Byron York‘s latest Washington Examiner article delves into former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s strategy for winning the 2012 Republican presidential nomination:
[I]n some key caucus and primary states, there is another, more basic question being asked these days: Where is the Romney campaign?
Romney has not been to Iowa at all this year. His first visit is scheduled for May 27, when he will give a speech to an economic group in Des Moines. “I don’t see Romney playing in Iowa,” says a strategist in the state who supported a different candidate in 2008 but is unaffiliated this year. “I don’t think he’s going to spend a lot of time here. It will be way different from his 2008 strategy.”
Four years ago, Romney spent about $10 million to build a huge organization in Iowa. His name, voice and picture were everywhere. For example, his campaign was the second-biggest advertiser on Des Moines radio giant WHO for all of 2007 — just behind the top ad buyer, Monsanto farm chemicals. But in the end, Romney lost to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who prevailed with a tiny fraction of Romney’s money and staff. Don’t look for Romney to spend that kind of cash in Iowa again.
Romney is also missing in action in another key early state, South Carolina. “In the 2008 campaign, it seemed like I was at a breakfast with Mitt Romney about once a week for four months,” says one neutral observer in South Carolina. “Now, within a year of the primary, I haven’t seen anything of him. He was working a lot harder in ’08 than he is now.”
