Where Romney Is Still Vulnerable

Plunderer or astute businessman? Mitt Romney acts as if he already has the Republican nomination locked up and doesn’t bother with the competitors in his own party. He is concentrating on Obama as the other Republican candidates become more aggressive. But Romney need only fear his own past.

The call “Mitt kills jobs” echoed through the room. Chris Christie heard it, once, twice, three times before he put a hand in his pocket and asked ironically, “Really?” Applause. Then he continued, “Somebody’s going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart.” More applause. Then Romney began to smile after his face had appeared frozen. He stood immediately behind the New Jersey Governor as he defended him against the accusations of several hecklers hoping to disrupt Romney’s campaign event.

Romney has a lot to laugh about at present. The opinion polls leave little doubt that he will win the New Hampshire primary election and that his victory won’t be as tenuous as it was in Iowa, where he bested Christian conservative Rick Santorum by a mere eight votes.

Romney’s election machine rolls along toward the nomination uninhibited thus far. Pollsters see Romney about 20 points ahead of his competitors in New Hampshire, but the other candidates are becoming more aggressive. They thrash about like mortally wounded animals in the hope of landing a decisive lucky blow on one of Romney’s weak point. Thus far in the debates, they have failed to do so.

Newt Gingrich, who had been taken down by a barrage of negative television spots unleashed by the Romney camp, is counterattacking sharply. The ex-Speaker of the House has been hammering away at Romney’s liberal-leaning past and mocking his assertion that he is not a career politician. When Romney tried to defend his political career, Gingrich shot back, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?” Romney backed down, but he still has to come to terms with the American voters.

Other than that, Romney’s opponents doubt his conservative credentials and repeat their prayer-like mantra that Romney has no chance of winning in a showdown with Obama in November.

But that’s all overshadowed by Romney’s permanent, metallic smile. The tirades roll off Romney like water from a duck’s back as he polishes his message, at the center of which is the business experience he will use to restore the U.S. economy. But his biography could cause him some damage. His past as founder of Bain Capital Management, a venture capital firm that, among other things, bought up companies, dismembered them and occasionally fired most of the employees to make them profitable once again, later selling them at a profit, could cause him damage. Such companies are tagged with the derogatory term “locust” in reference to their operational philosophy. The thought that the motto, “Mitt kills jobs” could conceivably find its way into the American mind is something that Romney fears.

The 64-year old Romney no longer presents himself as a “capitalist” but as a man with a “rags-to-riches” story to tell, a man who has lived the American Dream. He does so because the Republican base isn’t particularly enthusiastic about the robot-like Mormon. In national polls, his support among Republicans hovers below the 30 percent mark. That’s why Romney’s campaign appearances now generally include his family and grandchildren, and he talks about getting his hands dirty with the work he did whenever it was necessary to build up a corporation.

But that notion seems somewhat laughable when one considers that he’s talking about the work of a venture capital firm. Talk of getting dirty hands from working in the financial industry doesn’t necessarily attract crowds of voters. But Gingrich takes a much more aggressive approach to Romney’s Bain Capital Management firm, saying it plundered many companies before selling them on at a profit, something The New York Times had also reported earlier.

Romney, meanwhile repeatedly relates the success story of the Staples company and Bain’s part in helping it and other now-successful companies when they first started out, recounting how he personally worked the night before the Staples grand opening, helping stock the shelves of the first branch store. He repeatedly claims to have been instrumental in creating 100,000 jobs in total during his time with Bain. People in the Obama administration say there is no evidence supporting such a claim.

But Romney already has the presidency in his sights and he is ignoring the other Republicans competing for his party’s nomination. His opponent is named Barack Obama.

A candidate with realistic chances of stopping Romney from becoming the Republican candidate doesn’t really exist. In rural, conservative Iowa, the religious right voters turned mainly to Rick Santorum, who reveled in talking about his direct line to God and praising traditional family values. That doesn’t go over as well in the more liberal New Hampshire. When Santorum put same-sex marriage on the same level as polygamy in a Concord speech, he was booed. While he rose somewhat in opinion polls, he remains at around the 10 percent level.

Tea party icon Michele Bachmann has already thrown in the towel. Ron Paul has a loyal following, but his vision of small government is considered by many to be too extreme. Moderate Jon Huntsman, who skipped Iowa and put all his efforts into the New Hampshire contest, is given little chance by the pollsters. They have already counted Texas Governor Rick Perry out of the race as well. Meanwhile, Romney also leads in the South Carolina primary scheduled for Jan. 21. The race could be decided before it really gets going in earnest unless the “Mitt kills jobs” charge starts gaining traction and Romney can’t laugh it off so easily.