Romney's Ride

Before tonight's debate, all polls point to Romney picking up both New Hampshire and South Carolina. The talk is that Romney is looking for a knockout blow and to wrap the nomination up early.

But this second presidential campaign hasn't improved Romney's style or image. Yesterday, as the employment numbers were released and the unemployment rate was down to 8.5%, Romney promised in his first term to get it down to 8.9%. Dana Milbank wrote a column in the Post the other day that was devastating about the feel of the campaign and Romney's awkwardness around people.

Romney likes to brag about his job creating record versus President Obama's. The problem for him is that he has disowned his record as governor of Massachusetts and now is pining his hopes on the White House as a "successful businessman". The real problem here is that his whole record now is based on his time at Bain Capital. Romney's invitation for his record to be compared to President Obama's only got reporters to start digging into his record at Bain. The results haven't been especially positive. Yes, Romney made millions, the total amount remains unknown because of his refusal to release his tax returns. But the very projects that were the key Romney projects at Bain went belly-up. At this stage of the game, from what I can determine is that at best he had a 40% success rate as a turn-around artist, probably less. I'm sure that's pretty good for that business but it doesn't spark confidence in the man as someone entrusted with an entire country. So far in terms of job creation, it looks like Romney did not create 100,000s of jobs but lose more than he created. And remember he was not a CEO of a business that ever produced anything.

Romney chose this week to outline his tax plans. For the average American family, which now earns $50,000 or less, he would raise taxes. For those making $1 million or more, he would give them a tax cut of $150,000 to $300,000. Just his tax plan alone would increase the debt by $800 billion. As one observer marked, "This is the Bush tax-cuts on steroids." Why would that shock anyone since Romney's financial advisers are all alumni of the George W. administration.

With the exception of Ron Paul, Romney is the only Republican campaign with an organization. But that doesn't look to well-oiled. Yesterday, John McCain continued his campaign appearances for Romney, which can only be called a disaster. In the first appearance, Nikki Haley and Romney had to remind McCain not to endorse Barack Obama, who John said would lead the country back to prosperity. Then at the next stop, which followed McCain's favorite format in 2008, a townhall meeting with McCain with a microphone, John seemed to think he was running for President again and lapsed into his stum speech blasting Mitt Romney as if he was the competitor this time.

The McCain lapses got me to thinking about Romney's recent attacks on President Obama as "A Chicago-style" politician. The more he talked the wayback machine in me kept struggling to find why the reference was familiar. Romney actually was a very active surrogate for McCain last time. Romney wanted to be Vice-President and ate the $45 million he spent on his campaign rather than to ask McCain to bail him out. This got him nowhere but he was showcased as a surrogate attack dogs. Looking back almost all of Romney's lines today against President Obama were used then by Mitt in his surrogate role.

The Republican campaign against President Obama is to contrast the candidate Obama's promises with his performance as President. If the economy keeps on the mend, someone like Mitt Romney is going to have a tough sell if all he has is the time when he got filthy rich at Bain.

Today I saw the frontpage headline for the Washington,D.C. His paper:"Romney:No al Dream Act". In one of his lucid moments,John McCain explained that the GOP had to secure one consituency, which has been lost, namely the Hispanics. If the party doesn't do it, McCain said that Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and maybe Texas were in play. Political operatives have urged Romney to look at Governor Martinez in New Mexico as a possible running mate. But the problem with her is that her issues are education and opportunity, two things Romney hasn't talked about. The Hispanic advisers to George W. simply say that the GOP has lost the Hispanic community at this point. But you can't blame Romney for not trying,Mitt's people managed to get placed an article on Romney's Mexican relatives.

I know I have predicted Romney-Rubio and so has Robert Reich. I think for Romney such a move is too risky given the financial, political and familial problems Rubio has had to face in the last year. Since only Romney and Paul will be on the Virginia ticket and the Attorney-General has backed off correcting the situation, I have a hunch that our Governor McConnell will be the Vice President. He has all the evangelical baggage without acting offensive, is a Southern one-term governor and ,with the stimulus money, he appears to be an economically successful governor. Romney needs to patch up relationships with the social conservative right to make it appear that the party is united.

For the best Romney watcher this year, make regularly visits to Steve Benen at www.washingtonmonthly.com . Steve has been tracking Romney's chronic habit of laying on the campaign trail. On the business of Bain Capital, www.thinkprogress.org and Reuters have been digging things up.