WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – “What does that sign say?” Mitt Romney asked rhetorically, pointing from his stage toward a man holding a large poster board with big black letters, as a chilly wind whipped by and the rain drizzled.
He then read the sign to the crowd: “In Obama we trusted, now the economy is busted.”
After a short pause, Romney chimed, “You’ve got that right, brother!” Then he transitioned into his stump speech, focusing on attacking President Obama for the weak job market and touting his own businesses experience as the antidote to our nation’s economic ills.
The small exchange isn’t all that atypical on the presidential campaign trail, but for those who remember Romney’s stiffness during the last campaign, it is a small demonstration of his improvement as a candidate. In 2008, it was standard for Romney to come and go from his events and stick to his tightly scripted remarks, while being distant and awkward with voters. But now he appears much more comfortable interacting with them.
Though he’ll never have a Bill Clinton-style natural’s touch when working the crowd, greeting voters after a joint morning appearance with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie outside a Hy-Vee supermarket, Romney came across much looser and warmer than his last presidential run. He didn’t just robotically shake hands and sign autographs — he joked with voters and gave some of them hugs in the cold weather (though not freezing by Iowa standards).
After the event, I spoke to the man holding the sign — 70-year old veteran John Strong of West Des Moines, who has been struggling for the past several years to find even part-time work to supplement his Social Security and limited retirement savings. A John McCain voter in the 2008 caucuses, he’s behind Romney this time, and noticed a change.
“I think he presents himself better,” Strong said. “He seems to be a little more relaxed.”
Another voter I spoke with touted Romney as the strongest contender.
“He seems to be the most presidential,” Joe Duigas of Akeny, Iowa told me. “He doesn’t say stupid things. He does understand the business world, which Obama doesn’t understand.”
Ideally, Duigas said, he wished there could be a Frankenstein-like combination of Romney, Newt Gingrich and former candidate Herman Cain.
“Mix those together and you’d have a Ronald Reagan,” he said. “But we don’t have a Ronald Reagan this time. So, you pick the best of the lot.”
And that’s just the sort of electoral calculus Romney is banking will win him the Republican nomination.
