President Obama’s re-election brain trust on Wednesday took full aim at Republican Mitt Romney a day after the former Massachusetts governor won the Iowa caucuses, dismissing Romney’s razor-thin victory as an indication of how thin enthusiasm is for the candidate they expect Obama to face in November.
Chronicling the “state of the race” for reporters a day after the first votes of the 2012 campaign were cast, Obama’s aides spent almost all of their time focusing their attacks on Romney.
“Mitt Romney received fewer votes and a smaller share of the votes [compared to four years ago in Iowa],” said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. “He did win one category — voters who harbor doubts about their candidate.”
Romney bested the latest upstart candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, by just eight votes in the caucuses. Romney’s campaign touted the victory as substantial, pointing out that Romney had focused few resources on the Hawkeye State until late in the contest. But senior Obama officials portrayed the win as the byproduct of millions of dollars in negative ads, mainly against then-surging former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“He entered as a weak front-runner; he leaves as a weak front-runner,” David Axelrod, one of Obama’s closest political advisers, said. “There’s this real sense that people don’t know where Gov. Romney stands today or where he’ll stand tomorrow.”
The Romney campaign counters that the focus on their candidate only underscores how strong Romney would be in the general election. Both Messina and Axelrod hardly mentioned Santorum, for example, except to insist that the social conservative would likely become the new target of Romney’s political “war of attrition.”
Obama is not officially in campaign mode, but he traveled to an economically hard-hit suburb of Cleveland in battleground Ohio Wednesday to announce his appointment of Richard Cordray to head a new consumer watchdog agency despite Republican objections.
But Republican strategists said ongoing economic woes will prevent Obama from winning a second term regardless of his organizational prowess in Iowa and other states.
“I have a message for them,” said GOP consultant Mark Corallo. “The conservative wing of the party may not be excited for Mitt Romney, but they are going to come out in droves and vote for him if he’s the nominee. [Obama’s team] should focus on their boss’ disapproval numbers. They are in massive spin mode.”
At the same time, the Republican National Committee released a collection of promises Obama has made, including that stimulus spending would reduce unemployment to 8 percent, to showcase just why the president’s disapproval rating is hovering around 50 percent.
And Romney is banking that voters dissatisfied with Obama will ultimately back him as the person most capable of defeating the incumbent president.
Sen. John McCain, a former adversary of Romney’s, endorsed him in New Hampshire Wednesday, calling Romney the “best candidate we can nominate.” But it was McCain who most consistently four years ago leveled the same “flip-flopper” charges against Romney that Democrats are repeating now, Gingrich’s allies were quick to note.
A super political action committee supporting Gingrich wasted little time in reminding voters of a 2008 McCain ad called “A Tale of Two Mitts,” which shows Romney shifting stances on abortion, gun control and his claim to the conservative label.
