What Romney needs to do now

By: Jonathan Martin and Reid J. Epstein April 11, 2012 04:27 AM EDT         Romney must now turn anti-Obama passion into enthusiastic support for his bid. | AP Photo

After a bruising primary season, Mitt Romney has finally become his party’s presumptive presidential nominee — but that doesn’t mean he can fully turn his attention to President Barack Obama. During a confusing and confounding winter and spring for the GOP, one truth has remained self-evident; the party is energetically united in wanting to evict Obama from the White House. But given that a less-than-stellar cast of opponents glaringly exposed Romney’s weaknesses among core Republican constituencies in contests that stretched from Minnesota to Mississippi, it’s imperative that he take public and private steps to ensure that he can turn that anti-Obama passion into enthusiastic, not pro forma, support. There are five key individuals and constituencies in the Republican Party that Romney must spend time courting between now and the Tampa convention to ensure the GOP is both unified and excited about his candidacy. Rick Santorum In the near term, the most important endorsement Romney must secure is that of his chief rival. “There’s no better way to wholesale move voters than to show those voters that their favorite is now reconciled with you as the nominee,” said Gary Bauer, a former White House candidate and leading Santorum backer. Santorum’s Tuesday withdrawal speech was conspicuously free of any mention of the party’s inevitable standard-bearer. That’s partly because Santorum wanted the day to be about his own improbable campaign. But the GOP primary left some blood on the floor and the former Pennsylvania senator is going to require some balm. Romney sought to start the healing process by beginning an event Tuesday night by assuring that his former rival would “continue to have a major role in the Republican Party.” With eleven victories, a slew of bound delegates and an important bloc of Christian conservatives backing his candidacy, Santorum certainly has some leverage. But he has needs, too — namely a pile of campaign debt he admitted to in an email to donors after he suspended his campaign on Tuesday. So the question for Romney becomes this: How does he bring Santorum and his supporters inside the tent at a moment when he also wants to appeal to a broader, general election audience? It could prove a tricky task. Some high-profile conservatives are warning Romney not to marginalize Santorum. “If they want to be successful, they have to figure out a way to incorporate him into the campaign,” said Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, noting that Santorum “could’ve held this thing out even longer.” That may mean prime time at the GOP convention this summer. “I think he should have a very prominent role there,” Perkins said. But even before Santorum left Gettysburg on Tuesday, some senior Republicans were fretting about the specter of Tampa being hijacked by one of the losing candidates and their supporters. “We can’t let somebody who’s a better performer upstage Romney,” said one influential party leader, recalling GOP conventions in 1976 (Ronald Reagan) and 1992 (Pat Buchanan) when the nominee’s message was stepped on by his chief primary opponent. “We can’t have another shrill speech like what Pat did in 1992 with our gender gap.” The base In exit polls throughout the primary, Romney consistently fared poorly with born-again Christians and the most conservative Republicans. But the hope in Boston is that such Republicans will turn out in droves at the polls to ensure Obama’s defeat. “Some of that will happen organically,” a Romney adviser said of the expected party coalescing. “Now in some ways, the biggest unifier of the Republican Party will be Barack Obama.” Still, the adviser allowed that Romney will have to make overtures to welcome conservative stalwarts aboard. “We need their enthusiasm and their passion and I think we need to turn a begrudging affiliation into enthusiastic support,” the adviser said. “I think that’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight but I think it will happen.” And indeed, many of the remaining unaffiliated, big-name Republicans began throwing their support behind Romney on Tuesday afternoon. Govs. Rick Scott of Florida and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana announced their support, along with Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who appeared with Romney at a GOP dinner outside Philadelphia. Next up will be a cascade of tea party stars — like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina — who will signal to the party’s most conservative elements that Romney is the choice. “We’ll get a guy like DeMint who has been kind of friendly but not really over the line,” a Romney campaign source said. The bigger issue for Romney is not whether he’ll win over the conservative skeptics, but whether he can maximize turnout among core Republicans. “It’s not that they’re going to abandon him, it’s that he needs to get the numbers up,” said longtime GOP strategist Frank Donatelli. Donatelli pointed out that 7 percent more self-identified Democrats voted than did self-identified Republicans in 2008 — the biggest disparity since Reagan’s 1980 landslide. Evangelical leaders say Romney must lead with his actions to ensure the base is fully engaged. “I don’t need stroking, I’m going to go all out for Gov. Romney,” Bauer said. “But as I told Sen. McCain four years ago, if you want somebody like me to be effective, then you’ve got to make it easier, not harder.” And the way to do that? “By sticking with the conservative message,” Bauer said. That includes discussing issues such as gay marriage, abortion and religious liberty, said longtime conservative thinker Jeff Bell, who has just written a book about the impact of social conservatism on American politics. “His advisers would like these issues to never come up but they will,” Bell said. “And he has to be unapologetic about them.” Some conservatives want to receive some assurances that Romney intends to do just that before getting on board. “The jury is still out,” Perkins said when asked whether Romney is committed to the conservative cultural agenda. He added: “If he hopes to garner even a portion of the enthusiasm Rick Santorum had behind his candidacy, it means he’s got to pick up the message behind Rick Santorum’s candidacy.” And Perkins rejects the notion that intense opposition to Obama is sufficient for Romney to win. “Negative motivation is not as strong as positive motivation,” he said. “Look at Santorum supporters — they didn’t simply do that because Barack Obama is president. They gave their time, money and sweat equity because of the message he carried.” Newt Gingrich Despite Santorum’s exit, Gingrich indicated Tuesday that he was sticking to his pledge to carry his campaign to Tampa. Given the former speaker’s waning relevance in the primary and movement toward Romney that had already begun to place before Santorum’s decision, such a promise may not matter much. But Gingrich, even at his low ebb, has a knack for garnering publicity. He could be a nuisance for Romney in the weeks ahead if not handled with care. Gingrich has made clear, in both his public comments and in a private meeting with Romney, that he’s realistic about his chances and is remaining in the race to have his voice heard. That means Boston must make him feel loved — or at least respected. “I think Newt wants to be part of the campaign,” Bell said. “He clearly wants to make his peace and help lead the crusade against Obama. Romney can accommodate that, and tell him they’ll listen to anything he has to say about the platform.” Noting Gingrich’s controversial support for the moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava in the high-profile New York special House race in 2009, Bell added: “Newt is a party unity type of person. He has a tendency to swing behind whoever the Republican nominee is in a race.” Still, some in the party fret about giving the often-undisciplined Gingrich too much of a high profile in Tampa, worrying he’ll veer off message from the podium. “Can you imagine Gingrich being told to vet his speech through Romney’s campaign staff?” asked one senior Republican. Ron Paul One of the most fascinating subtexts of the GOP primary has been the de facto non-aggression pact between Paul and Romney. While Paul has taken a few swipes at the former Massachusetts governor, they were mild compared with his all-out assault on the other Republicans in the race. Romney officials hope this era of good feeling continues into the fall and that the libertarian-leaning congressman doesn’t run as a third-party candidate or exhort his loyal followers to abandon the GOP. This can partly be done by Romney continuing to show the septuagenarian the respect he’s offered during the campaign. But Paul has at least two other interests: the ambitions of his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and the fate of his agenda. The first can be taken care of with a convention role. The latter is more delicate. “It’s not a quid pro quo thing, but [Paul] should know that the issues he raised in the primary, especially on monetary reform, will get attention,” said Bell. “Romney should make clear he’s open to looking at different options at the Fed.” The other issue with Paul: how to tame his youthful supporters, few of which have any allegiance to the GOP. Romney officials will have to spend some time and money in the next months minding state Republican conventions to ensure that the actual delegates elected to be on the floor in Tampa are truly loyal to him. “You don’t want to have closet Ron Paul delegates there,” Donatelli said. “We had to spend at least a half-million dollars after John McCain was the presumptive candidate on state convention stuff just to make sure real McCain people were elected as delegates.” The reluctant party regulars The last constituency Romney needs fully motivated should be the easiest one — the GOP establishment types who either endorsed him with little enthusiasm or held out during the entire primary. This includes the likes of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner. Romney got some help on this front Tuesday with the backing of Jindal and Scott and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. But the true test will be how soon the establishment figures dispense with the paper statements and stand shoulder to shoulder with Romney, serve as his surrogate and help him raise money. Romney advisers are conscious of what one called “the lack of enthusiasm meme” and want to kill it well before the convention.