Foreign policy at forefront is a Romney hurdle

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney makes com­ments on the killing of U.S. embassy offi­cials in Beng­hazi, Libya, while speak­ing in Jack­sonville, Fla. With protests at U.S. embassies and four Amer­i­cans dead, Rom­ney is sud­denly fac­ing a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion focused on a for­eign pol­icy cri­sis he gam­bled wouldn’t hap­pen. But it did hap­pen _ and at a bad time. Momen­tum in the race is on Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s side and Repub­li­cans are fret­ting over the state of their nominee’s cam­paign. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

STEVE PEOPLES, THOMAS BEAUMONT

Asso­ci­ated Press

BOSTON — With protests at U.S. embassies and four Amer­i­cans dead, Mitt Rom­ney is sud­denly fac­ing a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion focused on a for­eign pol­icy cri­sis he gam­bled wouldn’t happen.

It did — and at a bad time for the GOP hope­ful. Momen­tum in the race is on Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s side and Repub­li­cans are fret­ting over the state of their nominee’s campaign.

To shift the tra­jec­tory, Romney’s plan boils down to this: Spend big money on TV and work harder.

It’s unclear how long this round of Mid­dle East unrest will last and Romney’s aides con­cede the for­mer busi­ness­man may strug­gle to gain a polit­i­cal advan­tage should anti-American vio­lence con­tinue deep into the fall.

Despite inter­nal con­cerns, Rom­ney is pub­licly con­fi­dent and on Fri­day dis­missed a new flurry of polls show­ing him behind.

“We’re mak­ing progress,” he insisted dur­ing an early morn­ing inter­view with ABC’s George Stephanopou­los, adding that many peo­ple remain unde­cided and won’t make up their minds until the last minute. “I believe that as they look at who they believe can get this econ­omy strong again and cre­ate jobs again and ris­ing wages and take home pay for middle-income fam­i­lies, they’re going to say, I’ve got the best prospects for doing that. And I’ll get their nod.”

But by late Fri­day, a new poll by The New York Times and CBS News found that Rom­ney had lost his long­stand­ing edge to Obama on who vot­ers say is most likely to restore the econ­omy and cre­ate jobs. And the lat­est sur­veys from NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll showed Obama with a slight edge in Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

Untested on the inter­na­tional stage and with lim­ited for­eign pol­icy expe­ri­ence, Rom­ney staked his entire ratio­nale for his can­di­dacy on the notion that he can fix the nation’s dour econ­omy given his decades of work in the pri­vate sec­tor. He dou­bled down on that strat­egy when he chose as his run­ning mate House Bud­get Com­mit­tee Chair­man Paul Ryan, a 42-year-old Wis­con­sin con­gress­man with lit­tle inter­na­tional affairs experience.

Then, the unrest in Egypt and Libya flared, and Rom­ney accused Obama of apol­o­giz­ing for Amer­ica, his first state­ment mis­char­ac­ter­iz­ing events in Cairo before all the facts were known, includ­ing that a beloved U.S. ambas­sador to Libya had died. Rom­ney drew crit­i­cism from Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats alike.

Sev­eral Repub­li­cans, includ­ing Ari­zona Sen. John McCain, have urged Rom­ney to give a major for­eign affairs speech lay­ing out his cri­tique of Obama. But the cam­paign has no plans for any major pol­icy speeches that break major new ground before the debates.

Romney’s for­eign pol­icy bob­ble was the lat­est in a series of recent mis­steps. He stum­bled through a sum­mer trip abroad that had been intended to show he could lead on the world stage. Then, he became the first Repub­li­can since 1952 to accept his party’s nom­i­na­tion with­out men­tion­ing war, giv­ing Democ­rats an open­ing to crit­i­cize and rais­ing eye­brows among Repub­li­cans. Rom­ney also took heat for actor Clint Eastwood’s ram­bling con­ven­tion appearance.

And, with his mas­sive amounts of ad money fail­ing to break open the race, some Repub­li­cans have expressed worry that Rom­ney may be start­ing to let the cam­paign get away from him. Oth­ers are push­ing him to explain more clearly what he would do as president.

“Romney’s cam­paign got hung up on the ques­tion of ‘Are you bet­ter off than you were four years ago?’ His mes­sage should be, ‘I can make you bet­ter off and here’s how,’” said Repub­li­can poll­ster John McLaugh­lin. He pointed to Romney’s pledge to cre­ate 12 mil­lion new jobs as pres­i­dent and added: “We need to hear spe­cific goals and a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of how to get there.”

The clock is tick­ing down on oppor­tu­ni­ties for Rom­ney to seize momen­tum. With the pres­sure on, he is try­ing to gain the upper-hand by inten­si­fy­ing tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing and engag­ing more with voters.

“Mitt Rom­ney is the ulti­mate pres­sure player,” said GOP strate­gist Phil Musser, a senior adviser to Romney’s 2008 cam­paign. “The higher the stakes, the more on the line, I can’t think of an instance where he didn’t rise to the challenge.”

Rom­ney is devot­ing valu­able hours prepar­ing for a series of debates in Octo­ber that have sud­denly taken on new sig­nif­i­cance; twice in the last week he has holed up with advis­ers and Sen. Rob Port­man of Ohio, who plays Obama in the sessions.

“There are only a few major events left that can shift the dynamic of this race,” said Char­lie Black, an infor­mal Rom­ney adviser. “He is right to spend that time prepar­ing for the debates.”

Obama had barely accepted the nom­i­na­tion last week when Rom­ney unleashed a $4 million-plus bliz­zard of new TV ads in the most com­pet­i­tive states. The Repub­li­can expanded his foot­print into Democratic-leaning Wis­con­sin in hopes of blaz­ing more paths to reach­ing the 270 elec­toral votes needed for vic­tory. He also started adver­tis­ing on cable tele­vi­sion net­works that cater more to female view­ers as he looks to nar­row Obama’s advan­tage among women.

Expect even more in the com­ing days as Rom­ney dips into his huge cash stock­pile. At the end of August, Rom­ney, the Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee and state par­ties were sit­ting on a com­bined $169 mil­lion. It’s expected to be more than Obama and his team, which hasn’t yet released their cash fig­ure. Rom­ney has spent less than $79 mil­lion on tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing, com­pared to Obama’s $219 mil­lion. Com­bined with Rom­ney allies’ help, the GOP side actu­ally has out­spent Obama and his allies so far.

Over the past week, Rom­ney has hit the cam­paign trail ener­gized and ani­mated. And in Ohio, Rom­ney struck an empa­thetic tone as he sought to con­nect with vot­ers strug­gling with a tough economy.

“These are real fam­i­lies. These are real peo­ple,” Rom­ney said. “I was with a miner who said, ‘Please help me keep my job.’”

Observers have noticed a change in the can­di­date who strug­gles to con­nect with his audi­ences and is tagged by crit­ics as less than charis­matic and even out of touch.

“He’s turned into a dif­fer­ent per­son,” said Lil­lian Glass, a Los Angeles-based body lan­guage expert. “He’s become more pas­sion­ate, more emo­tional, more dynamic, a communicator.”

That burst of enthu­si­asm dove­tailed with a round of national polls that showed Obama open­ing up a slight lead in what had been a dead­locked race — caus­ing a round of second-guessing among Repub­li­can insid­ers about the state of the campaign.

“Rom­ney can still win but few at bats left,” GOP strate­gist Alex Castel­lanos, who worked for Rom­ney in 2008, wrote on Twit­ter. “Still think an Obama 2nd term (equals) dis­as­ter. Just haven’t heard why Rom­ney would be bet­ter. I remain hopeful.”

Amid the angst, Rom­ney poll­ster Neil New­house released a post-convention memo that called Obama’s uptick “a sugar high,” and added: “Don’t get too worked up about the lat­est polling.”

Rom­ney aides are cau­tion­ing Repub­li­can naysay­ers to be patient, argu­ing that he is within strik­ing dis­tance in each of the hand­ful of states where the two cam­paigns are focus­ing their travel time, cam­paign staff and adver­tis­ing dol­lars. They say if Rom­ney can stay close or make gains, unde­cided vot­ers will break for the challenger.

The cam­paign and the candidate’s pos­ture these days are rem­i­nis­cent of how Rom­ney acted and the strat­egy he employed last win­ter dur­ing the pri­mary sea­son after for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich soundly beat him in South Carolina.

Rom­ney responded by sharp­en­ing his attacks in next-up Florida, and he ben­e­fited as an out­side group unleashed mil­lions of dol­lars of tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing against Gin­grich. Rom­ney also turned in a strong debate per­for­mance just before the pri­mary. Rom­ney ended up win­ning Florida and the nomination.

The next few weeks will deter­mine whether he can do the same against Obama.

Posted by AP News on Sep 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.