Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney worked the rope line -- actually, a hay bale line -- after announcing his candidacy at a Stratham farm. Gregory W. Wallace/PRIMARY INSIDERBy Gregory W. Wallace
UPDATED | STRATHAM, June 2—Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney launched his second presidential candidacy on a farm here this afternoon, differentiating himself from President Barack Obama on the economy and saying that the incumbent had “failed America.”
“When he took office, the economy was in recession, and he made it worse and he made it last longer,” Mr. Romney said, building a case and lashing out against the president for shortcomings with unemployment, the housing market, the national debt, and consumer goods prices.
The senior Republican in the nomination race, Mr. Romney’s speech at the Bittersweet Farm painted a narrative which could lead his campaign through the primaries and potentially up to the November 2012 general election, still some 17 months away. Mr. Obama’s victory in 2008 was the country taking a gamble on an untested but inspiring candidate, he said, a gamble which has turned sour and produced few benefits. About the only credit Mr. Romney offered the president was the defeat of Osama bin Laden last month, but the praise was sandwiched between criticisms of the administration’s policy towards Israel and Afghanistan.
“In Afghanistan, the surge was right,” he offered, “but announcing a withdrawal date: that was wrong. The Taliban may not have watches, but they do have calendars.”
Mr. Romney offered himself as the antidote to Mr. Obama’s inexperience, citing his own experience building and leading businesses, managing the 2002 Olympics, and working with a majority Democratic legislature as a Republican governor. This experience, he said, would guide him in taking bold steps, including balancing the national budget, capping federal spending, and prioritizing job growth, among several broad-brush economic proposals he listed today.
“I had never held public office before, but I went at it like I ran businesses and like I ran the Olympics: asked tough questions, and take on the toughest questions first because they’ll get worse in the future if you don’t,” he said. “I can tell you I’ve learned from the successes and from the failures. Turning something around—turning around a crisis—takes experience and bold action. For millions of Americans, the economy is in crisis today.”
Mr. Romney handled the ghost haunting his campaign, his then-revolutionary Massachusetts health care reform act which shares certain similarities to the recent federal legislation, as he has in other recent remarks: as a compromise necessary given the political and health care spending situation of his state. Promising that a federal government under his tutelage would forfeit some policy decision to the states’, he admitted that the legislation was “not perfect, but it was a state’s solution to our state’s problem.”
“And what’s his answer? He says this: ‘I’m just getting started,’” Mr. Romney charged, to heckling from the audience. “No, Mr. President, you had your chance. “We the people on this farm and citizens across the country are the ones who are just getting started.”
The candidate who was known in 2007 for his starched Oxford shirts and neatly pressed dark suits wore no jacket and instead rolled up his shirtsleeves today. Supporters sat on staging and hay bales behind his platform, which faced two dozen television cameras and a crowd of 250. On the stage nestled between greenhouses and with a flag-decked barn as backdrop, Mr. Romney was first joined by his wife, Ann, who introduced him, and later by four of his grandchildren. A nearby table offered food, including chili made from Ms. Romney’s famed recipe.
It would take more fire than in a pot of homemade chili to power Mr. Romney through the New Hampshire primary and eventually into the White House in 2012, a fact made especially clear as possible contenders Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani also visited the Granite State. In remarks today, each shot at Mr. Romney’s health care ghost. “In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing,” Ms. Palin said enroute to the seacoast today.
Mr. Romney still holds a sizable lead over both Ms. Palin, the former Alaska governor, and Mr. Giuliani, formerly mayor of New York City, according to the most recent UNH Survey center poll. Neither have declared their candidacy.
As the Republican primary field expands and contracts in the eight months between now and the likely date of the New Hampshire primary, his dominance of the field may ebb and flow, but analysts see stakes in this state which could not be higher for Mr. Romney. In 2008, he finished second in the first two contests: to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in Iowa and to Arizona Senator John McCain here in New Hampshire, though he outspent each. Today, his focuses may be dual—fundraising and connecting with first-in-the-nation primary voters—but if installed in the Oval Office, Mr. Romney said today that his priorities would be clear.
“From my first day in office, my number one job will be to see that America once again is number one in job creation,” he said.
