Republican Mitt Romney formally began his second bid for the Republican presidential nomination Thursday with a full-bore attack on President Obama’s economic policies. The former governor of Massachusetts, who lost the GOP nomination to Sen. John McCain of Arizona in 2008, instantly became the closest thing to a front-runner in a field of largely unknown Republicans seeking to become the party’s 2012 nominee.
“Barack Obama has failed America,” Romney told a crowd in New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation primary, where he kicked off his candidacy. “When he took office, the economy was in recession and he made it worse and he made it last longer.”
Bleak unemployment numbers released Thursday added an air of urgency to Romney’s argument, and helped him divert attention from his own greatest liability: A health care law Romney instituted as governor that was adopted by Obama as a model for national health care reform.
Republicans have made the dismantling of Obama’s health care plan a priority and two potential rivals for the GOP presidential nomination were quick to preview for Romney the kind of flak he can expect to take on the issue in the primary fight ahead.
“The reality is that Obamacare and Romneycare are almost exactly the same,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in North Conway, N.H., Thursday.
“In my opinion,” former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told reporters in Massachusetts, “any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, so obviously … there will be more explanation coming from former Gov. Romney on his support for government mandates.”
Republican strategists and political analysts say Romney’s health care plan — successful though it was in lowering costs and expanding availability of health care coverage in Massachusetts — will likely be an albatross throughout the campaign.
“The biggest challenge [Romney] faces is that he has to make it clear to his audience that there is a legitimate distinction between what the federal government should do and what a state government should do,” said Mike Franc, vice president of government studies at the Heritage Foundation. For the average voter, that might be a difficult distinction to make, he said.
Romney comes to the GOP race with several significant advantages over the field of announced competitors. He has higher name recognition than most and experience running a national campaign. A former businessman, he also has amassed a personal fortune and built a network of financial backers. As governor, he succeeded in reducing the scope of state government in generally liberal Massachusetts.
“People aren’t aware of what it takes to really run a campaign and compete in those early states,” said Darrel West, vice president of government studies at the Brookings Institution. “The person who has made the best progress is Mitt Romney. He has the advantage of having done this before and he understands what it takes.”
And not everyone is concerned that Romney’s health care plan will sink his campaign, particularly given voters’ focus on the faltering economy and a gaping vulnerability for Obama.
“I don’t think this election is going to be won or lost on Mitt Romney’s health care plan,” Republican strategist Steve Lombardo said.
