Romney, McCain impress in MI
Posted: Monday, September 24, 2007 1:04 PM by Domenico Montanaro
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Republicans
From NBC/NJ’s Erin McPike
MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. -- While national GOP primary polls show what could become a protracted fight between Giuliani and Thompson, this weekend’s Republican Leadership Conference in Michigan revealed that right now the battle there might boil down to Romney and McCain.
Unlike his top three rivals who spoke before him, cameras didn’t swarm McCain when he made his way to the podium in the sprawling dining room of Mackinac’s Grand Hotel to speak before the dinner crowd. He may have been last in the order of the presidential contenders on the docket with his Saturday night pitch, but attendees gave him the warmest reception and buzzed about it afterward.
Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis said to reporters on Sunday morning, “I think John McCain gave the best speech I’ve ever seen him give. I told him that. It was from the heart, it was well-delivered.” Anuzis implied that McCain needed this kind of boost by indicating that there was some “anguish” among McCain supporters in the state leading up to the weekend’s event due to last week’s resignation by McCain’s former state chairman, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.
Despite Romney’s fierce opposition last week to invitations extended to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come before the U.N. General Assembly and also speak to students at Columbia University, it was McCain who got the most mileage out of the flap when he broached the issue. Romney’s speech only brushed on terrorism and didn’t get into specifics like McCain did on the Ahmadinejad visit. McCain’s comment that “I certainly think that a man who is threatening… and killing American troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university” earned him one of the few standing ovations awarded at the gathering.
Romney, meanwhile, paraded into the venue on Saturday morning, entering as “Michigan’s favorite son.” Anuzis offered: “I think he gave a good speech. It wasn’t the best speech I’ve ever heard, but he didn’t screw anything up either. But the enthusiasm was there from his supporters.”
And Anuzis pointed out that Romney was the only candidate to really work the dining room before taking the stage.” You could see people noticing that, and I think that was a really good strategy,” he said. “He was the only one who did it, which I was, to be honest with, surprised.”
Differences in techniques over the weekend aside, both Romney and McCain curry favor with the state Republican Party because both campaigns have had staff there for more than a year and have energized voters there. That has helped to build the party and raise into the millions for it.
For McCain it wasn’t just a strong performance or the recent presence of staffers there that helped propel him to second place in the Hotline’s straw poll there this weekend. His primary victory over George W. Bush in February 2000 has left him with a solid footing there nearly eight years later. Romney’s strength in the state, meanwhile, stems from his roots. He and wife Ann grew up there together, and his father, George, was governor in the Sixties.
Both campaigns bussed in a healthy dose of college students and came up with a 1-2 finish in the poll. Romney won a 39-percent plurality from the nearly 1,000 votes, and McCain garnered close to 27 percent. Ron Paul and Giuliani came in third and fourth, respectively, with about 11 percent each; Thompson managed just seven percent for a fifth-place finish. Anuzis explained that the composition probably reflects where the activists in the state fall with respect to the candidates, but not necessarily where the voters are.
Charges flew at certain times about the infusion of volunteers registered on behalf of certain campaigns, but Anuzis waved that off. “Everybody was bringing people up,” he said, whether they were volunteers or College Republicans, and California Rep. Duncan Hunter was no exception.
“This is not an easy place to bring people in and leave,” Anuzis advised. “It’s a very expensive process in that a lot of people have to stay here the whole time.”
Due to the new ethics package, the cost to fly in privately would near $20,000 per candidate, likely causing second-tier candidates like Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee to skip the confab in favor of other events, which may have been mildly injurious to them in the straw poll.
McCain was believed to have flown in on a commercial airline, and he arrived on Friday evening. He didn’t hop aboard a horse-drawn carriage to return to the mainland until Sunday morning, giving him the entire weekend to rub elbows with highly tuned-in Michigan Republicans. Rivals Giuliani, Thompson and Romney just swooped in for a partial day to give their speeches and attend events centered around them.
