June 30, 2006
EXTRA: Our End-Of-The-Half-Year Spotlight
The Extended Play version, with a bit more analysis as to just why the first 6 of '06 have been so good to one '08er.
SPOTLIGHT
Benchmark Friday
It's the end of the 6th month of '06. A great time to create an artificial benchmark about WH '08! Think back to the start of '06 and ask yourself who has....
-- Bettered: McCain (weak frontrunner to a confident one); Huckabee (media's favorite IA dark horse); Kerry (messaging entire party on Iraq now); Edwards (has he snatched "outsider" tag from Warner? IA standing is big).
-- Stagnated: Giuliani (back on the scene, but yet to answer the "base" question); Bayh (fear the turtle); Warner (buzz candidate who became the cocktail party candidate); Frist (colleagues still skeptical, but mistakes are fewer); Feingold (alone as liberal FAV but is he only a 1-issue candidate?)
-- Stepped Back: Clinton (public war boos were bound to happen; when the Obama whispers stop, you'll know she's golden again). Gingrich (voluble but where's the belly fire and influence?); Allen (insiders now have doubts, he can't go to IA anymore, but if he beats Webb, he's right back in).
-- And who had the best six months? Mitt Romney, incredibly, now an "outsider" who has distanced himself from his MA pedigree.
To say that no other WH ‘08’er had a better 6 months than Romney would assume that there was another politician in America who saw his stock rise as much as the MA gov in the first half of ’06.
--A governor (outsider) in a GOP field dominated by Senators (insiders), Romney engineered a bipartisan healthcare solution that won front-page notice from the WSJ, WP and NYT – on the same day. The bill later drew favorable reviews from the likes of Yepsen, Brownstein and Alter – on the same day. Not even McCain got that sort of MSM love this year.
--A New Englander by way of Michigan, Romney came into Memphis for the SRLC and stole the headlines with an unexpected second-place finish in the straw poll, besting two Southerners and the primary’s putative front-runner
--A lame-duck RGA chair with a national fundraising base, Romney has spent more combined time in IA, NH, SC and MI than any other ‘08’er, planting staff, seeding candidates and earning chits along the way in all four early-nominating states.
To be sure, pitfalls await Romney on his Road to the WH (Mormonism, Yankeeism and Globe’ism, among them), but if his next 6 months are like the last, he goes into ’07 at or close to the top of the field.
Posted at 01:06 PM
Comments
Mitt is making more and more in roads it seems. I saw on news a little discussion of how he is one of the top candidates. I also read an editorial saying that either Mitt or McCain vs. one of the democrat candidates, one I am not remembering, but who is moderate would be a possible scenario.
Utahns for Mitt Admin. | 07.05.06 03:13 AM
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