Mitt: 'Got to win in both states'
Posted: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 5:38 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Erin McPike
MERRIMACK -- While most of his rivals are traversing Iowa today, or in Giuliani’s case, Florida, Romney has the media following Republicans in New Hampshire almost all to himself -- which he may just need given recent hard-hitting critiques of candidacy both in the New Hampshire Union Leader and the Concord Monitor.
His campaign canceled a stroll through the main drag of Concord this morning so he could shoot his closing ads from the Granite State today. According to Romney, “they were all positive, forward-looking and describing my closing argument, if you will, to the people of New Hampshire and to Iowa.”
Asked how he was splitting his time between the two early states, Romney indicated that it’s tough. “I don’t know though that there’s any other candidate that’s planning on competing in both races to a significant extent,” he said. “But you know to win the presidency in November of ’08, we’ve got to win in both states.”
He also plugged his early-state strategy and made another plea to the voters there by reminding them of the time he’s invested there. “You can’t have a nominee that says, ‘Well, I’m writing off Iowa,’ or ‘I’m writing off New Hampshire,’” he said in what was a circuitous slam at some of his rivals. “You have to have a nominee that cared about the election process in both states, and I do.”
Romney also dismissed the idea that his numbers are waning in the Granite State by essentially suggesting that his base of support has remained strong, while McCain and Giuliani have merely traded places in state polling.
Reminded multiple times about the local papers’ criticisms of him, Romney pointed out that he’s being pinned down for things that he said 14 or 15 years ago. But he explained: “If you look at my record as governor, you can see that my positions are the positions I carried out as governor. There’s no change. If you want to know what I would do as president, you can see what I did as governor.” He repeated that message again in response to a later question.
Interestingly, his campaign issued a press release today criticizing McCain on immigration after a report today found that the senator is still having trouble with the issue on the trail. And despite McCain’s acknowledgements earlier this fall that his thinking on the issue has changed after emphatic opposition to his proposals from the American public, Romney’s release highlighted some of McCain’s statements from 2003.
The McCain campaign shot back with a statement lambasting Romney by pointing out the Union Leader’s criticisms and made the following attack: “I know something about tailspins, and it’s pretty clear Mitt Romney is in one. It’s disappointing that he would launch desperate, flailing and false attacks in an attempt to maintain relevance.”