Veep Watch: Mixed signals from Romney?
Let’s get this straight. Just as the McCain campaign intimates to the press that they will be picking a Veep virtually within days and that Romney is indeed the top name on the vaunted Veep list, Mitt himself decides to blab to his upper crust GOP and conservatives friends in D.C. and elsewhere that he doesn’t want the job and that McCain won’t pick him? What?!
James Pethokoukis from U.S. News and World…
High gas prices, rising unemployment, and tumbling home values may be lousy news for most Americans, but more and more our troubled economy looks like just the ticket for getting veep short-lister Mitt Romney on the bill with John McCain. Romney, my sources tell me, is insisting to top politicos in Boston and Washington that he does not think McCain will pick him.
Don’t buy it. Not that JP is mistaken, just that Romney is having some fun with the endless Veep speculation. It is no secret that Romney has been seen as a top surrogate and a needed asset for McCain on the economy and also to woo conservatives into joining the campaign full-time. Any and all buzz from inside the campaign (those are the quotes that count) has Romney topping the short list - now the very short list.
Mitt will accept the nod and gladly serve if he is called on as expected to be McCain’s running mate.
But Noam Scheiber at The New Republic examines some potential areas of concern for the McCain campaign if they were to pick Romney as Veep.
The economy is seen as the strongest argument for Mitt’s selection, with the idea being that voters will combine McCain’s foreign policy credentials and Mitt’s economic/business background and morph them into the perfect candidate. Not so fast. As Scheiber points out, Romney had trouble drawing the middle/working-class voters in the primary McCain may lose over the economy.
What I don’t understand is this idea that Romney helps McCain on the economy, which everyone concedes will be the nominee’s greatest vulnerability. The basis for this claim is that Romney was a very successful consultant and private-equity fund manager. And there’s no question that this would help him make economic policy. But that’s hardly the same as winning over voters who are struggling financially, which is what most people have in mind when they say the economy will be a challenge for McCain.
In fact, with the exception of Michigan, where Romney had home-court advantage, McCain–he who allegedly struggles with downscale voters–almost always did better than Romney among the middle- and working-class, while Romney tended to do better with the country-club set. I wrote about this just after the Florida primary.
And Romney’s record on financial matters while actually Governor of Massachusetts is far from stellar. High taxes/fees and mixed reviews from Mass. voters is the ugly underbelly of Mitt’s “economic expertise.”
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It is about time someone tells it like it really is. Romney’s record as Governor of Mass is abysmal when it comes to Economic issues.
But he is good at business you say? Just ask all those people who lost their jobs when he bought their company and then sold it off in pieces. Of course that makes him rich but it really didn’t help anyone else now did it?
Romney took office when the Massachusetts economy was in a recession and losing thousands of jobs every month. When he left office four years later, the economy was healthy and adding thousands of jobs every month. The turnaround was remarkable!
He also inherited a $3 billion budget deficit. He erased the gap without raising taxes. Instead, he aggressively cut spending, and he tripled the state’s “rainy day” reserves from $600 million to $2 billion. Wall Street responded with a credit rating upgrade.
This is the type of common-sense management we could use in Washington.
Romney’s just trying to save face since he spent over $32 million for his own presidential aspirations, only to be knocked out of the race by his Moron underwear critics and voters.
…Mormon underwear