Thread: Analysis: Despite that smile, Romney is coming after Huckabe

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Analysis: Despite that smile, Romney is coming after Huckabee like a fighter
The Associated Press Published: December 15, 2007

"Huckacide."

BOSTON: Mitt Romney has worked relentlessly to win the Republican presidential nomination for the past three years, and if he's going down, it won't be without a fight.

Branded by some as an elite Northeasterner, he plunged deep into the heart of Texas — with handshakes and hugs from the first President George Bush and wife Barbara — to address questions about his Mormon faith.

After rival Mike Huckabee suggested Romney's religion says Jesus and the devil are brothers, Romney went on national television to try a rhetorical haymaker: "Attacking someone's religion is really going too far."

And the candidate whose matinee looks and ramrod posture exude a civilized charm showed he isn't afraid to get down and dirty: He said if the former Arkansas governor wants to carry the front-runner mantle Romney bore for so long in Iowa and New Hampshire, he'd better be ready for the scrutiny that comes with it.

Romney was happy to help that scrutiny along by airing the first negative ad of the Republican campaign in Iowa, a spot this week highlighting Huckabee's record on illegal immigration. The former Massachusetts governor would not rule out focusing on prison commutations Huckabee issued while in office.

"I frankly think that the more people come to know about Mike Huckabee, the more they realize they don't know about Mike Huckabee," Romney said Thursday in Muscatine, Iowa. "I'm going to make it very clear in every way I can to contrast my views on key issues with those of Governor Huckabee. He's the front-runner and so I want to describe how we're different on those issues that people care about."

All this looks very familiar to Shannon O'Brien, the last person to go one-on-one with Romney in an election.

O'Brien was the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Massachusetts. Romney faced her after elbowing aside the acting governor of his own party, Republican Jane Swift, to grab his party's nomination.

"I think that he learned his lesson running against Ted Kennedy," O'Brien said. "He ran negative ads against me before I was even the nominee."

She recalled the 1994 battle in which Romney, then a political upstart, posed the strongest re-election challenge of Kennedy's career before the senator unloaded with TV ads and surrogates who questioned Romney's business record and fitness to serve.

O'Brien says now, "Mitt Romney has demonstrated, given the radical flip-flops he has taken from the time he ran for governor to this presidential race now, he will do what it takes to win."

Romney has done little to conceal he is going after Huckabee — not to mention the national Republican poll leader, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Romney's zeal for this campaign is, in large measure, connected to his commitment to finishing the quest his father began in 1968.

George Romney, then the governor of Michigan, ran for the Republican presidential nomination, only to pull out two weeks before the New Hampshire primary. He had been criticized for his statement that he dropped his support for the Vietnam War despite being subjected to "a brainwashing" from U.S. generals during a tour of Southeast Asia.

Mitt Romney has said the transformation of that statement from a foreign policy observation to a whisper campaign about his father's mental fitness explains his disdain for "gotcha" journalism.

Today, Romney regularly refers to his father on the trail, parts his slicked hair the same way and even wrote an op-ed piece celebrating what would have been George Romney's 100th birthday.

In 2004, he campaigned to be vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association because the person who held the post in 2005 was virtually assured of ascending to the chairmanship in 2006 — a high-profile midterm election year.

As chairman of the governors group, Romney traveled the country, not only campaigning for fellow Republican governors but building a financial and grass-roots organizing network he has tapped for his presidential campaign. The seriousness of his focus is illustrated with one statistic: In 2006, his final full year as governor, Romney spent more than 220 days outside Massachusetts pursuing his partisan political ventures.

As a presidential candidate, Romney has structured his candidacy around a "kindling" theory: If he can build a fire with early wins in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary, it will turn into a conflagration in Michigan, Florida and the 20-odd states voting on Feb. 5.

Romney has built a commanding lead in the first primary state, but he has faltered in Iowa, where Huckabee has vaulted to the lead in large part through his appeal to Christian conservatives — a potent bloc on caucus night.
Concerned the race was slipping away from him, Romney decided last week to visit the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. He used the venue, just 90 miles (145 kilometers) from where Democrat John F. Kennedy talked about separating church from state in the 1960 campaign, to talk about his views on religion and politics.

"Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions," said Romney, who would be the first Mormon president.

This week, he began airing his immigration ad. "If you agree with Mike Huckabee's positions, it's a positive ad for him. If you agree with my position, it's a positive ad for me," he told NBC's "Today" show.

That has been followed by efforts to get surrogates to assail Huckabee in South Carolina, as well as almost daily e-mails from the Romney campaign focused on Huckabee.

One set, titled "Those Who Know Him Best," has contained criticisms of the former governor leveled by fellow Arkansans. Another set, titled "No Laughing Matter," takes aim at Huckabee's views juxtaposed against his recent statement in a radio interview, "I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."

A third genre of e-mail, sent Friday, pointed to a Townhall.com column critical of Romney's rival.

Its title? "Huckacide."

Good for Romney. I hope he properly defines Huckabee for the amnesty-loving zealot that he is.

Huckabee has the audacity to run ads in Iowa saying we have to "secure the border," build the fence, blah blah, when in actuality Huckabee's scheme would grant amnesty to millions in a matter of days and compound the problem.

Huckabee fooled Gilchrist; let's hope he's not able to fool more sophisticated American voters.

Originally Posted by Populist

Good for Romney. I hope he properly defines Huckabee for the amnesty-loving zealot that he is.

Huckabee has the audacity to run ads in Iowa saying we have to "secure the border," build the fence, blah blah, when in actuality Huckabee's scheme would grant amnesty to millions in a matter of days and compound the problem.

Huckabee fooled Gilchrist; let's hope he's not able to fool more sophisticated American voters.

Good day to ya Populist
You are right on the money friend …
Every American needs to know and it’s up to the other candidates to let the public in on it... When we let the candidates know. I hope they use it... I have a very good feeling that we are going to find out that most of the others are scheming. Im Glad this rat was exposed…