Mitt the Candidate - Analysis

Mitt the Candidate - Analysis

Thanks to a number of you who have responded about the presidential campaign with my last e-mail! The focus there was on all the major candidates and their overall strengths, weaknesses, and odds of winning or losing.

Since Mitt Romney has become my favorite candidate, I thought maybe I could try to summarize what I know so far about him now that I’ve been paying closer attention. In a separate e-mail I will try to organize a few thoughts “issue by issue” rather than by candidate as I have so far.

As always, your responses are great and appreciated. Let me know if you don’t want to receive these.

So…Mitt Romney. He’s presenting himself overall to the voters in several ways.

First, he’s presenting himself as an effective leader and administrator. He emphasizes that the evidence for this lies in his experience in private enterprise (successful re-organizer of small and large businesses), public enterprise (the Salt Lake Olympic Games of 2002), state government (conservative and Republican governor of the liberal/Democrat state of Massachusetts), and personal/family with the longtime happy marriage to his high school sweetheart and the support of his five sons who are obviously successful and committed to their father and united as a family (check out http://fivebrothers.mittromney.com/ if you get a chance). I think another way in which his effective leadership has been demonstrated is in his ability to raise money and establish a very effective campaign organization in multiple states. This may seem an unusual point, but honestly these are the goals of all the campaigns, but nobody has done nearly as well with these as Romney, and this despite the fact that there has been no “anointing” of him as a front runner by the “powers that be” in Republican and conservative circles. It really is impressive.

Second, he presents himself as a solid conservative in terms of his political philosophy and his positions on the issues. This may be best summarized by saying that he was recently endorsed as the “candidate of choice” by the well known and respected “National Review” conservative magazine and online community. Among other things, they noted that Romney is really the only conservative likely to be able to unite key groups of conservatives/Republicans, including those most concerned with social issues (including issues like abortion and gay marriage, but also immigration and other issues), those most concerned with economic issues like taxes and economic growth and trade, and finally those most concerned with foreign policy issues such as a strong military and strong and united diplomatic corps for the United States as we deal with important issues across the globe.

Third, he presents himself personally as an optimistic person but not unrealistic, confident without cockiness, and kind and compassionate while still firm when needed. He also receives rave reviews from those who know or have worked with him in terms of being very intelligent, excellent with complex issues, and an effective communicator who is able to summarize complex issues in understandable ways. And a final “personal quality” evident in him is that he is a very hard worker and campaigner. I like that. You can tell he cares a lot about his run for the presidency and is very motivated.

In terms of his overall “electability” I think the two things that stand out are: (1) he is the only Republican candidate who is legitimately running an effective campaign in the various regions of the country, which speaks to his more broad appeal than some of the other candidates, and (2) he almost defeated Senator Kennedy in Massachusetts and then won the governorship in what is likely the most liberal state in the nation. I believe that speaks to him being a very formidable campaigner and communicator. And THAT is a key element in terms of being able to make it to the White House.

Again, in the next e-mail we will go through more of an issue-by-issue analysis.

Thanks all!

Just a few days ‘till the primaries begin! If you know anyone in Iowa and New Hampshire in particular, encourage them to vote/participate and a plug for Mitt could go far! Also if you are interested or want to contribute, check out www.mittromney.com.

Toran

P.S. I’ve been tracking recent polls in the early-voting states. After Huckabee’s big rise in the polls in Iowa, he has started to slip and Romney has started back up – there’s no more than a 2-3 point difference on average in the polls there right now. In New Hampshire, McCain’s rise seems to have flattened out and so Romney’s lead there is along the lines of 5 points – not a sure thing but he’s doing well despite newspapers in that state being in love with McCain. Wyoming has an early primary but obviously won’t get as much attention due to smaller population plus I haven’t seen polls done in Wyo yet so I don’t know, but a Mitt win there would get press for sure and be helpful. Michigan has a very slight advantage for Mitt in the polls right now. Nevada is close with Mitt and Giuliani (virtually a tie). South Carolina still has a small lead for Huckabee but if Romney can win the early states he’ll have a lot of momentum and Huckabee won’t, so we’ll see. Florida still has a lead for Giuliani over Romney, and to be honest Giuliani is putting most of his eggs in the Florida basket. If Romney gets momentum and does well there – he could be well on his way. Then the BIG primary day (almost half the country including Utah) is on Feb 5^th I believe…