(See updates below--Rush on McCain--strong words)Mitt Romney will be [unofficial as yet] speaking at Harry Caray's downtown Chicago on Saturday, February 2nd between 8:30-9:30 AM. The picture here is one I took the last time I met Governor Romney at a rally in Chicagoland a few months ago.
His son Josh was in Peoria and Bloomington yesterday:
Josh said that his father “wants to bring the troops home [from Iraq] as fast as we can,” but that he doesn’t want to do it in any way that might render the troops or the United States vulnerable to a terrorist attack.I worked with Sen. Dan Rutherford's team helping out in Iowa earlier, and met Speaker Hastert there as well, a major Romney-backer:
Josh touted his father’s private sector experience as a business executive and experience as governor of Massachusetts, claiming that in those roles he has “gotten things done.” He emphasized his father’s Massachusetts health care reform initiatives and his inheritance of a deficit upon beginning his term, which he ended with a surplus.
Although many political experts have expressed doubt about the feasibility of Romney’s winning the nomination, Josh said that his father will gain the nomination because he is the only Republican vying for it who is conservative on fiscal issues, foreign policy issues and social issues. He said that his father, who has won the Republican caucus in Wyoming and the Republican primary in his home state of Michigan, is currently in a “two man race” with Sen. McCain.
The Chicago Tribune has a story this morning "In GOP, some averse to McCain politics, manner". I would merely point out that aside from national security and porkbusting, Sen. McCain advocates big government solutions for the issues of the day--McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and most recently McCain-Lieberman which would sock us with crushing energy costs. Gov. Romney had this to say yesterday:
“Instead of seeing if there’s a way of stimulating the economy, McCain-Lieberman would depress the economy. His plan calls for a new financial burden to be placed on people who are purchasing gasoline or for that matter natural gas to heat their homes or to cook in their homes. The energy information agency has said that his plan would cost America 300,000 jobs. In addition, people would pay, they estimate, approximately 50 cents per gallon more for gasoline and 20% more for their gas utility bill. That would depress the economy just at a time when we’re trying to stimulate the economy.”Illinois already has some of the highest gas prices in the country. As far as straight talk, Sen. McCain disgraced himself on that score this weekend, and Senator McCain has been in Washington a long time--his major contributors are lawyer-lobbyists, once again pairing him with Hillary Clinton. WSJ:
Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton led all others with donations from lobbyists. Mrs. Clinton collected $568,000 from lobbyists, while Mr. McCain has $340,000.
The latest Rasmussen poll show Gov. Romney tied nationally {scratch that--up two from yesterday--Romney leads McCain nationally) among Republicans, and his electability number has risen as well:
Romney is now seen as the most electable Republican candidate—76% believe he would be at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated. Sixty-eight percent (68%) say the same about McCain. Earlier in the week, both men were viewed as at least somewhat likely to win by 69%.
The economy is far and away the top issue for voters. The race is a dead heat in Florida, which votes tomorrow. The only current Illinois poll shows McCain leading Romney 31-20 with a significant number of undecided voters at 18%, presumably among them some Fredheads. A number of Thompson supporters have come on board the last few days, notably David McIntosh, a former Congressman from neighboring Indiana and co-founder of the Federalist Society--a voice for strict constructionist judges.
Romney decisively won the Illinois straw poll last August at the State Fair, evidence of his strong support and organization.
To volunteer, go here. More info at Illinoisans For Mitt Romney blog.
UPDATE: Rush says McCain is getting the Blue-blood Country Club Republican vote--the Jurassic Park Republicans. He says Florida Gov. Charlie Crist ran as a conservative, is governing as a Democrat. Says Teddy Kennedy was torn on whether to endorse Obama or McCain....Rush says McCain was totally dishonest, a blatant OUT and OUT LIE. Even the drive-bys couldn't stomach it. Loves NRO's Andrew McCarthy's great stuff--"McCain should not be able to mention the other candidates 30 days before the primary"
UPDATE: Found the quote:
I'm starting to think Sen. McCain should not be allowed to mention the other candidates' names within 30 days before a primary. I mean, he levels an allegation about Romney that's just flat not true, and if some organization wanted to run an add calling him on it, they would be in violation of his "reform" of campaign finance regulations. What a racket!
UPDATE: Rush says McCain is contemptible.
Turn on Rush--McCain is Clintonesque.
(He is going back and forth on Hillary--MSM allies claiming gender bias on Hillary's appearance. I noted this yesterday.)
UPDATE: Rasmussen on national polling--Romney leads 28-26. And this:
Nationally, Romney leads McCain 36% to 21% among conservatives likely to vote in a Republican Primary. McCain leads Romney 41% to 12% among moderate voters. The good news for Romney is that there are more conservatives than moderates.
UPDATE: AP gets snarky, "Fight for Florida":
McCain is expected to do well in areas with a strong military presence—Pensacola, Jacksonville and Tampa. He's also hoping for a strong turnout in Miami, with its Cuban-American population, and Orlando, a melting pot with a strong Puerto Rican community. Romney is fighting for the southwest part of the state around Fort Myers and Sarasota; it's much like the Midwest, where he was raised. Another likely stronghold for him, Palm Beach and Broward County, home to many Northeastern transplants. Up for grabs is the corridor between Tampa and Daytona Beach along Interstate 4, a swing part of the state that has seen much growth and is home to roughly two-thirds of the Republican primary vote. Romney was in West Palm Beach while McCain was in Jacksonville as they set out on their final full day of Florida campaigning. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Mitt Romney and John McCain accused each other Monday of harboring liberal tendencies, a charge bordering on blasphemy in the increasingly caustic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.[snip]
UPDATE: WaPo, The Trail: Romney Paints McCain as Flip-Flopper. This reporter is totally in the tank for McCain. Here's his earlier post on Mitt. At least this is a decent quote, but as usual reporters brought up Romney's religion. If the pope died, would Giuliani be asked about it?:
Responding to questions from reporters, Romney spoke of meeting Hinckley when the former governor ran the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, and talking to him on the eve of launching his presidential run.
According to Romney, Hinckley told him a presidential run "would be a great experience if you won and a great experience if you lost."
UPDATE: John Fund, WSJ, Can McCain Make Peace with Conservatives?:
John McCain has to decide just how comfortable he wants the conservative base of the Republican Party to be with his candidacy. Although he touts his conservative credentials on the campaign trail, it's no secret that Mr. McCain has often sought an arm's-length relationship with many conservatives. Should he lose the Florida primary on Tuesday, it will be in no small part because he didn't do more to seek an accommodation with conservatives.
A good litmus test of how Mr. McCain's relationship with conservatives stands will come at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, which opens Feb. 7, just two days after the Super Tuesday primaries.
Last year's CPAC proved a disaster for Mr. McCain. He upset the organizers by first rejecting their invitation to speak and then trying to rent a room at the same hotel so he could host a reception for the conference's delegates. CPAC officials believed the McCain camp's motivation was to avoid having television cameras recording him "pandering" to the conservative activists while letting him schmooze them one-on-one behind closed doors. The ploy failed because the hotel didn't have a suitable room available for the senator.
UPDATE: Rush says Ted Kennedy in his endorsement of Obama is quoting Ronald Reagan.
UPDATE: One more quote from John Fund:
More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."
Therein lies the problem that many conservatives have with John McCain. It is the nagging feeling that after all of his years of chummily bonding with liberal reporters and garnering favorable media coverage from them that the Arizona senator is embarrassed to be seen as too much of a conservative.
What guts. NOT. And we will face 4 years of his using the language of the left to trash us when convenient for him.
UPDATE: Rush--McCain doesn't understand conservatives, because he doesn't have a conservative governing philosophy. Conservatives are a movement--we're not politicos. He doesn't understand how much he has offended us by his behavior in the Senate....Rush--if McCain is elected president, Republicans in Congress would be helpless, they won't want to bash their the president of their own party (of course McCain does this, Rush says) but most Republicans won't. And meanwhile, McCain will be working with Democrats on legislation against us...Rush says he's never met McCain--this is not personal.
UPDATE: NY Times The Caucus, Romney links McCain with John Kerry:
“I don’t think McCain is a Democrat,” Mr. Romney said. “I do recall a story that he was thinking about being John Kerry’s running mate. He gave that some thought. Had someone asked me that question, there would not have been a nano-second of thought about it. It would have been an immediate laugh.”
Mr. Romney added: “So we are different. I’m a conservative.”
UDPATE: New Romney release [rebuttal to McCain attack outlined in the AP story above: McCain answered swiftly in a statement to The Associated Press. He accused the former Massachusetts governor of "wholesale deception of voters. On every one of the issues he has attacked us on, Mitt Romney was for it before he was against it." He added, "The truth is, Mitt Romney was a liberal governor of Massachusetts who raised taxes, imposed with Ted Kennedy a big government mandate health care plan that is now a quarter of a billion dollars in the red, and managed his state's economy incompetently, leaving Massachusetts with less job growth than 46 other states."]
BY THE NUMBERS: 300,000 Newly Insured, More Health Care Options And Premiums Cut In Half Under The Massachusetts Health Care Plan:
BY THE NUMBERS: Governor Romney Cut Taxes 19 Times:
CAPITAL GAINS TAXES: Governor Romney Turned The Legislature's $250 Million Retroactive Capital Gains Tax Increase Into A $250 Million Tax Refund. (Governor Mitt Romney, Remarks At The Conservative Political Action Conference, Washington, D.C., 3/2/07)
INVESTMENT TAX CREDIT: Governor Romney Signed An Economic Stimulus Package Making The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Permanent. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Signs Economic Stimulus, Supplemental Budget Bills," Press Release, 11/26/03)
PROPERTY TAX RELIEF: Governor Romney Proposed And Signed Legislation Providing Property Tax Relief To Senior Citizens, Enabling Them To Keep Their Homes. (Office Of Governor Mitt Romney, "Romney Signs Bill To Give Seniors Tax Relief," Press Release, 11/20/05)
(More on taxes at link)
BY THE NUMBERS: $20 Billion For America's Energy Independence:
Governor Romney Proposed $20 Billion For Energy Research And To Make America Energy Independent. GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "Of course, taking off those burdens is only part of the solution. If we're going to be the world's greatest economic power, we also have to invest in the future. It's time for us to be bold. I will make a five-fold increase – from $4 billion to $20 billion – in our national investment in energy research, fuel technology, materials science, and automotive technology. Let's invest in our future." (Governor Mitt Romney, Remarks, Detroit, MI, 1/14/08)
Governor Romney Opposes A Bailout Of The Automobile Industry. GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "I am not open to a bail out, but I am open to a work out. Washington should not be a benefactor, but it can and must be a partner." (Governor Mitt Romney, Remarks, Detroit, MI, 1/14/08)
BY THE NUMBERS: Governor Romney Wins Among Conservatives And Republicans:
UPDATE: Kyle at MyManMitt has a round up of conservative commentators on McCain's dishonesty. Paul Mirengoff, Powerline says McCain has smeared Romney. Quin Hillyer, The American Spectator:
Now, as K-Lo points out at The Corner, Bill Bennett has joined a huge host of people who have concluded that John McCain today flat-out lied about Gov. Romney's position on the troop "surge," etc. This is no surprise. McCain's "straight talk express" has been anything but straight for quite some time now. He has been making false claims about what his position on immigration was just last summer. He has been making false claims about why he opposed Bush's tax cuts. He has been making false claims about Romney's stance on "torture." He has made misleading (not exactly false, but certainly misleading) representations about Giuliani's position on the line item veto. He has misrepresented his helpfulness on judicial nominations. And I know I am forgetting some of the other things he has not been exactly straight about.
UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune's Washington blog, Swamp cites NRO on the John Fund piece, and has the play by play in Florida today. Also, Rush cites a new poll out favoring Mitt, but I can't find it--missed the name.
UPDATE: Fellow Mitt bloggers passed it on: This Florida poll shows a HUGE lead for Romney, but who knows. Always nice to see hope for a blow out Rush just referred to the poll, although he said he had never heard of Datamar.
Romney 35.6%
McCain 23.2%
Giuliani 14.8%
Huckabee 13.2%
Here's the pdf: http://www.datamar.net/pdf
Undecided 6.9%. Don't see it up on RCP yet.
UPDATE: Tom Bevan, RCP: Mitt Loosens Up, Tries to Seal the Deal:
Romney is on the cusp of a big win in Florida, and it's clear he knows it. He was remarkably animated as he ran through his standard stump speech, obviously energized by the excitement in the crowd - a group that interrupted his fifteen-minute long remarks on five different occasions with chants of "Go, Mitt, Go!"
In many ways the last few days have been tough ones for his campaign; John McCain, in addition to racking up key endorsements from Senator Mel Martinez and Governor Charlie Crist, has been blasting Romney with the accusation that the former Massachusetts Governor supported "secret time lines" for withdrawal from Iraq - going so far as to compare Romney's position to that of Senator Hillary Clinton.
Romney insists the charge is untrue - and in fact most of the media organizations that have fact checked McCain's claim find it highly misleading - and has publicly called for McCain to apologize. But despite being knocked off stride by McCain's attacks, Romney continued push forward with a focus on the economy, and it seems to be paying off as the latest round of polls show him with upward movement.
UPDATE: Miami Herald, huge turnout projected, high early voting continues in Florida:
There are 10.2 million registered voters in Florida. Of those who had already voted by Sunday, nearly 474,000 are registered Republicans and 405,000 are Democrats. An additional 109,000 voters -- who are either registered with other parties or are independents -- have also voted on the property-tax amendment on the ballot.
The Republican edge isn't surprising, given that GOP candidates have descended on the state with bus trips, television ads and coast-to-coast campaigning. But the Democratic turnout has been boosted by an absentee-ballot effort by the Florida Democratic Party and by unions supporting Hillary Clinton that sent mailers to members urging that they vote. [snip]
At Southwest Regional Library in Pembroke Pines, a line snaked from inside the sprawling building onto the parking lot midafternoon. Mitt Romney yard signs dotted the grass and droves of voters spent long minutes looking for parking in the crowded lot.
UPDATE: Just heard a Ron Paul ad up on WLS, the Chicago radio with Rush.
UPDATE: Another new poll shows Romney up--apparently they almost alone were the most accurate on the Dems in South Carolina. PPP shows Mitt holding his lead despite McCain's low blow smear:
Mitt Romney 35
John McCain 28
Mike Huckabee 13
Rudy Giuliani 12
Ron Paul 5
Mitt Romney has opened up a seven point in Florida, based largely on support he has picked up in the last week. 40% of respondents said they made up their mind either over the weekend or in the last week. Romney has a 47-28 advantage among folks who said they decided who to vote for in the last week, and a 36-26 lead with people who decided over the weekend.
Romney also has a good amount of support in the bank, regardless of what happens in tomorrow's voting. His lead over McCain is 39-30 among the 25% of folks polled who said they had already voted.
UPDATE: Christian leader endorses Mitt (no it's not that lying for McCain skunk Mike Huckabee). Romney campaign:
Today, Randy Tate announced that he is endorsing Governor Mitt Romney for President of the United States. Tate is a former Congressman from Washington State and a past Executive Director of the Christian Coalition.UPDATE: Huckabee patronizes Southerners again, mocks Romney on eating at KFC and pulling the skin off the fried chicken. AP is unhinged on the subject. LA Times: Mitt Romney is human! (and they note that KFC had no broiled chicken left)
"It is an honor to join Governor Romney's campaign. In his four years as Governor of Massachusetts, I was impressed by Mitt Romney's willingness to take and defend conservative positions on pro-family and pro-growth issues. As President, I believe that Governor Romney will govern as a conservative committed to defeating the Jihadist threat, strengthening the family, uplifting the culture, and expanding the economy through free-market principles," said Tate.
UPDATE: New Survey USA Florida poll!!!!:
Romney 32 (+4 vs. last poll, Jan. 23-24)
McCain 31 (+1)
Giuliani 16 (-2)
Huckabee 13 (-1)
Paul 5 (-1)
RCP has adjusted with this last one, obviously they are not including every poll.
UPDATE: Some outrage at RedState on McCain's big lie. And sunny news from Gina in Gulf Breeze.
Related posts: Romney Gaining, Main St. for Mitt , Mitt's the Conservative Choice, GOP Illinois, Focus on the Race
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