In Mackinac, It's Romney vs. McCain
MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. – While nat'l GOP primary polls show what could become a protracted fight between Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, this weekend’s Republican Leadership Conference in MI revealed that right now the battle there might boil down to Mitt Romney and John McCain.
Unlike the three GOPers who spoke before McCain, cameras didn’t swarm the senator when he made his way to the podium in the sprawling dining room of Mackinac’s Grand Hotel. He may have been last in the order of the WH contenders on the docket with his 9/22 p.m. pitch, but attendees gave him the warmest reception and buzzed about it afterward.
“I think John McCain gave the best speech I’ve ever seen him give," MI GOP Chair Saul Anuzis said to reporters 9/23 a.m. "I told him that. It was from the heart, it was well-delivered.”
Anuzis said McCain needed this kind of boost by indicating that there was some “anguish” among McCain supporters in the state leading up to the weekend’s event due to last week’s resignation by McCain’s former state chair, MI AG Mike Cox.
Despite Romney’s fierce opposition last week to invitations extended to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come before the U.N. General Assembly and also speak to students at Columbia University, it was McCain who got the most mileage out of the flap when he broached the issue. Romney’s speech only brushed on terrorism and didn’t get into specifics like McCain did on the Ahmadinejad visit. McCain’s comment that “I certainly think that a man who is threatening… and killing American troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university” earned him one of the few standing ovations awarded at the gathering.
Romney, meanwhile, paraded into the venue on 9/22 a.m., entering as “Michigan’s favorite son.” Anuzis offered: “I think he gave a good speech. It wasn’t the best speech I’ve ever heard, but he didn’t screw anything up either. But the enthusiasm was there from his supporters.”
And Anuzis pointed out that Romney was the only candidate to really work the dining room before taking the stage. ”You could see people noticing that, and I think that was a really good strategy,” he said. “He was the only one who did it, which I was, to be honest with, surprised.”
Differences in techniques over the weekend aside, both Romney and McCain curry favor with the state GOP because both campaigns have had staff there for more than a year and have energized voters there. That has helped to build the party and raise into the millions for it.
For McCain, it wasn’t just a strong performance or the recent presence of staffers there that helped propel him to second place in the Hotline’s straw poll there this weekend. His primary victory over George W. Bush in 2/00 has left him with a solid footing there nearly eight years later. Romney’s strength in the state, meanwhile, stems from his roots. He and wife Ann grew up there together, and his father, George, was gov in the '60s.
Both campaigns bussed in a healthy dose of college students and came up with a 1-2 finish in the poll. Romney won a 39-percent plurality from the nearly 1,000 votes, and McCain garnered close to 27 percent. Ron Paul and Giuliani came in third and fourth, respectively, with about 11 percent each; Thompson managed just seven percent for a fifth-place finish. Anuzis explained that the composition probably reflects where the activists in the state fall with respect to the candidates, but not necessarily where the voters are.
Charges flew at certain times about the infusion of volunteers registered on behalf of certain campaigns, but Anuzis waved that off. “Everybody was bringing people up,” he said, whether they were volunteers or College Republicans, and Duncan Hunter was no exception.
“This is not an easy place to bring people in and leave,” Anuzis advised. “It’s a very expensive process in that a lot of people have to stay here the whole time.”
Due to the new ethics package, the cost to fly in privately would near $20,000 per candidate, likely causing second-tier candidates like Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee to skip the confab in favor of other events, which may have been mildly injurious to them in the straw poll.
McCain was believed to have flown in on a commercial airline, and he arrived on 9/21 p.m. He didn’t hop aboard a horse-drawn carriage to return to the mainland until 9/23 a.m., giving him the entire weekend to rub elbows with highly tuned-in MI GOPers. Rivals Giuliani, Thompson and Romney just swooped in for a partial day to give their speeches and attend events centered around them.
Moving Up Michigan
In the '00 primary, a hefty percentage of Dems and indies crossed over and voted for McCain because it was "open." This year, just after IA holds it caucus and NH conducts its primary, MI holds its partially closed primary on 1/15.
Romney told supporters on 9/22 a.m. that he considers MI's earlier primary “a good piece news.” Many acknowledged that Dems tend not to agree, and there’s a struggle with the nat'l party to figure out how to allow the party’s WH contenders to campaign there without rumpling feathers in other early primary states. Most of the Dem campaigns have said they will forego campaigning there to honor the traditional calendar.
Anuzis warned that could be a huge mistake. “We’re just taking advantage of it,” he said, explaining that Michigan’s high percentage of swing voters makes the state competitive and has made it one of the Dems' “key electoral states.”
In '04, Anuzis explained, John Kerry had to spend money getting back to MI to drum up support and ensure that he would win there, subtracting Election Day time he could spend in OH. The same thing befell Al Gore in MI when he was trying to draw out every voter in FL, according to Anuzis. Still, the last time Dems lost the state was '88.
It’s The Economy, Stupid
McCain might have made inroads with his 9/22 p.m. performance, but the direct appeals to Michiganders were made most forcefully by Romney and Giuliani.
“For me Michigan is a personal matter,” Romney said at several appearances on 9/22. “The fact that Michigan is undergoing in a one-state recession is not acceptable to me.” He declared his love for both the state and the automobile industry and said, “If I’m lucky enough to be the next president of the United States, I’m going to work hard to make sure Michigan gets back on top.”
Under Romney’s watch as RGA chair in '06, Republican Dick DeVos was unable to overcome Dem incumbent Jennifer Granholm , even though it was at one point considered to be a golden pickup opportunity. DeVos, who dined at the same table as Romney on 9/22, said after the session that there was no bad blood between them and that he couldn’t make a decision to support McCain, Romney or Giuliani for president because they had all helped in his election and “it’s hard to pick between friends.”
And in his official 9/22 lunchtime address, Romney told listeners, “If you like what Gov. Granholm has done to Michigan, you’ll love what a President Hillary Clinton would do in America.”
Giuliani took a more direct approach in his 9/21 p.m. address. “I can get you a new governor,” he declared, sighing “maybe next time.” Though he was the first headliner to address the entire conference, buzz about Giuliani was over when the program picked back up on Saturday.
He did pick up on one thing, though, which was the need to stress the economy. He compared the state’s conditions to those of NYC's in the '90s when he took the reins as mayor, although he did acknowledge there were different factors at play. He began his lengthy speech with a focus on economic issues, outlining for attendees that he intends to focus on lower taxes, smaller government, less regulation and “realizing that business is not the enemy.”
Romney and Giuliani also each spoke to their strategies in winning the general election as another selling point. While both said Michigan would be important to their general-election campaigns, Giuliani said he was the candidate who could employ a 50-state strategy, while Romney said both the coasts would remain blue, but that having come from the Midwest, he could put its states – especially Michigan – in play [ERIN McPIKE].
