COLUMBUS, Ohio – It was like a scene straight out of a movie. Dramatic, presidential-sounding music filled the room. A chill swept over the crowd as the airport hanger door suddenly opened. Before the crowd knew what was happening, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s plane drove into the election eve rally at Landmark Aviation in Columbus, Ohio. The crowd went wild. Even the press, which has now heard Romney’s current stump speech more than a dozen times, jumped out of their seats to go watch the presidential candidate’s grand entrance.
As the spectacle took place “Fanfare for the Common Man” played until Romney stepped off the plane and until the theatrical music was abruptly cut off by Romney’s familiar campaign song “Born Free” by Kid Rock.
Romney’s entrance song could’t have been more perfectly named. The GOP candidate was literally greeted with great fanfare from the crowd of 10,000 supporters. And their enthusiasm never died down. Throughout the rally they frequently interrupted Romney to chant and clap. You could feel the Mittmentum in the air.
Although Monday evening’s rally was substantially smaller than several of his other recent large events, including a 30,000 person rally in West Chester, Ohio on Friday night – AKA Romneypalooza – and a 20,000 person rally in Bucks County, Pa. Sunday evening that included a fireworks show – AKA Mittstock – it was still one of the largest rallies of the 2012 presidential campaign to be held by either major party candidate.
Earlier in the day on Monday, President Barack Obama also held his final Ohio rally of the 2012 campaign. Approximately 15,500 people attended the rally with Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z at Nationwide Arena in downtown Columbus. The mostly black, young Obama supporters weren’t as noticeably enthused as the attendees of Romney’s rally during the President’s speech. However, the echoing atmosphere of the air hanger rally helped give off the impression that the event was larger than it actually was. Both the acoustics and the optics of Obama’s amphitheater rally worked against him.
The Obama campaign has accused Romney of using “scare tactics” to win Ohio.
“[I] think people across the state are questioning whether this is somebody with the character that they want to be commander-in-chief,” Obama for America spokesperson Jen Psaki is quoted as telling reporters aboard Air Force One Friday during a press briefing.
Romney’s television ads in the state did draw criticism from the auto industry, however his rallies were mostly positive, focusing more on what he’d do as President than on Obama’s failed presidency. Not once did he even mention the President and his administration’s incomprehensible mishandling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya on Sept. 11 even though his supporters were practically begging him to addressing it, drowning out a CNN broadcast at one rally by shouting of “Benghazi.” At Monday’s rally in Columbus one supporter positioned herself right outside of the media pit with a sign that said “Media connect the dots …. > Benghazi attack.”
“I think the message that Mitt Romney’s ending on is exactly the right one. It’s positive, it’s uplifting,” popular Republican Ohio Senator Rob Portman told CNN “Starting Point” host Soledad O’Brien Monday morning.
“[W]e’ve got the momentum. Folks are really fired up. If you look at our crowds, you can see it. But, again, also look at our grassroots operation which is driven by volunteers. People are passionate this year,” he said this morning on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.”
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has turned the election into a personal attack on Romney in the final days of the race. President Obama told supporters at a Springfield, Ohio rally on Friday to take revenge on Romney by voting Obama-Biden. Vice President Joe Biden launched into a full scale attack on Romney at a Lakewood, Ohio rally in the outskirts of Cleveland Sunday morning claiming that Fall Back was Romney’s favorite time of year because he gets to officially turn the back the clock. He accused Romney and Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan of “running away from what they stood for the last decade.”
“They cannot run away from their shadow until the sun goes down. It is going down Tuesday,” the VP said.
The Obama campaign has been working hard to spin its early voting lead in Ohio into a victory at the polls for the President overall in the all important swing state. However, the Obama campaign may be underestimating the intensity of the recent enthusiasm for Romney and the Romney campaign’s well-coordinated 72-hour campaign.
As Buzzfeed Politics’ McKay Coppins noted in conversation with me at Romney’s Sunday afternoon rally in Cleveland that the GOP presidential ticket has been “hustling” in the final days.
Indeed, Romney and Ryan have both been hitting three to four events each for the last several days. The campaign has also made good use of Ohio’s municipal airports, scheduling campaign rallies at locations near or at the airports to make for a quicker arrival and departure.
In addition to large crowds, Romney has also attracted considerable levels of support in the form of campaign paraphernalia. ‘Yard signs can’t vote,’ as the saying goes, but they are still an indicator of support level for a candidate. And in my travels across the state to cover the presidential candidates and their running mates in the last week, I’ve observed just as many Romney signs as Obama signs displayed in Ohioans yards, in their windows and on the street corners of their businesses. (Ohioans don’t plaster their medians and highways with campaign road signs the way other states like Virginia do.) I’ve also counted more Romney bumper stickers than Obama stickers in the 30 hours Red Alert Politics has spent driving around Ohio between the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati areas.
Today Romney and Ryan made a last-minute campaign stop in Cleveland. The stop was not announced until approximately 10:30 pm last night and was not widely publicized. They also stopped by a Wendy’s for lunch, at which a patron and supporter told Romney, “You brought the sunshine,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
While trite, the supporter’s comment highlights Romney’s dramatically increasing likability, not only among Ohioans, but among the American electorate as a whole. Romney’s late surge may have been too little too late or it may have been exactly what undecided Americans needed to see from the GOP presidential candidate before casting their vote.
