begin dispatching his wife, Ann, to the
suburbs of Cleveland and Columbus, where there is “room for improvement”
— a nice way of saying that Obama has a double-digit lead among women
voters in Ohio, according to the Post poll.
A lingering complication for Romney’s argument in Ohio is the improving state economy.
Mixed message from Kasich irks GOP
Republican Gov. John
Kasich’s relentless boosterism for the uptick in Ohio job creation runs
counter to the national Republican message that Obama’s policies have
kept the economy from bouncing back.
The statewide
unemployment rate has fallen to 7.2%, roughly a point below the national
average. In bellwether central Ohio, home to the capital city of
Columbus and its thriving suburbs, the jobless rate fell to 5.9% in
August.
Kasich is not shy about
talking up Ohio’s job growth, even if it muddles the Romney campaign’s
arguments about the state of the national economy.
At a recent campaign
event in conservative Owensville, a fiery Kasich boasted that “Ohio is
rocking!” — moments before turning the microphone over to Paul Ryan, who
proceeded to issue dire warnings about Obama’s economic policies.
The mixed messaging has
rankled Republicans in the Romney and Kasich camps. Both sides have done
their best to keep the tensions under wraps, but they occasionally
spill over into public view.
Rex Elsass, Kasich’s
media consultant and a longtime adviser, told CNN that Romney is
“running counter to the reality and the perception of people in Ohio.”
“Romney would do better
if he stood on John Kasich’s shoulders and said, ‘Here’s an example of a
state that’s doing better with job creation, in spite of what the
president is doing,’ ” Elsass said.
“When you run
advertising here that’s running in the rest of the country, it’s
inconsistent with how people are feeling about Ohio, that things are
getting better,” he continued. “If you’re just telling people things are
getting worse and you throw in a graphic at the end of the ad that says
‘Ohio,’ that’s not a state-specific message and it’s not working here.”
Romney has, in fact,
complimented Kasich’s economic development efforts in a spate of local
interviews and at campaign events — and there are no accounts of
personal animosity between the two men.
But Republicans close to
the campaign have groused privately that Kasich is bringing little to
the Romney effort beyond appearing at campaign events, while Boehner,
Portman and a handful of other statewide officials have loaned manpower
and money to the fight.
Portman, for instance,
has turned himself into one of Romney’s most reliable allies on the
campaign trail, hosting more than 20 fundraisers and raising more than
$2 million for the campaign.
One Washington-based GOP
operative involved in the campaign and closely watching Ohio accused
Kasich of not doing enough to help Romney win the state.
“No single swing state
Republican has been less willing to criticize President Obama at
important junctures in this campaign than John Kasich,” the Republican
told CNN. “Anyone who doesn’t want an Obama second term should be
furious at him.””
[4/28/16, Image: Blood-drenched Cole Bartiromo (identified above): “This
still image taken from video shows a supporter of Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump after a protest on Thursday, April
28, 2016 in Costa Mesa, Calif.,” ocregister]
