For a front-runner, Mitt Romney sure looks weak.
An array of Republican heavyweights who backed Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential bid are not yet committed to - and in some cases, downright skeptical of - the former Massachusetts governor’s all-but-certain 2012 campaign.
In each of the traditional early states, top Romney supporters from the last campaign tell POLITICO that they’re hesitant to get behind the nearest thing the GOP has to a frontrunner. His difficulties are particularly acute in Iowa and South Carolina, where his former enthusiasts say they have not heard from him, believe he may be intent on downplaying the states in his second White House run and are openly flirting with his potential rivals.
The support he's lost from 2008 isn't trivial. Judd Gregg - the former New Hampshire Senator and probably the most influential Republican in New Hampshire, and a key Romney backer in 2008 - is sitting out so far.
So is Romney '08 supporter Jim DeMint, beloved among the GOP activist base and despised by the GOP establishment. (Yup, in case you've forgotten, Jim DeMint backed the architect of RomneyCare for the Presidency, before Obama adopted the plan itself and it turned into socialism.) South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is joining DeMint on the sidelines after backing him in 2008 and him returning the favor in 2010.
Institutional support doesn't necessarily win you primaries; just ask the Secretary of State. But it's worth asking why Romney can't even put the band back together from four years ago - why his key supporters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina aren't with him this time around, when the path to victory for Romney seems, at first blush, to be far easier now than it was back in the day.
Along with Mike Huckabee, Romney is the front-runner at this early stage in terms of polling, both among Republicans nationally and in head-to-head matchups against President Barack Obama. Huckabee isn't even committed to running again; if he did, he might well be bedeviled by the same fundraising difficulties that sank his bid in 2008, a problem that Romney doesn’t face.
Romney's also well ahead in New Hampshire, at least for now, making him the only contender who can boast a solid lead in one of the first three states. So what's the problem?
Part of it, no doubt, is that Republicans like DeMint know they'll look like idiots backing Romney after spending two years deriding his health care plan as unconstitutional socialist tyranny. That is probably Romney's single biggest liability and the reason he won't win the nomination, especially since RomneyCare was his only real achievement during his lackluster single term as governor of Massachusetts.
But part of it is probably that movement conservatives have good reason to doubt whether he is really One of Them…and whether his chances of winning are good enough to make it worth the sacrifice.
Longtime Romney watchers – anyone from Massachusetts, really – can tell you exactly what critics don’t like about Romney. It's that Romney simply can't be trusted in the political sphere; he has no core beliefs, no guiding philosophy, nothing except an overwhelming desire to be President of the United States. He's spent his whole political career telling people what they wanted to hear - he was a liberal in 1994, a pro-choice moderate in 2002, a right-wing firebrand in 2008, and heaven knows what he'll be tomorrow. And it really hasn't gotten him very far; he’s won exactly one election, fewer than he’s lost.
Mitt Romney's a smart guy, a highly successful venture capitalist and very handsome for a man his age. But one can see where conservative activists might prefer a candidate they know to be one of their own...and someone with more of a track record as a winner.