Romney’s schedule too light

Opinion

October 4, 2012

Romney’s schedule too light

By Byron York, Syndicated columnist The Picayune Item Picayune Item Thu Oct 04, 2012, 09:03 AM CDT

PICAYUNE — A look at the Republican presidential candidate’s schedule of public events shows a remarkably relaxed pace for a man who says this election is critical to America’s future. Here’s what Mitt Romney did on the trail in mid-September:

He had one public appearance on his schedule Monday, Sept. 17, a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles.

He had one appearance scheduled the day before, an airport rally in Pueblo, Colo., but it was canceled after a small-plane crash there killed one person.

Romney had no public events Saturday. On Friday, Sept. 14, he attended a single rally, at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. On Thursday, he attended a single rally, at a park in Fairfax, Va. On Wednesday, he was scheduled to hold a single campaign event at his headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., but instead appeared at a hastily organized press conference to denounce President Obama’s response to the embassy crises in Libya and Egypt. On Tuesday, Romney had one event, a speech to the National Guard Association convention in Reno, Nev. And on the day before that, another single rally, in Mansfield, Ohio.

Romney’s light schedule of public events “has its own body language,” says Pat Caddell, the political consultant best known for his work on Jimmy Carter’s 1976 and 1980 campaigns. “It doesn’t strike you as a campaign in the greatest crisis this country has faced. ... (Romney) comes off as passive.”

If he’s not on the stump at the height of the campaign, what is Romney doing? After all, Barack Obama, when he’s on the trail, usually manages to hold at least two public events each day, and he’s supposed to have a full-time job.

Romney, a busy and industrious man, isn’t goofing off. Privately, campaign aides point to the heavy burden of fundraising imposed on candidates since Obama blew up the system of publicly financed campaigns in 2008. Keeping up with the president in the money race takes up a lot of Romney’s time.

Aides also stress that Romney is not the only person campaigning for the Republican ticket. Running mate Paul Ryan is out on his own most of the time, as are, occasionally, Romney’s wife, Ann, and his five sons.

But the fact remains: Mitt Romney is the man running for president and has to make the case for himself. As the top of the ticket, he draws the most attention and news coverage. Holding more events means more coverage, which means more voters see Romney.

Having Romney campaign in person is particularly important now because he’s trying to craft a more effective message. Romney has been under fire recently, especially from conservatives, for failing to give the public a clear picture of what he will do should he become president. Recently the campaign announced it is working to fill in the gaps in the message.

“We think the American people are looking forward to hearing how we can turn this economy around,” top Romney adviser Ed Gillespie told reporters in what has to be one of the great understatements of the campaign. “The timing is right to reinforce the specifics, more specifics, about the Romney plan for a stronger middle class.”

To many observers, Romney’s moves look like scrambling. The campaign, having let Obama define Romney and keep him on the defensive during much of May and June and July, is still struggling to find itself. “The Democrats are fighting for their lives,” says Caddell. “Republicans are acting like this is a garden party. There’s a difference in mentality that I find stunning.”

Now, Romney is battling a new distraction after media reports that some of his aides are sniping at one another, presenting a picture of discord in the campaign at a time when it needs to be running smoothly. “I’ve got a terrific campaign,” Romney told Telemundo recently. “My senior campaign people work extraordinarily well together. I work well with them. Our campaign is doing well.”

But not well enough, by any measure.

Romney aides say they expect to see him on the stump more as the election draws closer. By then, there will be fewer fundraising demands and Romney will concentrate fully on campaigning. But at less than 50 days away, with early voting starting in some places, the election is already pretty close. Where is Mitt right now?

(Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.)

Text Only

Opinion

Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist

I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.”

March 29, 2013
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist

Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.

March 29, 2013
VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist

While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008.

March 27, 2013
Dolley Madison politically savvy
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists

When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”

March 27, 2013
Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing.

March 23, 2013
Right to vote not ‘racial entitlement
By Donna Brazile/Syndicated columnist
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder — a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, specifically Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination against racial and language minorities to get “pre-approved” by the federal government before changing how elections are conducted or voters are registered.

March 23, 2013
1st day of spring brings memories
By Wyatt Emmerich/Southside Sun

The first day of spring! My favorite month, April, is just around the corner. Now we just need one big gullywasher to get rid of the pine pollen.
Normally, spring gives me a strong sense of rebirth and renewal, but this spring I seem surrounded by moments crystallizing the passage of time.
It was a year ago, I walked up the porch to my mother’s home to box up her possessions following her funeral.

March 22, 2013
Soaking up in tiger paw-shaped hot tub
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist

No springtime ritual was better at Auburn than sitting on hard rocks at a nearby state park to let cold water rush over your feet. You wore cut-off blue jeans and Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the unofficial uniform for coeds in the 1970s, and when you left, you felt ready to tackle tests, term papers and blind dates.

March 22, 2013
Medicaid or not, costs will be paid
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist

While the battle continues between state Republicans and other fiscal conservatives intent on focusing on the long-terms costs of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and Democrats, health care advocates and state hospitals intent on focusing on the short-term benefits, the fact remains that one way or another, the costs of providing health care for the poor, the blind, the aged and the disabled will be paid by the taxpayers one way or another.

March 20, 2013
Multiculturalism is not rational
By Thomas Sowell/Syndicated columnist

Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.
Intellectuals who imagine that they are helping racial or ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining their lags out of existence with multicultural rhetoric are in fact leading them into a blind alley.

March 20, 2013
More Opinion Headlines

Opinion

Search Results

Romney’s schedule too light

Site Map

Contact Us