In many ways, the story of the 2012 Republican primary has been the inability of Mitt Romney to win over more than a third of self-identified “strong Tea Party supporters” or “very conservative” voters. If he had received the support of those voters, even a slim majority of them, the race would almost certainly have been over weeks ago.
Where Romney hasn’t yet succeeded with most grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers, he’s had remarkable success in the past two weeks gaining the support of their leaders. Senators Jim DeMint and Pat Toomey offered strong words of support for Romney, each coming as close to endorsing as possible without actually offering formal backing. Others went further: Senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio both endorsed last week. Representative Paul Ryan formally endorsed on Friday. And Senator Ron Johnson announced on Meet the Press not only that he was backing Romney but also that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell asked him to coordinate messaging between the presidential campaign and Republicans in Congress. In the space of two weeks, the candidate who struggled to convince Tea Partiers to join him had gotten the support of many of the most prominent elected leaders of that movement.
