With yesterday being a day of love, Mitt Romney has been touting a deep love affair with his birth state of Michigan. But a recent poll just ahead of the Michigan primary suggests the love feelings are not mutual.
The February 28th Michigan primary is likely a make or break state for the native son Romney, whose father was once a popular governor there. But guess who’s currently leading in the polls? Rick Santorum!
According to the American Research Group, Santorum is holding a comfortable lead over Romney in Michigan among likely Republican primary voters with 33% compared to Romney’s 27%. Newt Gingrich is currently finishing in 3rd place with 21%, followed by Ron Paul with 12%. A new CNN poll has Romney and Santorum in a virtual tie nationwide.
Interestingly, other nationwide polls are delivering Romney the same somber message. A New York Times/CBS News poll has Santorum’s Michigan lead at 30% compared to 27% for Romney. The New York Times credits this surge to an overwhelming amount of conservatives, evangelical Christians and Tea Party supporters now believing Santorum best represents their staunch positions.
Michigan is a heavy Tea Party state, which has strengthened Santorum’s bid to claim front runner status and the eventual Republican nomination. But there is another factor in play that has caused Michigan voters to turn their support toward Rick Santorum — Romney’s big mouth!
During the near collapse of the auto industry, Romney promised Michigan voters that he would stand by their side, save their jobs and get them through that difficult time. But once Romney lost the 2008 GOP nomination to John McCain, he had a case of amnesia and turned his back on his former words and the auto workers in Michigan. Romney wrote a 2008 op-ed column in the New York Times entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” saying “If General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.” Michigan voters were not amused and vowed to make him pay for selling them out. Now, they are prepared to collect on their debt.
Romney has called the Michigan primary “personal for me,” while political pundits have called it a must win. The ever shifting climate within the GOP in their quest for the 1144 delegates needed to secure the nomination, still has President Obama and his campaign operatives grinning from ear to ear.
Correct on ALL points DJ!…especially your point about Mitt's BIG mouth and his "severely" asinine comments regarding (at the time) the collasping auto industry. The man has no shame..smh. He will SAY and DO almost anything to win but ironically it keeps backfiring on him! So how does he respond to his falling poll numbers? He doubles down on the "SAY anything/DO anything" strategy to win and the Michigan primary later this month could end up being a political nightmare for him. You know. The more I see of Mitt the more I'm convinced that the phony Mitt IS the REAL Mitt. In other words: Outside of loving his family (being a faithful husband and a good father) he's probably been shape-shifting ALL of his life. He displays No core beliefs, principles or values when it comes to the role of government. He can't seem to articulate any real purpose for even running for President!?! He wants to be President for the sake of being President. That's it. No ideas. No vision. No actual stand on ANY issue. No real policies. Just. Nothing.
As I stated in my previous post, the man will SAY and DO almost anything to win BUT it keeps backfiring on him…smh.Byron York: "Team Romney attack on Santorum backfires" On Wednesday afternoon, the Romney campaign will hold a conference call featuring Michigan leaders discussing Rick Santorum's "record of increased government spending and earmarks." The call will include Hilllsdale College professor Gary Wolfrem, Oakland County chief executive Brooks Patterson, and Michigan state Rep. Aric Nesbitt.The key similarity among them: None has served in the U.S. House or Senate, and thus none has had to vote on increased government spending and earmarks.The same cannot be said of the current and former members of Congress who often speak on Romney's behalf on such calls. The Romney campaign discovered the risk of enlisting those lawmakers on Tuesday, when it held a call in which former Rep. and Sen. Jim Talent denounced Santorum's spending record. Among the targets of Talent's criticism was Santorum's support of the Medicare prescription drug entitlement. "He voted for Medicare Part D, a big expansion of a federal entitlement," Talent said of Santorum.The problem was, Talent himself was in the Senate at the time, and he also voted for Medicare Part D. When reporters brought up that fact, Talent explained that he wasn't running against Santorum — Romney was. (See the Weekly Standard's <span>"Romney Surrogate Attacks Santorum for Voting the SAME way He Did"</span>. Whatever the explanation, there's no doubt Talent's record undermined his criticism of Santorum, and in the end the episode highlighted why Santorum will be more difficult for the Romney team to attack than Newt Gingrich. […]Read: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/…
Like Romney, some of his sane and just-as-disingenuous Repub cohorts on Capitol Hill finds themselves in a similar *damned-if-you-DO and damned-if-you-DON'T* quandry. Yep. Pandering to haters, ignoramuses and nutjobs takes a special kind of STUPID.Steve Kornacki: "What a GOP cave looks like"The House’s top Republicans desperately want to retreat on the payroll tax – if the Tea Party lets them <span>[…] </span>Since the 112th Congress was seated more than a year ago, the Republican House Conference has served as a generally reliable reflection of the Tea Party movement’s passions and priorities. A significant chunk of its members — mainly freshmen, but also some veterans — are explicitly aligned with the movement, while those who aren’t know better than to break too loudly or too publicly with it, lest they fall victim to a primary challenge. This is why Speaker John Boehner, a Capitol Hill lifer whose political biography invites automatic Tea Party suspicion, has been repeatedly forced to subordinate his best judgment to the zeal of purity-obsessed rank-and-filers. And it’s why Boehner’s surprise decision yesterday to support a payroll tax cut extension even if it’s not paid for represents a real gamble — one that seems grounded in a reasonable calculation but that still has the potential to create another serious political mess for him and his party. […]Read: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/14/what_a_gop_cave_l…OF COURSE they want to retreat! If only the "Tea Party" would let them. Lol. Too funny.