Mitt Romney is quite impressed with his ability to nuke Newt and Rick (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Great quote from a former Rick Perry strategist on Mitt Romney's
path of destruction:
“It’s clear the negative ads are what’s keeping this guy alive,” said Nelson Warfield, a Republican strategist who worked for Mr. Perry. “It seems like Republican primary voters will not vote for Mitt Romney unless they are forced into it. And the way they’re forced into it is when he beats the other guy senseless.”
According to operatives close to Romney, he seems to have convinced himself that he has a moral responsibility to slash and burn his opponents:
His willingness to engage in negative campaigning, they said, springs from a conviction — rivals might call it a rationalization — that he is a more capable and principled steward of government than his opponents.
Alex Castellanos, an adviser to Mr. Romney in the 2008 campaign, summed up the philosophy this way: “If you disqualify a candidate, if you protect society from touching a hot stone, it’s your responsibility to do that.”
But those are keeping him alive, and Republican primary voters have proven to be quite susceptible to them. We don't have the full February spending reports for the campaigns themselves, but so far this election Mitt Romney's Super PAC
has spent $28.5 million attacking Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum's Super PAC
hasn't spent a single dollar attacking Mitt Romney.
(Update: Slight correction to that point—Santorum's Super PAC has spent a single dollar primarily focused on attacking Romney. However about $800,000 of the $1.8 million they've spent on ads in the last two weeks has partly focused on criticizing Romney. Contrast that with the $8.8 million over the same stretch that Romney has spent on attacks, and you've got an eleven to one ratio.)
With Romney's Super PAC attack machine having gone unchecked Santorum's Super PAC, it's not a huge surprise that he's rebounded from his early February losses. Nonetheless, despite his financial edge and his willingness to go negative, he still hasn't quite closed the deal, because no matter how much he tears apart his opponents, people still just don't like him very much.
