Romney faces lengthy to-do list as likely GOP pick

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney talks to reporters on his cam­paign plane en route from Tampa, Fla. to Min­nesota and Nevada in Feb­ru­ary. Rom­ney faces a daunt­ing to-do list as he tran­si­tions into the role of likely Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee: raise more money, hire more peo­ple to work states crit­i­cal in the fall race, hone his mes­sage for broad-spectrum appeal, while fend­ing off GOP chal­lengers who refuse to quit, think­ing about a run­ning mate, and refin­ing a strat­egy to win the 270 elec­toral votes needed for the White House. (AP Photo/Gerald Her­bert, File)

THOMAS BEAUMONT

Asso­ci­ated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — Mitt Rom­ney faces a daunt­ing to-do list as he tran­si­tions into the role of likely Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nominee.

Among the tasks: Raise as much money as pos­si­ble for the gen­eral elec­tion cam­paign against Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. Hire more peo­ple and send them to the most crit­i­cal states in the fall race. Hone his mes­sage to appeal to vot­ers across the polit­i­cal spectrum.

And do it all quickly while fend­ing off chal­lenges from GOP rivals who refuse to quit the pri­mary race.

Obama, with the advan­tages of an incum­bent, is well ahead of Rom­ney on fundrais­ing, orga­ni­za­tion and broad pitches to vot­ers. So Rom­ney can be expected to spend part of his time over the next three weeks try­ing to catch up. There’s a break in the pri­maries last­ing until April 24, when sev­eral North­east­ern states vote.

Rom­ney also must start think­ing about a run­ning mate and strat­egy to amass the 270 elec­toral votes needed to win the White House on Nov. 6.

The for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor must pre­pare to put his imprint on the Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee and fig­ure out how to achieve unity with a con­ser­v­a­tive base that has resisted his can­di­dacy. In the gen­eral elec­tion, party loy­al­ists will be counted on to raise money and get out the vote.

“I do think the Rom­ney team is think­ing about how they put in place their fall cam­paign,” said Terry Nel­son, a for­mer top aide to Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. “But they clearly have some con­tests to get through, so they won’t be able to turn their eyes entirely to that.”

There’s lit­tle ques­tion that Rom­ney will clinch the nom­i­na­tion in June, if not ear­lier. He has a wide lead in the race for the 1,144 del­e­gates required to secure the GOP nom­i­na­tion. But chief rival Rick San­to­rum says he’ll press on at least through the end of the month. Penn­syl­va­nia, which he rep­re­sented in the House and Sen­ate, votes April 24, along with Con­necti­cut, Delaware, New York and Rhode Island.

In hopes of con­vinc­ing Repub­li­cans it’s time to rally behind Rom­ney, lead­ing Repub­li­cans such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wis­con­sin have endorsed him recently; both are viewed as poten­tial run­ning mates. For­mer Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri has said he would back Rom­ney and Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad may announce his sup­port soon.

Rom­ney is sound­ing more like a gen­eral elec­tion can­di­date each day. “It isn’t about one per­son or about even one party,” he said last week. “We’re Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats in this cam­paign, but we’re all con­nected with one des­tiny for America.”

After a break for the Easter hol­i­day, Rom­ney is expected to plunge back into fundrais­ing in New York and South Florida. That’s none too soon for Repub­li­cans, given Obama’s fundrais­ing advantage.

“Ulti­mately, the thing we have to focus on is get­ting the gen­eral elec­tion money raised,” said Brian Bal­lard, of Florida, one of Romney’s top fundraisers.

Obama, with­out a Demo­c­ra­tic chal­lenger, has been free to raise money strictly for the gen­eral elec­tion. He’s so far raised more than $300 mil­lion for his re-election cam­paign and the Demo­c­ra­tic National Com­mit­tee. Rom­ney can’t raise cash for the Repub­li­cans until he clinches the nom­i­na­tion, but he’s brought in more than $75 mil­lion for his campaign.

Rom­ney aides said solic­i­ta­tions for gen­eral elec­tion dona­tions were start­ing to go out.

Obama showed his fundrais­ing clout recently by spend­ing about $1.4 mil­lion on TV ads in Col­orado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada and Vir­ginia that crit­i­cize Rom­ney. An out­side group that sup­ports Obama also is run­ning ads attack­ing Rom­ney in those states, as well as in Michi­gan and New Mexico.

Illus­trat­ing the dis­par­ity, Romney’s team responded to the Obama ad with a state­ment pro­mot­ing an Inter­net attack video.

It’s not just money where Rom­ney lags.

The president’s re-election team has opened offices and assem­bled teams of work­ers in Ohio, Florida and other crit­i­cal states. The cam­paign has mapped out the com­bi­na­tion of states it will com­pete in as it works to reach the 270 elec­toral votes needed for victory.

“No ques­tion Mitt Rom­ney is the best-organized Repub­li­can I’ve seen in a long time, but that’s not the ques­tion,” said Florida Repub­li­can cam­paign strate­gist Susie Wiles, a senior Rom­ney adviser in the state. “The ques­tion is not whether he is orga­nized. It is whether he can iden­tify his sup­port­ers and get them to vote bet­ter than the Obama peo­ple. I wouldn’t bet against him.”

Romney’s team is tight-lipped about how he can get to 270. It also won’t dis­cuss when and where staff will go in the com­ing weeks or when it will run ads in the most con­tested states.

That’s prob­a­bly because there isn’t a defin­i­tive plan — or maybe even a ten­ta­tive one.

Repub­li­cans expect Rom­ney will com­pete most vig­or­ously in Col­orado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, Vir­ginia, Michi­gan and New Mex­ico, states con­sid­ered among the most con­tested in the gen­eral election.

Obama won all eight in 2008 against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. In 2004, all but Michi­gan were car­ried by Bush dur­ing the Repub­li­can president’s re-election. Repub­li­cans say Rom­ney sees Ohio, Michi­gan, New Mex­ico, Ari­zona and Col­orado as fer­tile ground this year.

Rom­ney aides say they’ve lined up staff to send out to states once Rom­ney secures the nom­i­na­tion, and the cam­paign is prepar­ing the first floor of its three-story Boston head­quar­ters for the influx.

Some key play­ers have returned to states, such as Romney’s Florida direc­tor Matthew Parker. And, aides point out, Rom­ney has loyal activists and a net­work of sup­port­ers in key bat­tle­ground states where he won pri­maries such as Florida and Ohio.

At the same time, the RNC is open­ing coor­di­nated cam­paign offices in Florida and other bat­tle­ground states, and has spent more than a year rais­ing mil­lions to sup­port the even­tual nom­i­nee. But Rom­ney and the RNC are barred from coor­di­nat­ing until the nom­i­na­tion is in hand. Even so, the can­di­date and the party are enter­ing a joint fundrais­ing agree­ment to get ready for that day.

Once Rom­ney seizes the nom­i­na­tion, he’s expected to have lit­tle trou­ble tak­ing over the party, con­sid­er­ing his cam­paign man­ager, com­mu­ni­ca­tion direc­tor and polit­i­cal direc­tor all are RNC veterans.

But an alliance with the RNC doesn’t mean the party’s rank-and-file will auto­mat­i­cally rally behind Romney.

Vet­eran GOP pres­i­den­tial cam­paign strate­gist Mary Matalin said Rom­ney needs to anchor his sched­ule with “uni­fy­ing events” that focus on the con­ser­v­a­tive establishment.

In a sign that Rom­ney knows he has work to do on this front, he has sched­uled an appear­ance before the National Rifle Association’s annual meet­ing on April 13.

Posted by AP News on Apr 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.