Romney’s Loss

Well, the untold story out of Florida today is not John McCain winning but Mitt Romney losing — and Rudy Giuliani’s intent on endorsing Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.). There’s a lot of talk these days about Mitt Romney. Is he becoming the candidate whom the others love to hate? Or is he the “friend” that he characterizes himself as to all the other candidates? It seems that the issues are threefold:

One: No one seems to know where he stands. He has flipped-flopped continually on the issues while maintaining that he is the only “true” Republican in the race. Evangelicals don’t like his religion because they feel that he’s not Christian enough. Others don’t like the fact that he claims to have seen his “… father march with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” only to retract the statement later, saying that he was being figurative, not literal. But he seems to take a figurative stance more often than not, telling folks that he is a hunter, only to retract the claim later by saying he’s only hunted once or twice. Of course, Fox News and the conservative media seem to love and adore the former Massachusetts governor; unfortunately, it’s not catching fire with voters.

Two: Romney is flush with money. No matter what the other candidates seem to raise or spend, he seems to always have more. A replenish-able source, if you will. Out of all the candidates, he alone is able to write his campaign a check whenever needed. It’s almost like the old Doritos brand tortilla commercial slogan popularized by Jay Leno in the 1990s: “Crunch all you want, we’ll make more!”

Three, the negative campaign ads he runs seem to be not only damaging to the other candidates, but they don’t bode well for the party either. Many campaign and party insiders have characterized them as “misleading.” So not only do the other campaigns feel as though Romney is misleading voters about who he is, but they feel he is also misleading as to who THEY are. This could all turn into ammunition for the Democrats later on in the election cycle. Although he characterizes himself as the candidate to turn around the economy, McCain won overwhelmingly among voters in Florida on who has the better credentials for our sagging economy.

What it all seems to boil down to is that Romney is too plastic, seeming to be everything to everybody. He tries to mold himself and his message to fit whoever he’s speaking to at the time, but underneath we just don’t know what lurks. Meanwhile he criticizes the others for being too liberal on certain issues, or reaching across the aisle too much going into an election where it will be extremely important to work with Democrats across party lines. I am not so sure that this will bode well for the Republicans or for Romney. But things are far clearer for the Republican field now that Floridians have spoken — and their message is, “Mr. Romney, when will you come to the same conclusion as Giuliani and now John Edwards?”