Boston Globe:
As the former Massachusetts governor lays the groundwork for a possible second presidential run, he has largely shunned Tea Party activists in key primary states, including the state he must win if he enters the race, New Hampshire. Thus far, Romney is on track to present himself as the establishment candidate — a responsible, mainstream Republican leader with the necessary financial resources and credentials to beat President Obama.
But the approach carries potential risks, as the insurgent Tea Party movement shifts its focus from last year’s midterms and seeks to exert its influence on the presidential election.
Given the tea party dominance in 2010's primaries, it would seem to be political suicide to shun teahadists in the party's 2012 presidential nomination battle, but Romney may not have much choice. His big problem is obviously the fact that he is the architect of health care reform in Massachusetts, including the state's individual health insurance mandate. Things like his appearance at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in the 1990s have also created problems for Romney with the GOP's grassroots, but none are bigger than RomneyCare.
It's hard to see how Romney could prevail in a nomination fight against a single candidate with tea party backing, but the GOP's 2012 field is likely to be crowded. Romney's play here might be to establish himself as the lone non-tea party voice allowing his campaign to squeeze through while the rest of the field divides up the teahadist vote. Given the GOP's nominating rules, in most states the only thing that will matter is coming in first place, meaning that Romney wouldn't need to win a majority of votes to win a majority of delegates.
It's still not clear exactly how many states will hold their primaries under proportional allocation rules, but under GOP rules, states holding primaries or caucuses in February and March must use proportional allocation; everything from April forward is winner-take-all. With these rules, the early February and March contests won't be the decisive ones -- the winner won't be decided until at least April when winner-take-all voting begins.
The only viable path for Romney might be to hold his own until April's winner-take-all contests, at which point he could run up his delegate tally by coming in first despite not winning a majority of votes. Of course, the downside of that divide-and-conquer strategy is that if it were successful, Romney would end up winning the nomination even though a majority of the GOP base opposed him. Moreover, it's not clear that it would work. Primary voters and caucus goers tend to be very sophisticated; if Romney's divide-and-conquer strategy were to show signs of working, it is likely that a single tea party favorite would emerge to thwart his plans.