Romney has spent much of the past few days telling reporters and crowds around the state that he will be happy with the so-called silver medal. There are many Olympics references on the Romney bus, including stump-speech tangents about the financial and security successes he engineered while running the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002. In fact, the governor often points to his experience with Olympic security in the aftermath of September 11 whenever reporters ask him about his relatively thin foreign-policy résumé.
Perhaps that’s just Romney’s way of lowering expectations as he wages a two-front war: battling former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in Iowa and Arizona Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire. Romney’s handlers are rushing to put the best spin possible on a runner-up finish in both places, while also getting in jabs at Romney’s rivals. “It’s tight there in New Hampshire, just as it’s tight here with Mike Huckabee,” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told NEWSWEEK. “McCain, he won New Hampshire in 2000. Gov. Romney has never run for anything there before.” Fehrnstrom also pointed out that, unlike his two main opponents, Romney is fighting in both Iowa and New Hampshire. “It’s interesting that both Mike Huckabee and John McCain have adopted one-state strategies and Gov. Romney hasn’t because he’s more broadly appealing.”
But if it’s a two-front fight, Romney seems to be swinging much harder in Iowa; he saves his best punches for Huckabee. At a press availability in the Quad Cities Wednesday, Romney was quick to deride Huckabee for being “more focused on the caucus in Los Angeles than the caucus in Iowa.” While Romney contrasts his views on taxes and immigration with McCain’s legislative record on the same issues, he is always quick to note that McCain is an honorable person. He seems to be following an unwritten rulebook for Iowa, where voters reward candidates for playing nice and might frown on an attack on a war hero—even when he has just unleashed a frightening ad questioning your foreign-policy experience. “I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over ads,” Romney said when asked his reaction to what a reporter called “one of the scariest ads” in decades. But Romney also showed some uncharacteristic testiness when pushed on his foreign-policy experience, saying, “You know my record” in a tight voice.
Kaufman told NEWSWEEK that the Romney campaign is not any more concerned about New Hampshire than any other state. “They all worry me,” he says. Yet Kaufman is surprisingly candid about the possibility of a loss. “If we lose it’s because [Huckabee has] had a lead for three, four weeks now … and we needed a little bit more time. It’s clearly closer today than it was a week ago; it’s closer today than it was two weeks ago.”
The Romney camp does not much care for references to the bushels of cash the candidate has plunked down in the hope of carrying the caucuses. His advisers prefer to talk about how much time he’s spent in the trenches. “He’s worked harder than the other guys combined, pretty much,” Kaufman said. “He’s been here … Iowans in general really do appreciate the hard work. They appreciate that you build an organization brick by brick, stone by stone, precinct by precinct. They appreciate that. So while you all like to focus on money, for whatever reason, the Iowans focus on ‘This man’s earned this job’.” Still, Kaufman seems braced for the notion that his candidate could well come in second.
Huckabee’s strong support among evangelicals remains a key variable in the equation. Pundits credit the Arkansan with a loose-knit but potentially large get-out-the-vote network among churchgoers and home-schoolers. But the depth and breadth of the network is hard to judge. Georgia Carr, a Springville, Iowa, resident who traveled to Cedar Rapids Wednesday to watch Romney speak to a few dozen supporters and a phalanx of journalists, said she home-schools her children and no one has asked her to change her vote. “There’s a lot of very conservative, Christian people that are home-schooling that obviously are leaning toward Gov. Huckabee. But there has not been any organized campaign through the Home School Association in this area to elect [him]. Nothing has been said. They’ve remained unbiased.”
The electorate’s reaction to Romney’s Mormon background also remains an X factor. The campaign has continued to roll out Romney’s telegenic children in a fairly transparent effort to neutralize any fears that Mormons are somehow not like the rest of the country. In the Cedar Rapids airport hangar yesterday, Craig Romney, who looks as though he could be a J. Crew model, was made available to local reporters from Channel One. A top Romney adviser looked on smilingly as Craig told the eastern Iowa television market that he hopes his father’s Dallas speech on his religion “solved a lot of people’s fears.” Maybe, maybe not. Ruth Boyenga, an elderly supporter in Mason City, said she is worried her neighbors’ biases will keep Romney from the nomination. “I ran into one [neighbor] today who said Mormons own Las Vegas,” she said. “I thought, ‘That’s stupid’ … I have Mormons in my family. I know they give up their life for their church … I hope it doesn’t hurt him.” Ruth and her husband Marvin, a retired car dealership owner, said they like Romney for his business experience and tough anti-immigrant stance.
Romney hoped to find more folks like the Boyengas, running hard right up until the end. At events in Mason City, the Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids Wednesday, crowds were surprisingly sparse. Fehrnstrom explained: “The purpose of today’s events is to visit different media markets in Iowa. All of our turnout activity is focused on the caucus, not these events.” Maybe. But this morning on the press bus there was much gossiping about the fact that only about 800 supporters showed up at a Romney rally in Des Moines Wednesday night—despite the presence of Olympic speed skater Dan Jansen and the five Romney sons. The former governor will need more than a medalist on the dais if he hopes to capture the gold.
